A Poem a Day (696): The ruby heart

 
The ruby heart
 
The ruby heart, it glows, it breathes,
knows itself yet truly no one else.
It lives within. It sings a song sometimes,
only to itself, a low, languorous rhyme,
keeps home in its ribcage, draws itself in,
its trivial humour a shield.
 
With the years it grows wise,
yet still no wiser than it was. Childlike,
it sometimes beats with wild abandon,
loves with an ardency it had forgot,
how it burned in the decades before,
and yet it was always there, buried deep.
 
Other times it is silent, at rest out to sea,
in the calm before the uncalculated storm.
The ruby heart can only be what it is,
it cannot flit to suit another’s whim
or pretend to be something it is not.
It is only a gem. This little precious thing.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, November 20, 2024

A Poem a Day (695): Talons & other poems

 

I wrote some little poems for JD Mader’s weekend writing exercise, 2minutesgo, in the morning on Sunday, while waiting for my dinner to cook. Head to his website every weekend to write about about anything you like. It’s mainly flash fiction.

 

Talons

A puzzle with no end,
the one true road rain-drenched
of meaning, this guide sidelined.

Rest within the pit of pages,
wrestle with the how and the why,
how the wild must be tamed,

except the eagle will always need
to soar & the grey wolf run free,
no matter the myriad ties & blocks.

Talisman 

Inside a talisman, the eye,
an amethyst vision
the sky could not hold
lest it turn the sunrise out,
& bereft of nature’s burn
we shift. An acreage hides us,
shades us from the night,
wakes us with a blackbird’s call
in emerald light, leaves shrugging,
as if we should never doubt
their incurable care.

His muse

If only she had behaved,
he said, as though she were a pet.
He beat the dog,
but the dog was allowed a daily walk,
so she was below him
in order of rank in his house.

He was all about power, control,
undermining & reinventing,
but history is not a wheel
and she neither wood nor stone.
She held out for a hero,
but no one came, only the storm.

From her turret in the pearl clouds,
she could only stare down,
the old world so estranged now,
betwixt the brambles & the moon.

Lullaby

His words were like a lullaby,
soft & low, a murmur of a rhyme.

You were blessed to hear it
for he did not speak so often,
not since the forgetting time,
the drift & shift between the firelight,
a breaking, a split that roared
into a chasm of bleed. Days spin
& glide to a sharp edge sometimes,
the out of tune only feel the grit,
the solitary drip of seconds on repeat,
when time stopped. The cat curls,
ginger fur entwined with scarlet flame,
fire snapping at dry twigs, pointing.

It’s where he sits & ponders things,
the day he could not freeze,
the moment etched inside, the one
he cannot utter, even to himself.
So sometimes he sings a lullaby
to the one woman he could not save.

Scarlet

Chase the morning
where it dances in blue,
skirts the dripping sun
birthing through cloud.

There is scarlet & there is you,
a mist the rain sent to me,
scent of green & in-between,
a pressing need to hold & know.

Nature's echo

We count lines devoid
of numbers, the zero, the no-show,
the inside out of wilding,
bare leaves drawn & coloured in,
the passing of an ancient storm,
& we are shrouded here in moss,
shrunk to our own raw nature,
our curves becoming rock,
tree roots binding us together.

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, November 17, 2024

 

A Poem a Day (694): Glow

 
Glow
 
We beat high, beat low,
drum the sacred earth with dry feet,
sweep dust into a prism of heat,
whip pure motion into power,
step inside the energy of each,
hearing the rattle of the charmer.
 
Gold shimmers, snakes, feels
its way in streaks & wavering lines,
red silk twists, lifts, spirals out,
this glow an echo of an old record,
and we are free for a moment,
we are one, and we are life.
 
Vickie Johnstone, October 17, 2024

A Poem a Day (693): Drop

Drop
 
It’s a fall of water, musical notes,
first floating, then thick, heavy,
repetitive, too out of tune.
A repeat that will not fade out.
The tap locked. Windows closed.
No escape from interlocking sound.
 
