Harvest Moon

image by gunel akhundlu

The moon is a bride

Ivory laced, she beckons

Autumn, her lover

Brings bouquets of red and gold

Leaves her at the altar, cold

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Harvest Moon and Tanka
and Poets United, Poetry Pantry 168

On Observing a Hummingbird

(AP Photo/Terry Sohl) (2008 AP)

I watch a hummingbird feed

She seems so tiny and frail

She tends perpetual need

Her death assured should she fail

Her beak a threadlike syringe

Her heart drum rolls in her breast

She flits among flowers' fringe

Her wings too nervous to rest

A wisp, she timidly flies

The wind can shift her in flight

Her will, her slightness belies

For few won't fall to her fight

So close to life she must cling

A strength imbues fragile things.

submitted for dVerse Poets Pub, Form For All, Rhyme and Meter

and Poets United, Verse First, Difficulty

Some Things You Never Forget

I remember

Waking early that morning 

Worrying

Staying home from school with feigned sickness

but really feeling sick

Waiting for the parents to leave

Taking the test kit hidden in my bedroom to the bathroom

Reading the directions more times than needed

Filling the test tube, adding the solution, waiting

Pacing

Counting the minutes

I remember

Looking at the test tube

Seeing the “doughnut” floating in the glass

Sweating, heart racing, nauseated, terrified

Pregnant

Throwing the test tube down the sewer

Walking to school in a trance

Praying for it all to be a dream

I remember

Peeking in the little window in the door of his classroom

Making eye contact

Shaking my head

Lowering my tear filled eyes

Him slamming his head down on the desk

Not looking back up

Going to history class

Aching to awaken.

submitted for Poets United, Verse First, I Remember

Absolution

For this Sunday's prompt, mindlovemisery asks us to choose a song from the decade of our birth and then write a poem inspired by the song. I grew up listening to my parents' original Broadway recording of HAIR (1968) and always loved this song. As a child, I'm sure I didn't understand the meaning entirely, but it moved me nonetheless.

This is the 1979 version by Cheryl Barnes from the movie. I think it's even better than the original.

You brought home strays

Tended to their wounds

Helped them heal

and loved them all the more for biting you

You forgave your father

for hitting you

You forgave your mother

for not stopping him

You forgave your sister

for leaving

You forgave your friends

for being traitors

You took every hurt

and made it a medal

to pin on your heart

But you could never absolve me

from loving you.

submitted for mindlovemisery, Prompt 4, Music and
Poets United, Poetry Pantry 150 and
Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Open Link Monday

Voices Rise

source

The children have no fear to speak

Their voices rise above the grief

that cuts us low and makes us meek

but children have no fear to speak

Our honesty is all they seek

Just listening provides relief

The children have no fear to speak

Their voices rise above the grief.

 

submitted for Verse First, Voices, at Poets United

Let's Go

Spring, 1935 by Kuzma Petrov-Vodin

Let's go to a place where it's just we two,

Where the rest of the world is small

Doesn't have to be fancy or hard to find,

Just some place where we can recall

The good we are blessed with when every day

 I love you and know you love me

No matter how difficult life has become,

It's easier as part of "we"

After some time we'll go back to the world,

Back to the stress and the pain

We'll help where we can and do what we must

Until we're together again.

submitted for Poets United, Verse First, Wake Up and Love and

The Mag, Mag 164 and

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Encouragement

Pay the Price

source

 In revenge and in love woman is more barbarous than man. -Friedrich Nietzsche

When I saw that number on your phone bill

You best bet that I dialed it to see

When I heard her voice pick up and answer

I knew that you had not been true to me

Don't believe I sat around and pouted

Don't believe I cried for very long

Revenge was on my mind, boy, don't you doubt it

'Cause I don't take too well to bein' wronged

You'll pay the price

'Cause you can't leave me

You'll pay the price

'Cause I'm all you know

You'll pay the price

When you deceive me

You'll pay it twice

'Cause you can't let go

You begged me not to pack my bags and leave you

You told me that I just misunderstood

You said you were just friends and made excuses

I shook my head and thought, "Oh, this is good."

You fell upon your knees and said you loved me

You pleaded with me for another chance

I watched you as you stammered and dissembled

Tried winning with your charm and your romance

But you'll pay the price

'Cause you can't leave me

You'll pay the price

'Cause I'm all you know

You'll pay the price

When you deceive me

You'll pay it twice

'Cause you can't let go

This all was a mistake, you tried to tell me

You hoped that we could put it in the past

You swore it was the last time that you'd call her

This may be a mistake, but it's your last

You'll pay the price

'Cause you can't leave me

You'll pay the price

'Cause I'm all you know

You'll pay the price 

You best believe me

You'll pay it twice

'Cause you can't let go.

submitted for Poetry Pantry 145 at Poets United

Jade and the Silent Boy

source

Jade had gorgeous eyes

You might think that her eyes were green--

You would be wrong

Jade’s eyes were brown

Dark as French roast coffee

and just as intense

That girl could hypnotize

with just one glance of those eyes

She once made the local librarian burst into song

while in line at the grocery

and the sanctimonious pastor fall ass over teakettle in love

with a tree squirrel

Just for kicks

Don’t fool yourself;

If she had looked your way

You would have fallen too.

Jade knew exactly what she wanted

Two things:

to escape her backasswards small town suffocation

and she wanted the silent boy with the motorcycle

The silent boy got his name some years ago

After a day of speaking ugly about neighbors and kin

His mama told him, “If you don’t have anything nice to say,

don’t say anything at all.”

The boy never said another word.

The silent boy was an immovable object

Jade was an irresistible force

It’s been said

that when an irresistible force meets an unmovable object

Some folks find magic

Some find madness

and some find God

Jade and the silent boy found each other

They locked eyes just briefly

Quicker than a ladybug’s sneeze

but it was enough

The silent boy said

“You have gorgeous eyes.”

Jade smiled, blushed, and looked away

Down at his leather boots

Then Jade and the silent boy

Climbed onto his motorcycle

and raced up the highway out of town.

They never looked back.

submitted for Poets United, Verse First, Women

Hollow

"The Hollow Men" by T.S. Eliot, image source

 A hollow man

With hollow eyes

No one hears

His hollow cries

Though it still beats

His heart is dead

His hollow veins

Have all been bled

His hollow chest

 Just cannot hold

The warmth for love

He’s vacant, cold

His hollow mind

Tries to erase

That he has nothing

To embrace

His hollow fists

Clutch empty air

But he can’t really

Seem to care

His hollow head

Holds just one thought

His hollow life

Has come to naught

And as he takes

A hollow breath

Alone he dies

A hollow death.

submitted for Poetry Pantry, 140, at Poets United

Shine

source

Ten?

Twenty?

How many

Do you need?

Fifty?  Sixty?  Is that enough?

You count friends like a cashier counts coins

You jingle them in your pocket to make sure they are still there

You like to sort them by value, put them in neat piles, admire your fabulous collection - oh, how it has grown!

Never mind the dust, chokingly thick, as they sit on your book shelf; you know that underneath the layers of neglect, they will always shine brilliantly at your gaze, won’t they?

submitted for Poets United, Verse First, Fibonacci Poems (mine is in increasing word number/line)