To speak
is my predisposition,
even in times
when I would be
better served
to pay you more mind.
I know this
and still, to change
is a process
that vexes me.
I do not know
any other way
to be.
I know this,
but there are times
when our discussions
turn to debates
and I hate realizing
how much I hate to lose
far too late.
I know this
and after each
of these times
my head starts to spin,
wishing to learn how
to be wrong
and to really listen.
Photo by Andres Herrera on Unsplash
That old swing-set
was young when I was young,
its shoulders fresh painted
and its swings not yet deep rust-set.
We made fast friends,
that old swing-set and I,
though he sometimes threw me from his shoulders
knocking my knees and dusting my hands
That swing-set’s hands are splintered
and I visit my old friend with calloused hands
to find his swings gone and his paint chipped
from when I was away those many, many winters.
I climb his side with a book in hand,
as I once did when I was younger,
and I read all afternoon with my old friend
in the shadow of the boy I was – now a man.
At DVerse, the prompt today is to write a poem recalling some specific thing or things from the past OR more generally about what evokes a memory or memories in you.
Photo by Tobias Kebernik on Unsplash
My soul is a sunflower
blossoming yellow petals
and bittersweet seeds
that crackle under the tongue
or the heat of the sun,
its withering leaves brushing together mindlessly,
like lost memories.
My body is a green stem
that holds my sunflower soul
skyward
despite the presence of birds and the danger of breezes
that might pull loose some crackly seeds at any moment,
casting them to the dirt below.
maybe to grow
maybe to grow
maybe to rest for a time in my hollow shadows
we may never know
but maybe to grow
Photo by Sean Quillen on Unsplash
This week, Eugi asks us to respond to the following prompt:
“petals
tree tokens
fine art”
‘The soul has words as petals’ – Edmond Jabes
Those fingers in my hair,
that sly come hither stare
that strips my conscience bare –
it’s Witchcraft– Frank Sinatra, Witchcraft
She must have seen me first
through a thousand years of history,
for when she came to my door
she wore the exact name of my future.
She gazed through me
with eyes a thousand years long,
until I felt I belonged there,
trapped behind her pupils.
Her fingers passed the universe
through my callused palms
while she read my fate
in a calm voice I could not understand.
With molten lead
she cleansed my eyes of all evil
until she became my sight
and I could see nothing but her.
With a thousand spells, she reversed the moon
and became my night sky
and when I tried to question her and I,
she made me forget all of my why’s.
Written based on Eugi’s Weekly Prompt – Magic – May 20, 2021:
the night glows lively
I feel the magic don’t you
moments to cherish
Photo by Rowan Heuvel on Unsplash
By destiny bound,
two men stood side by side,
surrounded by sound
pouring from cheering human tides.
The day was set
for future to dawn,
there on the White House lawn,
under a noon-time sun.
The light was blinding,
the old man finding it hard,
to read the words he wrote,
forced to speak from his heart
a truth at once
brighter, stronger, surer,
than when last he spoke it
when his intentions were purer.
For he came this day,
to join hand in hand,
with the political future
of a much younger man.
They stood and smiled and waved,
til the crowd had gone home,
neither knowing that before long,
they both would be gone.
At DVerse, the prompt today calls for us to write about a famous poet. Your title must include the poet’s name and you should try and employ something of the poet’s style.
I, in my mirror’s image,
am inverted
and yet to my
imperfect eyes
I see myself whole
in that reflection.
I, in time,
refine my methods of seeing
to find only what
that false reflection
already
so cruelly defined.
Who am I
to read my mind?
All I do is think thoughts
others have already rhymed
and internalize the false reflections
I see mimed in other’s eyes.
Under those eyes, mine,
the lines stretch long
as I try to re-invert
that mirror image
to show myself a reflection
that is truly mine.
Photo by ali syaaban on Unsplash
For Eugi’s Weekly Prompt, we are asked to craft a poem from the following prompt:
viewpoint from within
heightened thoughts emerging soon
beyond perspective
My heart is overgrown with vines
that glow green-radiant
in unkempt spring breezes
and rustle
across the un-tuned strings
of my weary heart
in the most sweet-melancholic melody
Like the ghost of a memory,
that melody stirs something
somewhere in the deep recesses amid the vines,
the phantom limbs of the breeze
hugging my heart
in the wailing and whistling vocals
of my ancestors.
The vines wrap around my heart
tightly against the dusk
and the promise of cold,
their old and reborn roots anchoring me
as the blue-frost edges of sunset
take hold.
Blanketed by ghosts and memories,
my heart aches
as I recall
amid the piercing notes
of my Blue Tuesday heart-string blues
how many vines I tore up,
expecting to remain rooted.
Photo by Pete Walls on Unsplash
On DVerse, the prompt today is to write a poem about the word blue, whether the color, the feeling, or the musical style.
By low lamp light and long after
the sun has said its goodbyes
Our weary and tired eyes
run across unfolding pages
Seeking all the knowledge
that by the light of day passed us by
And losing daylight hours
in the process
We lean drowsily in reading chairs
against bookshelf backdrops
Watching raindrop reflections
roll thoughtfully down window panes
Borne along their whimsical way
by subtle midnight breezes
That dance strands of hair
from our eyes like ballet
Our split screen symmetry
is separated by mere miles
Filling our solitary spaces
with a shared energy
So that each time my absent eyes
turn to scattering raindrops
I expect them to return
to find you here
Each page I turn is soft marked
with traces of your fingers
And your scent lingers
among allusions and allegories
I hear each word sing out
as though sprung from your alluring lips
And I find myself smiling
not knowing why
There is passion amid these worn out pages
and bookmarked thoughts
And the way your fingers
traced each word is almost erotic
Feeling my palms soft folded
against the small of your book’s spine
Makes me want to lose sleep
between its covers
The silence between phrases
pulses with such heated tension
That I cannot help but lose myself
in that silence so that
I might grasp the pieces
you let me see of your history
And warm them tenderly
in ardorous hands
The tired longing
of the early hours of the nighttime
Draws us both – at length –
to the comfort of our separate beds
Our internal rhymes slowly syncing
through shared breath and heartbeats
Dreaming of morning
reading between soft sheets
Photo by Natalie Grainger on Unsplash
Check out open link night at DVerse!
Under the darkness
of a new moon,
The Dead Sea
is a mirror
that casts
no reflections,
A surface
made of glass,
primed to shatter,
or burst,
doomed to return
to sand –
forever to run
in-corporeally
through the fingers
of cupped hands.
Wade into the water
as deeply as you can,
but you will
not leave a ripple.
Your brittle bones
will slip beneath the surface
like a ghost
and if you dream
to dive deep into the sea,
know that the thick water
will swallow you
in a single breath
and spit you out
on the coastline
long before the water considers
giving up its depths.
Photo by Dave Herring on Unsplash
This poem was written based on the below prompt titled Eugi’s Weekly Prompt – Reflections – April 15, 2021:
reflections mirror
past, present and future, the
outset of purpose
Since everything is a reflection of our minds, everything can be changed by our minds. – Gautama Buddha
Go where the prompt leads you and publish a post on your own blog that responds to the prompt. It can be any variation of the prompt and/or image. Please keep it family friendly. Prompts close 7 days from the close of my post.
“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies…The man who never reads lives only one.”
-George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons
Seamus O'Shaughnessy, Jr. 