(photo credit: imprm@countach.fm)
Whispering winds carry secrets
over sleepy city streets
gather and swirl
unsuspecting thoughts
Exhausted dwellers walk
through zombie days
focus on one foot
in front of the other
Up and down, over and under
air moves in stealth
a silent intruder
Scarves wrap against it
coats button it out
still it continues
growing
until it Howls
(internet image)
vacant eyes
dry skin cracked lips
– I watch you peel away
Words have fled my lips,
like moulting feathers that litter the ground,
useless.
My heart is in my throat.
I see abundance.
Numerous seals and penguins dot the landscape
like so many pixels creating an image.
Great beauty rises from stark surroundings.
Thick glaciers melt into leaping waterfalls,
cascade to the sea.
Wash over red rust whaling station scars
that blister the horizon.
Macabre glory days over,
sea and salt air reclaim what once ignored her.
Beleaguered oil containers lean into the future
waiting for cargo that will no longer fill
their insatiable appetite.
Once we pillaged the sea,
now the earth.
(internet photo)
Burnt trees stand naked
brittle city skeletons
distant sirens wail
(internet photo)
Her voice, a gentle breeze
softly turns my ears.
Her eyes, dark waters,
submerge her hard earned wisdom.
A newsprint roll is tucked under an armpit.
Primitive figures on colorful cards she is selling,
dance behind dirty plastic.
She brushes stray hairs from her face.
I smile across our class, our heritage, our histories.
We are two feet apart, miles away from contact.
She lowers her eyes. I squirm in my casual trappings.
I offer money to purchase her cards. I talk too fast,
smile too broad. My rabbit-hopping heart cannot
keep up to my whirling dervish mind. The heavy air is
difficult to breathe.
She chants gratitude, over and over, head bowed.
I tell her, “It is nothing, really, no problem at all.”
I leave, my center hollow,
nothing to redeem me,
nothing at all.
Your reflection
looks me in the eye.
Stainless steel toaster
browning bread,
heats your memory.
I look away,
dark brooding clouds
hide the sunrise,
reflect my mood.
You no longer
move through my days.
We parted ways long ago,
yet here you are
grilling my morning,
warming my cheeks.
Light echoes of our
retreating love
reflect off
a shimmering appliance.
Her zombie steps shuffle along streets and alleys,
hair knotted and matted in unintended dreadlocks.
The cracked husk of her tarnished veneer reflects,
momentarily, in a boutique window and catches her eye.
Startled, she stares.
She glimpses a forgotten piece of her former self
beyond the plate glass. Flickers of another life
glint like sunshine on the glazed surface. Her
eyes close against the brightness.
A businessman in a navy suit, talking on his phone,
bumps her out of her reverie. He hurries on
without a glance, like stepping over dog shit.
She withdraws,
a hermit crab sliding into the safety of her shell,
disappears into her invisible life, slinking
along the streets.
Inspiration: V challenge from Jarrod at Haunted Lullaby – use the words “shattered” and “miracle”
Rosary beads fall
shattered prayers on bruised knees
forfeit miracle
Laundry fades on line
rain laden streaky grey clouds
slide down to drown threads
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice – –
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried,
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do – –
determined to save
the only life you could save.
ScribbleDartsfromtheHeart 