Tag: creative writing

you can hear the moon talking to herself (20170508)

crow26 Comments

the wolf plants himself by the fire
just an emaciated bag of sticks

–what do you want, moon chaser

he licks a paw and grins

–just waiting for you to die, fat boy

–ingrate

together, we watch flames
sparks echo stars
shadows echo night

——

for
dVerse ~ Poets Pub
Quadrille #32: echo

matryoshka (20170507)

crow7 Comments

this hollowness aches
a matryoshka missing
its final babushka
a cold shadow
without enough room
to allow even an echo
but all too empty
the walls too far apart
the smell of wood
faint
the odor of red paint
overwhelming

x marks the spot
where the heart is buried
but the map is now lost at sea
and no one searches
either on the sea
or in the woods
no one willing to dig
no one willing to open
that last casket

slaughter complicit (20170504)

crow14 Comments

we rail against the butchers
complain about their blood-soaked
aprons and their knives
designed and dedicated to slicing
muscle from bone

we point our fingers as
they lead the food beasts
lowing and weeping through
dark alleys into the
sulfurous light
of the slaughterhouse

we rail
we point
we sit at our well-appointed tables
and fill our mouths with meat
gravy runs down our chins
gravy is just another word
for blood
we rail
we point
we complain as the butchers
press their thumbs upon the scales
and tip gold in their favor
we rail
we point
we pay extra for the fatty parts
and pray extra that we are not lead
lowing and weeping though
dark alleys into the
sulfurous light
of the slaughterhouse
we rail
we point
we sharpen the knives

in chains (20170503)

crow3 Comments

everything is ashes in my mouth
they taste like graveyard dirt
rife with greasy sins
of the dead
and those waiting to be reborn
eager to work off karmic burdens
the universe will not last
as long as their labors

long ponderous chains
manacle my hands and
hobble my ankles

i smell the smoke of regret
and envy
and it is my own flesh
that burns
filling my nostrils

pieces (20170501)

crow2 Comments

silent tracks this morning

but so much glass
glittering on the ground
were the wind to pick up
the air would cut me
to pieces

i follow the rails in shoes
with soles so thin
i feel every facet of every stone
trying to pierce my feet

though empty, i have seen the trains

not the romantic locomotives
with porters and bewatched conductors
crowded dining cars
mysterious liaisons
but industrial bulk behemoths
the color of rust
the odor of old burned oil
delivering invisibles
in closed cars

i walk the middle of the track
wood
gravel
wood
gravel
iron on either side

a shirtless jogger approaches
loping toward me
glistening in the sun
i imagine myself
in a coat hanging past the knee
a dusty, wide-brimmed hat
arm relaxed but ready
to draw at my side

another poet’s words
write themselves nearby
first in soot
then in blood:
inspired by beauty
betrayed by lust
abandon[ed] by greed
enslaved by guilt

the jogger turns
the wind rises
and i am cut to pieces