This week’s phrase –
“I had so many plans for my life……”
My Response
….that I had to build a time machine AND clone myself.
——
Category: Poems
twilight (Poem 20160507)
we joke about it
you want me to murder you
but you insist it not hurt
and i tell you that
if it ever came down to it
i would follow soon after
i think too much about it
maybe this is why i don’t have friends
painless leaves few options
maybe pills for you
just a gentle falling asleep
or a squeeze of the iv bag
some extra morphine
like i always imagined i’d
have to do for someone else
like i would hope someone
would have the sense to do
for me
but for me, maybe a hose
from the exhaust pipe
through the passenger window
and i could listen to
death cab for cutie on my phone
because that would be ironic
this is why i don’t have friends
eclipse (Poem 20160506)
the screen tries to hold my focus
but shadows
flicker past catch my eye
ghosts, shades, living fades,
the memory of a wind chime
on a still day
with the right suns
you can mix light and shadow into
crisp edges and soft blue blisters
but these shadows sport human shape
i watch them lengthen and merge
and wait for their whispers
——
useless wings (Poem 20160505)
i would make dust devils
if a pair of wings
sprouted from my back
like those pictures of angels
from a kid’s illustrated bible
–you know, the one with blond jesus
ah, those wings, so bright
so electric fluoride white
were they just for show
i don’t remember seeing
the angels fly in those pictures
one image i remember–
flaming sword in hand
staring off at the horizon
not even looking at adam and eve
but ready to set up the hue and cry
as they slunk away in the shadow
of its petrified glowing wings
with shame-shadowed stained faces
or maybe he stared at them
disappointment smeared across his mug
insects trying to steal their way
back into a prison called paradise
or envy since they soared
without wings and without
having to carry that dead weight
around on their backs
——
your woods (Poem 20160504)
i search the wild place
inside you where you left me
you invited me into your woods
under the pretense of a picnic
i expected sandwiches under
these trees, to serve tea, watch
the sunlight dapple the leaves
but i have become lost inside you
my compass is slag in my hand
stars move about the sky unfixed
where the earth should be hard
it moves like water
caught in some legned or fairy tale
i curse myself for not leaving
a trail of small white stones
and listen in this silence for your voice
——
the secret keeper
Weekly Writing Prompt #35
5 Words: | WOODS | LEGEND | WILD | HARD | SERVE |
shattered voices (Poem 20160503)
the angel unfurls its wings
wings of a thousand thousand feathers
each a razor black with blood
they beat
space is cut
voices of shattered glass
fill the air
it turns my way and i am pierced
lacerated by its message
its wings seek my heart
it flays the living flesh
from my bones
leaving no human trace
not even
my name
pen and dragon (Poem 20160502)
this dragon shaped ink
–closing my eyes, i invite
it to breathe fire
——
RonovanWrites
Weekly Haiku Poetry Prompt
Challenge #95 Dragon&Invite
smoke (Poem 20160501)
someday soon i am going to catch on fire
not through any action of my own
not by smoking in bed
i’m too cheap to buy cigarettes
not by standing too close to an open flame
while wearing non-flame-retardant pajamas
not by standing beneath a giant magnifying glass
on a sunny day like some ant cooked by a bully
not even from some smoldering look you
carelessly toss my way
though that would be my preferred method
i think spontaneous combustion is nature’s way
of cleaning up its weeds
turning us into carbon-rich ash for a new
generation of green things without nettles
so i tell myself i won’t mind so much
when i finally smell the smoke
untranslatable (Poem 20160430)
when we meet again after a long time
i am convinced you have gone native
–as my dad would have said–
from living in a foreign country
even though
you’ve gone nowhere
distance becomes a function
of the passing of time
space itself an illusion when
divorced from the ticking clock
you open your mouth to speak
but all i hear is that place
between two radio stations
you have forgotten
how to use your own voice
you have forgotten
how to speak english
i’m sorry, i say, i don’t speak
knives anymore
i show you my scars
–now thick and no longer pink–
to prove it
——
that one time (Poem 20160429)
i remember waking in my crib screaming
and holding a toy animal on my head
i remember being stung by a bee and my brother
putting a bandage on my finger
over the bee
i remember my sister launching me from her feet
and flying into the brickwork of the fireplace
striking just below my eye
i remember santa’s red suit one christmas eve
when i was supposed to be asleep but snuck out
of my room, catching him by the fireplace
i remember seeing the ghost of my grandmother’s
mother when i was supposed to be taking a nap
and my grandmother shushing me, though she saw her
pale faced in the doorway too
i remember collecting red ants barehanded
with my brother for an ant farm
and being stung again and again
i remember waking up to a bed shaking
beneath me and the guttural sounds of voices
in a room that was too dark to see clearly
but not too dark to see
i remember my mom’s small dog speaking to me
in plain english though i do not remember
what he said
——
Words and Feathers 