floating and leaving no trace
angels’ hearts spring from fire
wings steel-forged
eyes composed of starless night
hands and feet and faces carved in marble
cold, fragile voices, quick to shatter
sharp like glass
they rise
though you cannot see them
they do not fly
yet the earth recedes
repelled under their feet
you feel the weight
of being left
beneath
a dried stain on the counter
where her coaster was ignored
her coffee cold in the cup
left because it’s all that’s left
of her
——
Day 23 of the Leap Year Poetry Prompt Challenge
Cold COffee (How We Cope)
we plummeted to earth
tumbling skin to skin
limbs entangled in white silk
an explosion of feathers
descended after us
drifting like snowflakes
and tasting of too-sweet sugar
as we fell
we made angels
in the sheets
horses will sometimes spook
so you put blinders on them
the assumption being
that what isn’t seen
can’t possibly hurt
until it does, because you
didn’t see it coming
sharp and pointed like an awl
and couldn’t avoid it
even if it was you
sometimes blinders are better
sometimes blinders are worse
when i was a kid i could buy
at the magic shop
or sometimes the drug store
magic smoke
dab between my thumb and forefinger
press together and spread apart
long strands would magically form
filaments
shiny waving gossamer
a gauzy arc between fingertips
a good trick
if you had dexterity enough
you made smoke appear from your hands
i found later
when i got into building models
that airplane glue
which smelled so good
and left me light-headed
did the same thing
the human soul stretches out
between us too
incredibly thin and almost
invisible but not quite
strongest when we are pressed together
thinner but still strong
still connecting
when we are apart
on my back
looking up
at the sky
words in darkness
letters like smudges
left by fingers
dipped in light
constellations
form a crude calligraphy
of gang names and memorials
in angelic script
after all the noise
she empties the blender cup
–smooth chocolate milkshake
—-
RonovanWrites
RonovanWrites Weekly Haiku Poetry Prompt Challenge 84
Milk&Smooth
smiling a fake smile
the zoo monkey considers
who to target next
// alternate benevolent version
smiling serenely
the zoo monkey contemplates
imparting dharma
—-
the path, old unused
overrun with brush–still i
choose this unfulfilled promise
my steps a rhythm
a beat like the human heart
a new view of old vistas
—-
The Secret Keeper
Weekly Writing Prompt #24
(5) Words: | WALK | OLD | PROMISE | VIEW | BEAT |
a piece of me, a fractured piece of me
and a piece of you, just as jagged
they try to fit to together
–teeth of mismatched gears–
where motion should be smooth
instead the sound of snapping glass bones
screams of angels with cinder wings
bits and pieces falling wetly to the floor
the machinery stops so we mop up the blood
and try again
each time there is less and less of me left
each time there is less and less of you left
this is why we break
unevenly matched where there should be symmetry
but when the gears meet at last–we transcend
Words and Feathers 