It comes in waves some days.
In others it’s an uncuttable record.
No pause. No erasure. No lightening
of the load. It just is. Unstoppable.
 
You could blink & fall out of space,
the end never in sight, but shrouded,
somewhere deep into dark.
A well no one throws a coin in.
 
You don’t speak for an endless time
if you cannot find your voice.
In the tumult. In the wilderness.
Out there in the nothing it now is.
 
We scurry forth like ants, directionless,
seek solace, a guide, a measure of the thing.
And the world ticks on, full-forward,
while we sit staring at the clock now locked.
 
They say a prism can become a prison
if you choose to stare into it too long.
A walkway can become too narrow,
the memory of a raindrop the weightiest load.
Just a postcard with a benign address,
stamped with a face you never knew.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, October 15, 2024

A Poem a Day (692): Solace

 
Solace
 
Morning is as evening was,
shutters clamped, the blue wrestles in,
motions in the egg-yolk sun full-stamped
with sweeps of white, pink streaks of light.
Left to our solitary reinvented selves
we climb the walls of our cluttered minds,
think upon boredom as a quieting sigh,
make plans only to procrastinate and dream
a while.
 
Evening is as morning was,
starlight flown across a void of dark voices,
countering the elements, seldom reined back,
and we stack our dreams against twilight’s verse.
We will be lost until we are found.
Above, the blackbirds sit lulled into silence
as we wander barefoot through dewy grass,
peek through jaded leaves to see the dawn
blink in.
 
Morning is as morning could be,
and we rise with the lark, open senses,
welcome the day in mindful gratitude,
curious to see in another year’s restart.
Open a book, pick up a pen, visual on paper,
play a note, sing a lullaby, greet the early bird.
We hunt inspiration outside our sheltered selves,
seek conversation and a connection in time,
become alive.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, October 15, 2024

A Poem a Day (691): Eco blue

 
Prompt: write a poem of at least 10 lines in which each line begins with the same word. This technique of beginning multiple lines with the same word or phrase is called anaphora. www.napowrimo.net

Eco blue

We are as the turn of glass-blown water,
we are motion in the wear of light.
We slide as we sink as we pull to bear,
we reshape, translucent, hesitant to be.
We cup our hands to hold an entire ocean.
 
We are as the seas drift to ebb and part,
we hold firm as the pull becomes our angst.
We cut a line across our open palms, touch,
we feel the cord, this invisible bond between.
We are the breath we share in waves.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, September 22, 2024

A Poem a Day (690): The maybe

 
The word is as it was, as it always did appear,
as it should, as a filler, as a kind of maybe,
and so we choose how we say it, think it, spend it,
while it screws up its expression at the light, redraws
how it thinks we will read it, imagine it into being.
 
This is the question in the answer, the foreboding,
the way we guess without surety, without a window.
 
We stand still in the deluge that cannot guide us,
create a compass in the imprints of our own feet,
follow where they carry us as if they made a bargain,
because we cannot always remember the way,
or we cannot always find a way to remember it.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, September 5, 2024

A Poem a Day (689): Alight

  
They stand in line,
ushered in by the west wind,
 
cards majestic without pose,
neither Jack nor Queen nor King,
 
pegged to split this nestled earth
and yet they anchor us still.
 
They harbour ghosts with no direction,
pursue history and press pause.
 
Grey wolves brush their limbs, listen
to their whispers, marking ground,

but lightning cannot hide its vengeance,
and struck these matchsticks light.
 
Glowing leaves in flight chase scarlet.
From a dip in the hills comes a streak
 
of sirens, the battle cry of the many
come to save nature’s living awe.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, September 3, 2024

A Poem a Day (688): Worn slippers

 
Recoil in sheets and pillows,
blankets of driven snow,
a smothering of words.
 
The gap widens to a chasm
no bridge can traverse,
just a cookie-filled dip.
 
An empty juncture, cooler
with the passage of time,
it becomes impassable.
 
