Tag Archives: Poetry

The Shame Of It

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Artwork: Shame by Ally Saunders
Artwork: Shame by Ally Saunders

What have I become
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know goes away
In the end
Hurt – Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails)/Johnny Cash

I was darkness and fury
To your light and sun
On a whim I simply snuffed it
It’s a hurt that can’t be undone
I thought I knew what I was doing
To take you for granted and then some
Only to simply walk away
Leaving you as chaff in the wind’s sway
And how the shame of it numbs
What have I become?

With me as predator and you as prey
I shot an arrow through your soul
You had no chance in this farce
There was no means to console
I thought I knew what I was doing
Going for the break, not just the bend
Damn how your body trembled
As your soul disassembled
And how the shame of it wends
My sweetest friend

You were my own soul’s mirror
Shattered in a thousand places
And I felt the pain as my own
In a thousand fractured faces
I thought I knew what I was doing
How I’ve come to rue that day
Seeing the evidence of what I did
I was loath to leave it hid
And how the shame of it stays
Everyone I know goes away

You never said a word, I know this
But somehow your break struck me to the core
Never one to rage, yet it changed you
And everyone wanted to know the score
I thought I knew what I was doing
Now I am the chaff in the wind
The wounds of my hateful inflections
Forever bared in my reflections
And now the shame of it does rend
In the end

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At dVerse Poets Meeting The Bar, Björn challenges us to write a glosa. I have not written one in what feels like ages. The image “Shame” by Ally Saunders already had Muses’ attention, but I did not know what direction to go with it until Johnny Cash’s cover of “Hurt” by Nine Inch Nails played on my iTunes, and everything fell into place. I always felt Trent Reznor’s NIN original was suppressed rage in the aftermath of a wrong done, and Cash’s cover was resignation of those wrongs in the sunset of the life lived. Here, I aim for the liminal space between rage and resignation – acknowledgment of the unforgivable.

dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Meeting the Bar at the Spanish Court

Twilight in Summer

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Summer dances, space and earth entwine,
With heated coral velvets and currant wine,
In sunset is how Sol bows and takes His leave,
Thus, His lover ascends in Her night weave
Where verdant grounds in dark align,
As Nyx doth claim Her right divine

dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Quadrille #204 – Summertime, and the Poeming is Easy

dVerse Poets Pub graphic
dVerse ~ Poets Pub

For this week’s prompt, Dee (aka WhimsyGizmo) has perusing a pithy, prestigious little nugget of a quadrille, a poem of exactly 44 words not including the title, but must include some fun or fanatic use of the prompt word “Summer”.

Lamentation for My Father: At Rest

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A strong hand, with stronger words to part
Things that all who knew you well can attest
Yet beneath it all, was a kind solid heart
If he called you friend you were blessed
Knowing that you were leaving
Doesn’t help much now that you’ve gone
An honest friend here lies at rest

So I can smile because you have lived
And for this life lived, you lived to the best
That is legacy, you have to give
To call you Father I was blessed
Knowing that you were leaving
Doesn’t help much now that you’ve gone
An honest man here lies at rest

I am often told I am a lot like you
It was something as a child I used to detest
But the man in the mirror lets me see how it’s true
To be your reflection I feel blessed
Knowing that you were leaving
Doesn’t help much now that you’ve gone
An honest dad here lies at rest

I cannot grieve for long; you would not want me to
So I will carry on, the way you know I always do

Things that all who knew well you can attest
And for this life lived, you lived to the best
To be your reflection I feel blessed
I knew that you were leaving
But in my heart you’ll never be gone

An honest friend here lies at rest
An honest man here lies at rest
An honest dad here lies at rest
My father who art in heaven…
…is at rest…

Am I Ready?

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Woman sitting at office desk pinching bridge of her nose in stress

F***! Barely 9AM Monday and I’m frazzled already…
Really, this could have been an email, they don’t agree.
I don’t have enough coffee for this mess…
Damned too early to be this stressed!
Am I ready for the weekend? Oh, Father deliver me,
YES!

dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Quadrille #199 – TGIF

dVerse Poets Pub graphic
dVerse ~ Poets Pub

For this week’s prompt, Dee (aka WhimsyGizmo) has us freaking out over a quadrille, a poem of exactly 44 words not including the title, but must include some fun or fanatic use of the prompt word “Friday”.

I wish for the weekend acrostically.

