Challenge: Five Poems in Five Days.

[TheRainMan]

1-1

.....

 

[Liar]

3 of 5, Aug 17

If a tree fell and we didn't stand
just here
to hear the gentle thump in defeat,
it would still know,
a snapped trunk still remember
its phantom crown.

But whithout lips,
it leaves only us to carve air
into familiar shapes.

So speak,
here where words won't linger,
the woods will echo nothing,
pleas and prattle split to fractions
on razor leafs, promises punctured
by pine needles.

Their bled essence
sinks into moss
to emerge due fall
in red berries.

We'll pick them in October
when bitter words have ripened
and taste their sweet juices
on each other's lips.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

1 ~ 5

Old man do you know me
is recognition in your eyes?
A fleeting remembrance
of far off times and places.
I think not for your plundering
had no conscience when
the sap was coursing strong.
How can I wreak vengeance
now that your autumn leaves
lie crushed beneath my feet?

 

[TheRainMan]

1-2

.....

 

[Guest]

......

 

[Angeline]

2-1

I flew into the darkness
in a gown of cobwebs. I wore firefly earrings,
no shoes. I skimmed through spirits:
zombie louts denied by a falling tree,
an overturned cart. Calibans
who wander and stumble, mooncalves
on the moonscape and the angels
who leave contrails of serenity in a wake
of blue dust, not the tri-winged Seraphim,
but the lesser choirs, pale and aesthetic,
singing thin hymns the night swallows whole.

Your tears are like mercury in my palm.
If I touch them they scatter in tiny silver beads
and each one is a story, each story a life
that I must preserve. How can your tears
have meaning if I don't paint them
in stories, young boys in schtetl life,
grooming horses and later shrouded,
praying in the tallis knit to the waist.

I bless the bread twice, pulling the air
to me, pulling god to me and the candles
burn now as they did decades ago,
a small curse against the darkness
in a yorsite glass jar. The crows glide
up from the lawn to accompany me.
They watch me with empty eyes.
They see the angels better than I do,
but we don't follow them and I've a mind

to scatter your tears, seed the earth
with memory, but the ground is barren
or I am so I wait instead for brilliant
meteor dust. The Perseids are active tonight.

 

[bogusbrig]

For brevity, she would simply nod and smile.
Questions, answers, even small talk,
yes, no, maybe, I’m happy, I’m sad,
all had their own smile and nod.
Sparse and complex as a Japanese garden,
a millimeter could mean the difference
between euphoria or the depths of despair.
The wistful poetry of her countenance
changed with the subtlety of light in a landscape
Something one could contemplate but never capture
Something one could feel but never explain.

 

[Liar]

4 of 5, Aug 18

Your sneakers rested nearby,
still warm after too many miles,
but safe under tent flaps,
while thoughtful rain
pooled between shoulderblades,
jiggling and rolling off the sides
to your laughter
when I asked you inside.

It's only rain,
said your smile,
while lips whispered me out
to play in the puddles
on your back, to sip sky
from gentle ridges.

I remember the taste of summer
stuck under your fingernails,
the smell of wet leather
rubbed on bare arms,
the chafing to crimson
patches on tundra pale skin,
the drumming of elelments
on a blue nylon shelter.

You were always adored
by the strangest of things,
and rain was your lover
maybe moreso than me,

one that gave whithout remorse,
and shared whithout regret.

 

[TheRainMan]

1-3

.....

 

[Guest]

......

 

[Liar]

5 of 5, Aug 18

magpies perched on wire
held by hollow bones
tucked their necks behind thick feather collars
while we choked on polyester
down below

august took it's first stumble into autumn
and we were too busy planning the next high
to give pause

it turns again
the world, seconds, minutes, lifetimes
to miss transits, spit life into ballpoint pens
and rust in hollow boxes when we're
weak enough to not resist gravity

because we pile so pretty stones
wield the most magnificent sticks
to make believe we never lose
our wings

and fall crippled off the wire
snapping hollow bones

 

[Angeline]

Let's pretend
I put you in a glass globe,
set you on the windowsill
and walk away. Maybe I notice
you once or twice a week,
turn your world upside down
and watch snow fall around you.
I'm detached and you're safe
behind glass. I've learned
not to wish on you. I never
dream of you anymore.

It's enough to see you
in my daughter's gestures, my son's squint.
When I visit my mother, you're there
in the photographs. Your hand
is clamped on mine. I am young,
still shining with optimism,
faith that I can please you all.
Over the next 15 years, I'll try
to make up for everyone's failings.
I'll even bow in the mouth of death
a few times to prove I'm invincable.

In ten years I'll be exhausted,
in twenty my body will follow my heart
out the door. I'll be free and powerless,
triumphant and afraid of the dark,
dragging your memories behind me
like a snake shedding its skin.

 

[TheRainMan]

1-4

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[Guest]

.....

 

[TheRainMan]

1-5

.....

 

[Eluard]

2-1

. . . .

 

[Eluard]

2-2

. . . .

 

[Eluard]

2-3

. . . .

 

[Eluard]

2-4

. . . .

 

[Eluard]

2-5

. . . .

 

[Eluard]

3-1

. . . .

 

[Eluard]

3-2

. . . .

 

[manipulatrix]

1-1

.....

 

[manipulatrix]

1-2

.....

 

[Eluard]

3-3

. . . .