One turns off the light at night,
one sits up and reads a fantasy.
And never the two shall meet.
 
The only warmth in between
is the golden dog. And sometimes
even he finds it too cold.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, September 2, 2024

A Poem a Day (687): Ours

 
I open my hands to take yours.
You open your hands to take mine.
This lack of space devours.
No time outside of travel,
magic without a single left word.
We could drown like this.
Or we can rise.
The moment is futureless,
It does not even feature beyond this room.
It only is.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, September 2, 2024

A Poem a Day (686): An urn

 
Set sail upon a silenced space
of many splintered seas, cast-off
stamped cases, spent places, memories,
all shaken inside snow plastic effigies.
 
Morning comes, sees and fades out.
Darkness tends to hide itself away
if it is too tired to search the stars.
Containers can only hold so much.
 
Into this closeted urn a little each day,
a thought here, story there, a feeling,
regrets, crayon faces from childhood.
There is no deluge, only a plodding ebb.
 
A shadow could just be a curtain dusting,
some days haunt more than others.
So the urn may need to crack or splinter
into a million pieces to become whole.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, September 2, 2024

A Poem a Day (685): Circling

 
 
Always, it was to drift, circling,
an eagle in flight, place to place
amid spaces, finding form in motion,
being just to be and breathe
simplicity, outside the spin
of a world in chaos.
 
Sneak inside to the quiet,
tip up the shade and hide.
The blue mountain sits rigid,
the amber sky continues to stare down
and the dusky sea is ever in roar.
Anchors in, and we are still.
 
The signpost points myriad ways,
with and without direction,
here, there, and the wherewithal.
Seeking the compass, due north,
we stand. Breathe in the sea air,
taste the salt. And wait.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, August 30, 2024

A Poem a Day (684): The dance

 
 
We blow out the dance,
circling as bees do, nectar strewn
between.
 
We tip-toe around what is, what was,
what may be. But nothing
is set in stone.
 
We tread a board invisible,
try to see, but we are blind.
We get on anyway.
 
Sometimes this fragile ground
gives way when we wanna sway,
and we just are.
 
There is only look, a glance,
a something unsaid, a depart from
composure, the raw,
 
the who we are beneath,
outside the goldfish bowl,
skin and bones and all we are.
 
You can throw gold in the fountain,
but it won’t return, and who we were
meant to be is memory.
 
We take a barefoot walk,
drift in the light of the splayed moon,
and cast a coin at maybe.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, August 30, 2024

A Poem a Day (683): Stone

Stone. It’s only stone.
A rock. Grit. Edgy as hell.
It can’t roll unless you push it.
It won’t stick unless you make it.
 
Here it lies beneath the beat rain
etching words, pictures drawn,
sunken stick forms, the unrequited.
 
We measure ourselves against things
when we don’t ever need to.
 
Shadows are, and shadows become,
as light moves and breathes and eels,
yet the stone will always be.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, August 30, 2024

A Poem a Day (682): Stowaway

 
Stowaway
 
He did it for her sacred heart,
kept it locked in a still warm box,
sealed with a charm, not a kiss,
considered it his.
 
Rhythms beat into song,
rise on the tides, sweep out to sea,
whisper incantations on severed waves,
things even the gulls cannot hear.
 
An adventurer clipped back to land,
she holds out her hands for the doves,
the silken plumes of butterflies,
tugs on her rusted anchor.
 
We lose ourselves a little in the stars.
 
One day he will prise open the box,
free her spirit to seek out the dawn,
when he can. When he knows
he won’t feel lost in the silence.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, August 30, 2024

A Poem a Day (681): Hollows

 
He guards the hidden hollows,
cobwebbed snags in window frames,
corners asleep in the acreage,
where the hundreds came and went.
 
We sit in the dugout fireplace,
smell the scarlet wave of ember leaves
and disappear into the missing edges,
the past sneaking out of dank walls.
 
Shadows hunt without guile.
We are the mirrors of our histories,
mortality sunk, a-spiral in the smoke
perspiring through covert echoes.
 
