And Yet the Cage Remains
The walls and the sickness
and the deathless persistence of disability
and the screens
and the porn
and the life struck by terror
as it searches in all directions
unable to find the sea.
Prompt 23, Hour 23
Home stretch now!
Write a poem about an imaginary pet or person. The poem can be from your perspective, the perspective of a neutral third party, or from the perspective of the imaginary pet or person themselves.
Our Quarantined 2020
We laugh around the fire
as its light flickers on all our lit faces.
Beer, wine, vodka, peach whiskey,
Sweet spiked, or bitter,
Whatever the taste, it’s a lit crowd
of raucous friends.
He tells the same stories
again and again – about the island
and all the elk he’s shot.
He’s lit, and the light from his face
never ceases to charm us all.
She drinks vodka and soda,
but is never too drunk.
My choice is usually wine,
though beer is better in this atmosphere.
I wonder what warms us most…
Hour 22 — Journey to the Light
Beth A. Fleisher
Hour 22
Prompt 22: Choose an image and write a poem about it.
Journey to the Light
I am stuck in the darkness,
But the light is in front of me, I can see it clearly now,
Warm and golden inside the basalt cave,
Beckoning me to come.
The journey has been long and arduous,
And I grow weak from the battle.
I am starving for the light, and I’m almost there.
But the worst rocks block my path now,
Hundreds of them, piled deep across the shoreline,
Treacherous to walk across,
Ready to twist and shift under my feet.
But that is the only path to the light,
So I must travel it.
As I step with determination onto the first boulder,
The light from the basalt cave illuminates
A path across the rocks that could not be seen
From the safety of the shore.
Each step I take, each boulder I conquer,
The light in front of me becomes brighter,
The pathway becomes clearer.
Moving more confidently now,
I find the boulders are anchored in my mind.
One final sprint across the rocks,
And I’m standing at the entrance to the cave.
The light is so intense, it penetrates to the bone,
Melting all the frozen places in an instant.
Light becomes music. I am alive. I am whole.
My mind and my body vibrate with the energy,
Resonate with the frequency.
432 Hz. Perfection in sound and light,
The eternal balance for all things.
Billets-Doux:
Pre-dawn madrigal; tender ache tugs at
faint consciousness of her awakening
on another continental shelf – a dream away.
Awareness of her form stirring, responding to
the tinkle and clunk of the routine and mundane.
Only she could bestow such beauty to this hour.
Strands of auburn, scents of musk, rustle and
rush; the fumble of fingers, the urging, the fuss.
A love past rues in the quietness of its world….
Love letter written at 0300 hrs,
but what better way to start the day?
A Letter #18
Little darling,
you will hear these stories as you grow
of how you were born at a time
when the world as I knew it fell
and unseen powers waged war
How the days lengthened into months
as nurses ran from bed to bed
in slow motion under fluorescent lights
to a soundtrack of cries and coughs
How the rich lived with doors closed
and the poor could not breathe outside
how some gave up everything they had
so that another could see tomorrow
How I feared for you looking at numbers
watching even the strongest break
as heartless regimes plundered what was left
leaving nothing in their wake
How we learnt to hold hands across distances
to speak through our eyes
to stop and wonder where we were
what a miracle it was to be alive
How I stood unsure when fear arrived
but faced it, every day in the dark
how I loved you better for all of it
for the hope you bring to my life.
Pixie Bath
Beyond the farthest meadow,
In the center of a hill,
There rests a quiet burrow
Behind an ice flow, never still
And in that ice-cold grotto,
One can find – from time-to-time,
A tiny pixie winnow
While she bathes with wild thyme
She sings a song of summer
And she sings a song of wheat
And the melody becomes her
As she sings with voice so sweet
‘Hallu, kallay, newcomer,’
She greets with words her own
‘I’m seeking out a drummer
Who can sing in baritone,’
Her voice trills into laughter
Filled with honey-sweet appeal
When she finds your eyes lech after
Her shape, so perfectly surreal
‘Or, perhaps you’d be a crafter
Who might make a ring f’r me?
Since, if it’s me y’ur heart’s sought after
You’d best know how to shrink y’ur key!’
Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band
it’s an exclusive bunch of people who don’t know their
elbow from an oboe. they sit up in their ivory tower without
the slightest clue of what’s going on down below but regardless
regardless they let their pretentiousness consume them to the
point where nothing is staring back at them in the mirror.
they claim they’re so goddamn superior to anyone not affiliated with
their club but in actuality the ignorance lies only within them and that’s
not something that can be rectified without the proper tools.
Before Dawn
Before Dawn
Your worries, a mansion too high
for me to glide over without wings.
I would have stolen you and slay
whatever stays our way to wedge us
for loneliness to stitch its venom
into us again. How can you be
alone in these walls where fears
come in the regalia of night and
nightmares are too impatient to
wait for darkness to swallow light.
A feather of a holy bird won’t do
the magic; at least, there’s a sign
of light in the outskirts of a cave,
a home for the bruised, longing
for the promised light, like crystals.
I do not fear if these walls have ears
like the one in the tales grandpa
told me. Poke your ears into the flesh
of these walls, and hear the deluge
of songs like the rain in Noah’s day.
Echo it aloud; you must return into
your body before the next dawn.