Water Lilies

© Shanyn Silinski

Gather 'round and hear my story 

Though it's sad and filled with woe

'Bout a Fairy Princess on a 

hill and her love down below

Wizard king would not approve of 

mixing mortal blood with kin

Told his daughter that to love this 

man was nothing but a sin

Fairy Princess wept so hard

the skies they rained for days on end

and her love, he heard her wailing

vowed to go to her again

Upon entering the kingdom

he did find a fence so high

Wizard King had built it up to

reach the clouds within the sky

Come next morning an alarm

was sounded 'round the kingdom wide

Caught beneath the kingdom's fence

a man was found who'd drowned and died

No one ever knew if her love

drowned on going out or in

and the Fairy Princess in her 

grief was never seen again

She had turned them both to water

lilies floating in the pond

They'll forever be together

not in this world but beyond.

Submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Open Link Monday

and dVerse Poets Pub, Open Link Night 36(because, as usual, I'm too late for Poetics, Once Upon a Time)

Thank You

I was empty 

as a dead man's calendar

when you started scribbling in the squares

Thank you

for reminding me

how good wet paint feels

under my fingers

for showing me

it was okay to scream

even if no one was listening

or if everyone was

Your passion

your heart

runs through my blood

and colors my days

This is just to say

Thank you.

Happy Valentine's Day

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, The Rose Garden, For Valentine's Day

Bringing You Home (for Micael)

So

it's time

for 

good bye

You're leaving

for good

where

I can't

follow you

I don't want just

memories

I have

ink

paper

canvas, paint

I will

bring

you back

home.

Sounds of Silence

Too long silent

Lips sewn shut 

with threads spun of shame

buried

locked away

never to speak the name

But the silence screams louder

than the screams in my nightmares

and the words fight to escape 

their cages, hurling themselves 

against prison bars

I gag them back down
swallow hard

Speak now or

forever

hold your tongue.

inspired by The Sounds of Silence (1965) by Simon and Garfunkel

submitted for Poetic Bloomings, Prompt 16, Playing Favorites

and One Single Impression, Silence

Strokes

image courtesy of Magpie Tales

If I could paint over

all of your hurt

whitewash your wounds

that still smart even after so

many years

when rubbed the wrong way

where would I start?

With the empty spaces 

left in your spirit from

cutting words?

What color would fill them in?

With the mistrust from

lies

told straight to your eyes?

What hue would do for that?

And what brush

would ever be soft enough to

stroke the cheek that's been stung

by too many harsh slaps?

your very walls stained

with splatters of shame

Would I ever have enough paint

to erase the damage 

inflicted by a critic 

who was blind to

your beauty?

submitted for Magpie Tales 78

Not Quite Still Life

Little Girl In a Blue Armchair by Mary Cassatt

This is Miss Cassatt, Child
She has brought her paints
She's here to do your portrait so
There best be no complaints

Sit upon this wooden stool
Do not make a fuss
Be a little angel and
Do not embarrass us

But Mother, dear, this stool, I fear
Is really much too hard
I'm tired and I'm bored
I want to go play in the yard

Don't be so fresh! You listen now
Or else I'm going to scold
Get yourself up on that stool
And do just what you're told

Perhaps that big, blue armchair

Might be a better fit

I'll even let my doggie come

To be in your portrait

Okay, I'll try to sit still but
This dress, it makes me itch
It's stiff and hot and pokes me
I can feel its every stitch

Stop slouching, Child, you've wrinkled
Your lovely little dress
And get that pout off of your face
This portrait's such a mess!

submitted for Poetry Potluck 44, Painting Whispers, at Jingle Poetry

Amber Waves

image courtesy Magpie Tales 72

Amber waves.
She leans out of the back window of the family truck as it pulls away from the farm for the last time and heads down the road. She's already said her goodbyes to the cows and the goats and the chickens but somehow she feels the need to say it to the fields as well.  So she waves.

Yesterday, as she was helping Mama pack the last of their things, she asked, "But what about the song, Mama? What will happen if we leave the farm?"
It took some time and some figuring, but finally Mama understood. She laughed, then gently explained that "amber" was just another word for yellow. Amber always had thought the song was about her, her family's farm--"Amber's waves of grain." She felt better knowing it wasn't. And worse.

