Memories and Magic

image from cover of "The Ocean At the End of the Lane"

Go the pond

At the end of the lane

Think of the girl

Remember again

Standing inside

The green fairy ring

Nothing can hurt you

Forget everything

Marble of glass

Soldier of tin

Swallow the ocean

Breath it all in

Fight with the monsters

The sheets from your bed

Nightmares of grown-ups

Take root in your head

Childhood demons

Tore you apart

Banished, but still

Left a hole in your heart.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Words Count With MZ

and mindlovemisery, Prompt 15, Childhood Dreams 

(inspired by Neil Gaimon's new book, The Ocean At the End of the Lane)

Sweet Imagism

Nana's dresser
cracked white paint with
gilding rubbed thin
glass bottles of Opi stand
like multicolored soldiers
Inside
the smell of old lady lavender
utilitarian beige bra
and underneath, her stash
hundreds of little pink packets
Sweet n Low

submitted for dVerse Poets Pub, Meeting the Bar, Imagism

Scrap

She was a scrap of a girl

an afterthought

a crumb

the kid you always forgot

when naming all the kids in your class

I think her name was Cathy

or maybe Cindy

She probably had a story

I wonder if anyone knew it

submitted for Friday Music Prompt, Strawberry Blonde, at Imaginary Garden With Real Toads

The Swing, Redux

When I was too young to read them myself
my mother would read them to me
out of a book that I kept on my shelf
a Garden of Verse--poetry!

I'll always remember my favorite one
It seemed to me that it could sing
the way that the rhythm and rhyme had been done
The name of the verse was "The Swing"

After a long day of playing outside
I loved to come back home and then
listen to Mom read that poem to me
and feel myself swinging again!

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, The Gift of Poetry

image source

Dreams

image from rubyblossom

Reaching back in memory

to when I was a child

the border between wakefulness and dreams

was a gauzy curtain

and I often peeked through

spying on one side

from the other.

I could conjure my favorite dream world

and leave when it threatened to turn nightmarish

but I could never bring back

my dream treasures.

Vague and hazy now

I remember brightly colored toys

cuddly stuffed animals

a sweet, delicate music

and a profound happiness

that I yearned to bring with me

to wakefulness

yet

I always awakened

with empty fists

and arms hugged around nothing

but myself.

When I cried

my mother would ask if I'd had a nightmare

I could never explain

that I was crying

for a happy dream

that I had to leave behind.

submitted for Theme Thursday, Treasure

and Gooseberry Garden, Childhood, Dreams