Scarecrow

artwork by Eoin MacLochlainn

You let loose your crows

to pluck the grains from my splintered heart

I stand in the field

cracked and open

Bones escaping skin

Blood colored earth

red clay beneath my collapsed form

A broken scarecrow

Plucked too clean

to even crawl away

I tried to protect what was mine

But your talons were razors

against my flesh

Your beak too acute

Go on and scatter the seeds

of my trust

Your garden will grow to be

such an attractive quilt of lies.

submitted for Sunday Whirl, Wordle 206

Beneath the Violets

source

Although he should have know he would get caught

His boundless arrogance encouraged him

He couldn't understand how he got got

Male vanity so often makes wits dim

Desirous of both the sun and shade

Well, you know how that greedy story goes

His rendezvous deep in a forest glade

He thought it secret but we know talk flows

They both confronted him with all his lies

Dried tears upon their faces cold as stone

Where trust no longer flourishes, love dies

For all his sins, he never could atone

He's buried in their yard beneath the lawn

The violets now grow brighter since he's gone.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Sunday Challenge, Bout Rimes

Trompe de la Coeur

Still Life, 1670, detail by Jean François de Le Motte

Last night I made a bonfire

with last season's leaves

and your love letters

You were a master with words

I believed every lie you wrote

because you wrote it so beautifully

and I want to believe

in beauty

A trompe de l'oeil painting

seems so real until

you look closely and see your mistake

Your words were a trompe de la coeur

a trick of the heart

I burned your words

with the dead leaves

The fireflies blinked crazy fiesta lights

around the fire

and I toasted a marshmallow over the blaze

It tasted so sweet.

submitted for The Mag,  Mag 121

and Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Open Link Monday