As the truck picks up speed, the yellow and orange hues of the wheat fields blur together into a Van Gogh painting.
Amber waves.

submitted for Magpie Tales 72

Sonnet For a Friend

photo source: Gordon Haslett

How do I say goodbye to you, my friend?
I wish on stars but see a waning moon
And though I want to be there til the end
I fear that I may pull away too soon

How to protect a heart from pain I know
There is no anodyne able to heal
The scars I'll wear within me when you go
And grief from sorrow's reach I'm loathe to feel

But who among us has the strength to dare
Consider Death may swing her scythe's blade too
Toward any of us, living unaware
Perhaps, my friend, I'll lead the way for you

And so I'll give you all I have to give
For whatever time that you have left to live.

submitted for Poetry Potluck, Void, Loneliness, and Sorrow, at Jingle Poetry

Please Leave a Message

photo courtesy of Rob Hanson

She dials the number

Ring, ring, click

Hello. You have reached...

Closes her eyes and listens to his voice

We are not able to take your call right now...

The kids say it's morbid, like hearing a ghost

But to her, his voice is like

a warm blanket 

and her bed is so cold

Please leave a message after the tone...

I miss you, she tells him.

submitted for One Shoot Sunday at One Stop Poetry

Pigeon in a Henhouse

cartoon from savagechickens.com

I had a dream last night

I was a pigeon

     stuck in a henhouse.

I looked at all the chickens around me

     and thought "What the cluck am I doing here?"

Then some fat hen

     waddled up to me

     and smug as you can be

     said, "I just love your colorful feathers."

"Thanks," I answered,

     but thought to myself

     "You're one to talk.

     Your breasts are probably shot up full of artificial hormones

     to make them plump,

     you stupid bird."

I asked a hen in the last coop on the left

     what they did for fun around this house.

She just clucked at me disapprovingly and said,

     "Why we lay eggs, of course."

I asked if she wanted to go hang around at a park or

     visit a statue or 

     just stretch her wings a bit.

I must have ruffled her feathers because she waddled off

     clucking even louder.

I could hear her telling the others about me.

What a foul fowl she was!

Suddenly I had a craving for street food

     french fries, bread crumbs, anything really

     but all I could see was chicken feed

     and the hens happily pecking away.

     "It makes us feel secure to know 

     that the food will always taste the same," they said.

Bird brains! No imagination.

Then there was a commotion in the henhouse. 

     Squawking, feathers flying, running about, chaos.

     "He's here, he's here!" the insipid chickens cried with glee.

     "Who's here?" I asked.

     They stared at me as if I had arms instead of wings. 

"The rooster, natch. 

     Though you needn't worry.

     I don't think he fancies foreign girls."

Next thing I knew, some cocky old rooster was staring me up and down.

     "You're not from around here, are you, my little chick-a-dee?"

Before I could cold cock the guy, I woke up. 

I was breathing heavily but 

     all else seemed normal. 

Except for the feather on my pillow.

submitted for Thursday Think Tank 52, Animals, at Poets United

The Writing On the Wall

image source

My 'hood is my canvas
I paint what I feel
Some day I'll be famous                                      
My art is for real

Don't bother no churches
I got more respect
Do more than just taggin'
Ain't what you suspect

You can't buy my art
I do it for me
It don't have a price tag
Don't mean that it's free

My work is raw
It's a force you can't tame
But don't think it ain't art
Cuz it ain't in a frame

These walls are my body
They are most forgiving
They wear my blood proudly
My graff shows I'm living

submitted for One Stop Poetry and the Arts, Graffiti, at One Stop Poetry

The Builder

image source

“I build a painting by putting little marks together–some look like hot dogs, some like doughnuts.” – Chuck Close

  Break me down to make me whole

Stand back and admire your skill

Creator, master of control

Break me down to make me whole

 Revealing secrets of my soul

My life essence you distill

Break me down to make me whole

Stand back and admire your skill.

submitted for Friday Poetically at One Stop Poetry

Mystique

The artist's paradox: 

image source

To capture a moment
To recreate it
     With paintbrush
     Pen
     Pencil
     Camera
Destroys the moment.

Putting a frame around it

means one is no longer

in the moment 

but an observer.

The mystique is gone
for the artist
but is evoked again
in others.

submitted for May Poetry Challenge, Mystique, at Verse in a Nutshell
and Poetry Potluck 36, Sketches, Images, and Impressions, at Jingle Poetry