They say it will snow, cover every track,
dents and ingress, the expedient,
and we grow old imagining how
to weather this frigid earth.
 
He makes his presence known sometimes,
lays heavy on our silent shoulders
not quite broad enough to take
the weight of his fate.
 
In the winter we raise a crimson toast,
remember, trace the date full back
a hundred years now spent.
A twist in the past, a fork in the road.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, August 30, 2024

A Poem a Day (680): Paper spaces

 
Paper spaces
 
Within this misted riptide, the waste, torn paper,
the gutter gasping over, essence of the amiss,
a picture with no smile, the sound outside of
being, the birth of columns without words.
 
Etched wood signposts erase, directionless,
crystal waves, they rise, stay frozen-peaked,
desert roads stretch, continue to burn and turn,
all the endings forever out of someone’s reach.
 
Where they burrow down, they dig out deep,
rosebud noses breaking ground. Whiskers flicker,
considering the gaps and measuring in between
the spaces without and the spaces within.
 
Without their senses, you backtrack into night,
where one star may lead, the others distract.
We nestle in the trees with the souls of those long past.
Branches will not yield. Roots too long entangled.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, August 13, 2024

A Poem a Day (679): Clouds

 
Clouds
 
You take the clouds sometimes,
revisit ambition in a fog-blown glass,
drift among the old ones tugging your soles,
their roots deep, too far away.
 
There is echo in the moon, the spill of its rays,
motion in the wide ocean that empties out.
 
The book lies closed where you set it down.
Idle. Your stories ask to be read,
yet you leave them in a darkened room.
 
Spirits of ages hunt the huntress, glisten the
hours of light cascades, the wretched waiting,
for you are drawn, imagined, talked upon,
but you are not how you are sketched.
 
Time ticks. Not so eager, not so slow.
This background shifts. Awaken movement.
He is at liberty, and yet he is not.
He lives, and yet he cannot sink inside it.

On the surface, a simmer,
the circular line invisible.
 
The elephant follows the herd, wise, sturdy.
He will follow til the end of his days,
rest with the sick, mourn upon the dead.
 
Here, we test our own mortality,
stripped of youth’s belief that we are stone.
 
Vickie Johnstone, August 11, 2024

A Poem a Day (678): Phantoms

Phantoms

Timeless. Where the horizon shrinks,
where the sky sprinkles silver lace,
once-eager waves reaching into peace.
We are lifted. We are something other.

He gathers his footprints across the sand,
a solitary walk. A wander into brilliance,
the hand of the sun’s rays shining down.

And strangers are met without speech.
Wet costumes cling to vibrant bodies,
perspiration glitters, laughter unites.

The old and wise sit back against the rock,
feel its coldness seep into their skin,
hats askew, towels drawn, toes dug deep.

We think upon the sun. Upon time.
Linger awhile in the reflection of ourselves.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, August 8, 2024 

A Poem a Day (677): Ricochet

 
Ricochet

Life ricochets,
outside of warmth,
footsteps upon an enamel floor,
wrinkles cast in this idle stone
we sit upon and desire upon
a crimson distant moon. Flecks dart
and reflect, this embrace of night,
Nocturne aghast at Light’s disperse.
 
I wander in. I wonder to disappear.
An arc of wave rises, subsides, just is,
and I am, as I always have been,
an echo of a belief, breaths of time,
seeking the limits of what we know.
We can step out or we can step in.
I stand between the here and the other,
taste the salt of the sea, vanish a little.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, August 8, 2024

A Poem a Day (676): Step on out & other hay(na)ku

Written for JD Mader’s writing blog – check in at 2minutesgo and start writing.
 
A hay(na)ku consists of a three-line stanza, where the first line has one word, the second line has two words, and the third line has three words. 
 

 
Step
on out,
slide inside in.

 
Buzz
lightly aloft,
bumble soft dance.

 
Ecstatic
light, revoke
night’s pin-point.

 
Click.
On. Off.
Light’s suggestive spark.

