Red Tulips

art by Baslee Troutman

Before you died,

you planted red tulips in the front yard

You never asked us first if we wanted red tulips

but I didn’t mind because they were beautiful

After you died,

the tulips still bloomed each spring,

pushing up through the snow and hard earth,

rising from the dead

It seemed to me somehow metaphorical

Spiritually significant

Then the rabbits ate the red petals,

leaving only headless stick-like green bodies

and the voles and squirrels ate the wintering bulbs 

Now we have no tulips

I’m not sure what the metaphor is supposed to be

but I see you looking down,

shaking your head,

laughing.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Sunday Challenge, April, Come She Will

Ode To a Frayed Sweater

Each time I put it on I notice frays

The colored fibers are no longer bright

A yellow cast has taken over white

This sweater surely has seen better days

The surface yarns are full of pulls and strays

The weave’s too thin to keep me warm at night

though I’m not, so it’s grown a little tight

but in my dresser that old sweater stays

For it gives me a warmth that I can’t buy

that I can't purchase new at any store

It’s thick with memories woven in the ply

so I just love that sweater even more

To some things we must hold on tight and true

They cannot be replaced with something new.

submitted for Form For All, The Librarian, the Poet, and the Snowblower (Miltonian Sonnets), at dVerse Poets Pub

You

Not to be Reproduced, 1937 by the Belgian surrealist René Magritte

You play a dangerous game

Sell truth to the highest bidder,

buy excuses on the cheap

Practiced at the art of the deal,

you trade tarnished falsehoods to refurbish

offer explanations two for one

You collect lies like rare coins,

toss them out in the street,

watch the people grab them up and

pocket them like treasures

When you look in the mirror,

can you see yourself

or are you as illusory

as your reflection? 

submitted for The Mag, Mag 161

Full Moon

Full moon
mocks the morning sky
Empty dinner plate
lays on the breakfast table
Night does not end
with the sun
I awoke alone.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Words Count With Mama Zen

She-Wolf

"Inspire Howl Wing"

copyright ~ Ella of Ella's Edge

My gaze appears tame

Docility may deceive

She-wolf stays alert

Threaten my pup or my pack

My teeth will tear you apart

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Sunday Mini Challenge, Release Your Inner Wild Woman

Picasso Dreams

Faun, Horse, and Bird, 1936
Pablo Picasso

They came to me in a dream last night-

a horse, a bird, and a faun

There soon commenced an awful fight

that lasted until dawn

The horse accused the bird of theft

He cried, "You took my feathers!

And now I cannot lift my heft;

my hooves to ground are tethered!"

The bird replied, "Well, look at me!

I was the king of kings!

I used to have fierce claws, you see

not just two fragile wings!"

The faun then sighed, "I've had enough!

This fighting is absurd!

So you believe you've got it rough,

friend Horse and Mister Bird?

You used to be a Pegasus

and you a Gryphon strong?

I think you have it better now;

your attitude is wrong."

The horse then said derisively,

"What do you know of me?"

The bird next spoke decisively,

"With horse I must agree!"

 The faun said, "Think about your state

You each have but one soul

A horse or bird may be your fate,

but each of you is whole.

I do not know just who I am

I always feel amiss

When half a goat and half a man,

I'm that and then I'm this."

The horse and bird considered what

 the faun had just confessed

"We've been such fools complaining but

we now know we are blessed."

As I awoke from dreamy sleep,

I thought of what I'd heard

I learned a truth that I would keep

from a faun, a horse, and a bird.

submitted for The Mag, Mag160

We Regret To Inform You

source

In that moment, her world split in two:

Before and After

and the chasm between was too wide to ever cross.

A gulf of time,

created in a second,

now so deep that she was drowning.

The shores held no safety;

memories brought an ache so profound

it rent her to the marrow.

The future held emptiness,

a void into which she feared she would disappear.

Wavering, she hovered in the nowhere,

her core unstable,

her existence untenable.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, FB Friday, The Crack In Everything