The Shame Of It

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

<>==========<>==========<>
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

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”.

Am I Ready?

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.

A Cage

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.

Autumn – Days vs Nights

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?

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.

The Devil’s Daughter’s Song

I live at the edge of your atmosphere
a sunset strip colorific and clear
in a life despite God I cheer
raindrops on a sunny April afternoon as tears

Ineffable lamentations surge sweetly to my ears

I bang the drum called your heart with sass
for life in a bottle is a house made of glass
it was  a fruitloop daydream to think me a mere lass
the tiny box of lies – the molehill now a mountain of morass

Is the wafting requiem heard through the crevasse

I wake laughing when you knock me out weeping
I am my father’s daughter, my lure your curse vastly sweeping
your eyes wide shut, don’t touch me while I am sleeping  
the hate with which I slumber – the secret lover I’m keeping

In the melodic dirge of your tears slowly seeping


dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Let Music Speak

dVerse Poets Pub graphic
dVerse ~ Poets Pub

Yesterday at dVerse, poet-tender for the evening, paeansunplugged, invited us to let the music speak and challenges us to write a poem based on prompt phrases from the music of Linda Perry:

  1. Edge Of Your Atmosphere
  2. Sunset Strip
  3. Life Despite God
  4. Sunny April Afternoon
  5. Bang The Drum
  6. Life in a Bottle
  7. Fruitloop Daydream
  8. Tiny Box Of Lies
  9. Knock Me Out
  10. I Am My Father’s Daughter
  11. Don’t Touch Me While I Am Sleeping
  12. Secret Lover

We were only required to to incorporate two of the above choices in our poems about music. As usual Muse chose not understand the message. All twelve prompts are there in the order as given.

We Don’t Need Television

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

Just Because…

Just because I no longer
stand in front of your eyes
doesn’t mean you can’t see me
close them,
I am there

Just because I no longer
answer when you call my name
doesn’t mean you can’t hear me,
speak softly, listen carefully
there is my voice

Just because I can no longer
touch your hands
doesn’t mean you can’t feel me,
hold on to another,
my arms are there

Just because I am no longer there
to show you I love you
doesn’t mean my love is gone,
Place your hand on your heart,
feel its beat
I am there

Know that I am with God

Know that God is with you

And in that we are still with each other

Just because…


Day eight of National Poetry Writing Month

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

In The Moment

The silence was loud – A cacophony
In the moment felt after – Their two hearts beating as one
What once was – scattered – What it now collects
So beyond what could have been – In the moment of his kiss
When he marked her with a smack – That she returns it in kind


dVerse Poets Pub graphic

dVerse Poets Pub : MTB: Cleaving to Antonyms in Contrapuntal Lines

Tonight, Laura is hosting this week where we are challenged to cleave antonyms in a contrapuntal poem.

Here I play with the ending and the beginning of a relationship, tenses and use of the word smack a bit of a contranym itself.

Choosing from a collection of opposing word pairs as a prompt. We must then write two distinct poems, while including the chosen words somewhere in the body of each poem and then combine as one larger composition as either a Contrapuntal, Cleave or Reverso form.

When looking up examples of the above poetry form I realized I knew of another form which aso fit the desired theme perfectly and offer a Super Tanka.


Day seven of National Poetry Writing Month

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