 
One.
A paw.
A toe. Impromptu.

 
Scarlet
rose, pearl
ears of snow.

 
Pelts,
blue scales,
shaken jagged pieces.

 
Split
selves, empty
cusks, dishevelled shells.

 
It
snakes, eels,
eats hexagon hearts.

 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, July 14, 2024

A Poem a Day (675): Endurance

 
Endurance
 
 
Endurance, an eternal battle, stuck fast
within this perimeter, a line drawn.
An axe could strike right through it.
Shackles off, here lies exploration’s tomb,
speckles from a purpled moon,
nimble stars set the black seas alight.
 
We turn, sight the markers, send into flight
a scarlet flare to light this endless verve.
Fireworks in the midst of miles of nothing,
only blue ice in kindest verisimilitude.
Where all the seekers have come to see,
there is now only silence struck.
 
Strewn across the ocean floor in boxes
linger the memories of the escaped crew,
cases etched with their unique histories,
rusted hinges keeping their secrets kept.
We learn nothing from their outside shields,
sanded down in the wide Weddell Sea.
 
Above, jaded creaks whisper of the ages lost,
a symbol of the Heroic Age crushed, and we
final-check our gear, deep dive into the wall,
a Narnia beneath the waves. Emptiness engulfs.
We swim as fish through the ribs of the body,
their pristine timbers yawning under pressure.
 
For a moment, we step back into 1915,
imagine the intrepid men who manned the ship
drifting past as shadowed dreams, where now
suckered anemones, sea lilies and starfish cling
to their stately home, a-shimmer in technicolour,
hearing the beating heart of a better world.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, July 13, 2024

A Poem a Day (674): Ride the line & other poems

Prompt from NaPoWriMo.net: a hay(na)ku consists of a three-line stanza, where the first line has one word, the second line has two words and the third line has three words. 

12 hay(na)ku

Ride
the line,
read in between.
 
 
Dope,
chaotic reload,
unkempt arctic smile.
 
 
Jump,
connecting in,
pure beat sublime.
 
 
Eight,
so figured,
redrawing twisted circles.
 
 
Plucked
clover emeralds,
unbonded, lucked out.
 
 
Life
fulfilling birth,
wavering eternal wanderings.
 
 
Distance.
A call.
Empathic mnemic overload.
 
 
Aces.
High stakes.
Play your hope.
 
 
Wires.
Crossed. Exchanged.
Gathered in recall.
 
 
Shapes.
Shifters. Shadows
creep in switchback.

 
Running,
wind catching,
spirals circling free.
 
 
Lips.
Touch. Part.
Wonder the moment.
 
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, July 7, 2024

A Poem a Day (673): Wander lust

 

Wander lust

 

She cannot find in looking,

dusts down these scarlet echoes unlived,

so out of steam, bereft and sold,

in a cage of ages etched in gold.

 

Plucked from a single straw,

the broomstick flinches close,

beats against the witching post.

 

Open the windows wide,

let the present wander in,

flood the walls in faery fire,

seek the things that will never tire.

 

We ring the leaves & bells tonight,

dare to dance barefoot wild,

this enigmatic moon beguiled.

 

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, July 7, 2024

A Poem a Day (672): Gusts - a handful of hay(na)ku

My dad passed away earlier this month, so I haven't felt like writing. Today it's raining. Sleek. You can hear the soft speed of cars passing through. 
 
These poems are inspired by a prompt from NaPoWriMo.net. They are not related and are meant to be read separately. Prompt from NaPoWriMo.net: a hay(na)ku consists of a three-line stanza, where the first line has one word, the second line has two words and the third line has three words. 
 
 

Gusts,

playful air,

feather-light touch.

---

 

Waiting

for moments

to land. Patience.

---

 

Hands

creep sly,

numbers eating time.

---

 

Lyrics

dancing over

tramlines of notes.

Emotions

strung, remembered,

sung, empathy won.

 

---

Doors

so invisible

you cannot seek,

 

cobwebbed handles hidden,

tomorrow expectant,

unopened.