Ticonderoga

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Tico My Heart,

I remember my first encounters with you
Not my first childish attempts of
What I now know is my full passion
But the first time
The time when I knew this was it
The joy I felt
Holding you close to me
Running my fingers over the mysteries
of your contours
No longer questioning why
I’m drawn to you

And every now and then
When the confines of that
Which I call my world
Threaten to crowd me
Almost as reflex I suppose,
I find myself
In a place
Walls don’t always exist
But drawn by you

And when I’m occasionally selfish
You don’t mind
For you know
The extent of the power
You have over me
When drawn with you

You give worlds of images
All perfectly contained
Within the movements
Of as few
Or as many
Well placed strokes
From my soul
As drawn through you

Whether
To you,
By you,
With you,
Through you,
Nothing beats the feel
Of you, my Ticonderoga
No. 2 Soft
I’m drawn
No. 2 Soft Pencil

The NaPoWriMo site challenge for Day 2: Write a platonic love poem. In other words, a poem not about a romantic partner, but some other kind of love – your love for your sister, or a friend, or even your love for a really good Chicago deep dish pizza. The poem should be written directly to the object of your affections (like a letter is written to “you”), and should describe at least three memories of you engaging with that person/thing.

A Cage

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A
cage is
not just bars
that can withhold
the physical self

Words
spoken
heartlessly
but struck deeply
Can confine the soul

For
only
as long as
you are willing
to let them hold you

As always I begin National Poetry Writing Month with an Arun, as I have done these past few years, in honor of the fiend (<– not a misspell), and creator of this poetic form – GirlGriot, who first got me into this yearly challenge.

An Arun is a fifteen-line poem in three sets of five lines. Each set of five lines follows the same syllable structure: starting with one syllable and increasing by one syllable with each line. 1/2/3/4/5 — 3x. There are no other rhyme or structural requirements

The NaPoWriMo site challenge for Day 1: Pick a word from a given list . Then write a poem titled either “A [your word]” or “The [your word]” in which you explore the meaning of the word, or some memory you have of it, as if you were writing an illustrative/alternative definition. I chose the word Cage.

Burning the Blankness

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The blank page
My tomb – My womb
Where I smolder,
Gossamer – Nebulous
A spark from beneath the surface,
I scratch at an idea,
Thoughts slowly burning,
The kindling of
Letters and punctuations
Until I am borne anew
A phoenix
Burning away blankness
In sentences and paragraphs
In verse and prose
Then in splendiferous coda
Of the final character
I vale to the emptiness
My tomb, My womb
Of the next blank page

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dVerse Poets Pub | Poetics: Creatures of the Blank Page

dVerse Poets Pub graphic

Dora from Dreams from a Pilgrimage, challenges us to a write poem using any animal of choice (real or mythological) as a metaphor for how ideas and words take shape for you on a blank page

Autumn – Days vs Nights

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autumn day and night with leaves clip art

In the turns of  Autumn

The sky will fold itself

Bright Sol topping to remind you

Of hot summer days now done

And in the curve of Luna’s bottom

What is due

Stars dangle from cool night’s shelf

Of cold winter nights to come

dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Quadrille #186 – Fold

dVerse Poets Pub graphic
dVerse ~ Poets Pub

For this week’s Quadrille, Dee (aka WhimsyGizmo) has us folding over a quadrille, a poem of exactly 44 words not including the title, but must include some form of the prompt word “fold”.

Remember?

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Remember?

That day you tripped

And somehow face-pined

Into the bowl of pineapple chunks

You red-faced in embarrassment

Me red-faced in pining

For the sacred sweet of your lips

Made more so by the juices dripping

I realized then

You tripped

But I

Fell

Pink lips with water drops

dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Quadrille #182: Are You Pining for Poems?

dVerse Poets Pub graphic
dVerse ~ Poets Pub

For this week’s Quadrille, Dee (aka WhimsyGizmo) has us pining for a quadrille, a poem of exactly 44 words not including the title, but must include some form of the word “pine” as a noun, verb, or adjective. Or play around with it and invent your own word.

We Don’t Need Television

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Makes us wanna holler

When they try to silence us

We’re done being quiet

Makes us wanna break free

When they try to hold us down

We’re done being still

Our movement is revelation

Watch us

Hear us

Our voice revolution

We’ve had enough

dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Quadrille #174: You Say You Want A Revolution

dVerse Poets Pub graphic
dVerse ~ Poets Pub

For this week’s Quadrille, Kim (Writing in North Norfolk) is prompting a revolution for a quadrille, a poem of exactly 44 words not including the title, but must include some form of the word “revolution”.

Here I give gentle nods to Gil Scott Heron (The Revolution Will Not Be Televised) and Marvin Gaye (Inner City Blues)

Day nineteen of National Poetry Writing Month

National Poetry Writing Month 20 years of 30 poems in 30 days