7 is in the books
Some need new digs
To feel good
Or hit the town.
As for me, I just need to throw on a wig
Add a lil rouge
A small helping of Unxle Scrooge’s loot
And I’ll be ready to hit the town in my favorite dancing boots!
Prompt 8 (Poetry Marathon)
“Untitled”
Wild cat! Wild cat! set it on fire
Burst it out!
Pine trees and oaks sleeps beneath the silent night.
Yes! that old oaks and pines.
Questions about old soul,
Raising hands for your attention.
Can you see them from your rear view?
The dark nights of old blue.
Two hands up, suprise me back
It surprise me back, again and again.
Old soul runs back and forth
Left or right, before the light breaks back.
(C) M. E. Flores
Cat Television (Hour 8)
The back window draws the cats for daily views.
The squirrels scampering up the bird feeder pole,
Shaking sunflower seed to the ground,
The finches, the cardinals, the blue jays, the pigeons,
So many birds to fly around.
Paused at the window, ready to pounce only if they could.
Their tails twitch, excited meows they do make.
Then they turn and chase each other,
More energy to run and shake.
Later curled up in a ball, cat napping in comfy place.
Hour 7, Prompt 7 Season of the Hunted
Season of the Hunted
Before I learned
to conceal my pink bunny nose and twitchy whiskers,
to hide my shiny, sleek fox tail,
to cover up my sweat,
to slow the pounding of my heart,
I moved and smelled and loved like prey.
Intended growls of rage always came out a softer mew,
a kitten’s snarly spat.
I played with
wolfmen,
bear types,
and sharks.
All alphas,
all sharp teeth and rough tongues,
all big hands and bigger egos.
All hungry for
tiny toes painted with strawberry pink polish,
sugary, parted lips,
knees, thighs, eyes, to be tense with anticipation.
All demanding.
I hopped too far,
far into the rabbit hole, I fell,
too far and off the deep.
I was the hunted –
the chosen wild.
I ran further from them, and, unknowingly, closer to you.
Pain and fear driving a single-minded desire to escape.
To never love again, to run, faster-
harder.
You pursued.
I caught your scent and intent
somewhere after a thicket of raspberry bushes and honeysuckle,
lilacs tangled in my hair,
heart thumping,
jumping,
like it knew you.
I was so undeserving and you were so relentless.
I bled, you repaired. I wept, you embraced.
I was the worst of my kind, and you,
you had the audacity to love me anyway.
5. Peace Within Me
Stars float into the ocean as I drive into the night sky
I wonder if the nights are as lonely for the creatures in the sea as they are for me.
Sleepily, I look into the sky as I rock in my canoe.
Listening only to the ripples of the water,
Seeing only the bright silver dots in the endless curtain of darkness.
I wonder if the beauty I see tonight is overlooked by the creatures of the land.
Dipping my fingertips into the refreshingly freezing water,
As I feel the warmth and humidity of the summer breeze against my cheek.
Gazing into the moon, there is a feeling of deep calmness I achieve on this rocking boat…
I wonder if I will ever gain this sense of peace with myself when I’m surrounded by the city.
Poem 8
At last I came there – where she worked and died.
One bed, one window, one door – nothing else.
Her bed unable to tell of all she led.
I found one board raised up and dug in there
I dug up the poorly spelled truth laid bare.
Hour 8 Comfort
Moonbeam shines through the window.
She watches the rain slam the concrete porch floor.
The roof has needed to be fixed far too long.
Money is scarce, she isn’t the only one suffering.
The aroma of coffee drifts under her door.
She perks up like a flower under the sun.
She bumps the shelf on her way to the kitchen
and picture frames crash to the floor.
She scolds herself and remembers,
no more beating yourself up.
She shakes it off.
The hush of the coffee maker finishing its deed
fills the room. The warmth as she drinks comforts her soul.
Everything will be okay.
Eleanor Rigby
Leave the rice on the floor where it belongs.
Dreamland is not your home no matter how much it beckons to you.
Day after day, you wear a surreal mask that you keep in the folds of your existence.
Don’t let anyone else see it or you’ll vanish off the face of the earth
and for what? Just to come home and write a speech that will never see the light of the day?
No, there’s more than you can perceive in any given existentialist theory
and when all is said and done, your memory will jump right into that grave
as you struggle to discern what it was all for in the first place.
Eleanor Rigby: the one who swam so far just to drown in shallow waters.
You are gone
Alone…
I drown in memories
The tumbler that held your coffee
The pens that touched your fingers
The gaze you threw from across the romm
Alone…
I emerge from memories
Casting away your soft whisper
Tamping the areas you have touched
Refusing to shed the tears
…that meant you are gone.
Season of the Covid – hour 7, prompt 7
Covid 19 is its name
slithering snakelike is its game
come from China, virus be
has changed the world eternally
some surfaces it stays for days
infected breath, the devil plays
the elderly, infirm it preys
so we shut down economy
inside houses, no more free
and outside, only essentials be
unless you have to shop, oh gee
and then we found our shelves empty
of soap and paper and TP
and then New York and New Jersey
numbers climbing, jumping so high
like Freedom Tower touches the sky
then slowly, shops they open more
somewhat starts feeling like before
but protesters, summer renters galore
Memorial week, they crowd the shores
and just like that, social distance
was all ignored, people in a trance
from growing bored inside their homes
and baring teeth to see justice done
now, stricter rules as spikes in cases
sadden our once happy faces
but you can’t see the sad no more
a mask hides that, In public and stores
but in Covid numbers there’s light
recovery worldwide is 99 percent, that’s right
and maybe someday, after November
we’ll see no more Covid monster.
– Sandra Johnson