---

 

Fancy.

Not free.

Laboured. Caged inside.

---

 

Long

is the

walk to freedom.

---

 

Heady,

the lily,

bathed in pollen.

---

 

Spaniel,

red bucket,

new best pal.

---

 

Amazon.

Delivered. Opened.

Artful cat waits.

---

 

Rose.

Lemon’s breath.

Head now snapped.

---

 

Funk.

Get out.

Mojo must rise.

---

 

Scarlet.

99 balloons

racing the wilds.

---

 

Solitary.

Smoke wisps,

curling gnarled hands.

---

 

Lashes,

no tears,

dashed with rain.

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, June 23, 2024

A Poem a Day (671): My guide through the hedgerows

 
I wrote this one for JD Mader's 2minutesgo writing page. If you fancy writing something or reading other people's work, head over there. Cheers :) 

I went for a walk late this afternoon and the light was wild, and this little brown butterfly kept landing on stones in front of me and as I got near it flew on. This happened about seven or eight times. It was awesome. 

My guide through the hedgerows 

It leads me, in flutter,
til spread still on a moss-fed stone
it sits, contemplates, flits upward
to flicker in this slip of spilt sun,
movements sluggish and kind.

It is my spirit guide through giants,
trunks sunk in this ditch deep-dug 
between hedgerows with their spill of purple 
velvet, lemon cups, horns of melting nectar, 
spun pearl-white daisies linking hands. 

Once more it perches, sienna-gold gilded, 
and in its unique timing it lifts again in game, 
shows me its childish side in secret,
waiting for the human to play catch-up
and understand nature’s way of speaking. 

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, June 1, 2024

A Poem a Day (670): One to ten

 
 
One:

all the sacred lists of never done,
the wished upon, bled, un-won.
 
Two:

a struck filament, who knew?
Seeping fire, sweeping through.
 
Three:

in an instant he’s down on one knee,
emoting for all the world to see.
 
Four:

a pool of friends bleat at the door,
full knowledge of the homeless poor.
 
Five:

you get a full calendar to grieve,
suppress your own joy to still live.
 
Six:

he’s standing in line for another fix,
missing, extinct, exiled from the mix.
 
Seven:

they’re all trying to make it leven,
seeing signs full-sail from heaven.
 
Eight:

it’s a time to step inside your fate;
only make sure it’s not too late.
 
Nine:

he said “I want it all to be mine”
and yet he didn’t want to spend a dime.
 
Ten:

she lingered awhile beneath Big Ben,
doused by rain, oblivious to all men.

 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, June 1, 2024

A Poem a Day (669): Snapping lines – some hay(na)ku

 
These poems are inspired by a prompt from NaPoWriMo.net. They are not related and are meant to be read separately. 

Prompt from NaPoWriMo.net: a hay(na)ku consists of a three-line stanza, where the first line has one word, the second line has two words and the third line has three words. 
 
 
Time.
Snapping lines
in echo, doubled.

Whispers
sparked, this
never-truant Dark.

Exposed:
inked nightmares,
where erasers stick.

Lines
on repeat,
a rivered blackboard.
 

Youth.
Known. Vanquished.
No time machine.
 
Lace,
stained scarlet.
A wedding marked.
 

Unmasked,
the unsuited;
revenge of distain.
 

Flits,
deft footed,
starts, darts, skyward.
 

Cut,
scooped, stolen.
Jet black curls.
 

Lifted,
endless veil.
Vast pitch unhidden.
 

Rattle,
without hum.
Breath sneaks out.
 

This
one bed –
his whole world.
 

Milk.
Unspilled, capped.
A warning sign.
 

Bells,
and whistles.
Symphony on pause.
 

Journeying,
outward, in.
A wild belonging.
 

Succulent,
fleshed out,
fielding the core.

Wisps,
sacred light,
night’s ultimate shield.

 
Breadcrumbs,
squished rescuers,
directors of travel.

Exile.
Rust. Dust.
A life interred.

 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, May 27, 2024