Hour 14, Borderland

Parched and twisted,
my mind reflected the desert
surrounding me this last year,
emptied and lost.

The sun there scorches
and thins all it touches,
a child’s plastic rattle
half buried in the ocher dust
shattered in my hand
when pulled, brittle shards,
and I bled.

I have been concentrated
down to essential elements,
all extraneous softness
near completely drawn away,
dispersed into the driving winds.

Bone and blood yearns
for that which I once knew:
verdant grasses rippling
in a softer, soughing breeze,
trees like sentinels on the horizon
guarding entrance to Eden,
and my tissues expanding to store
the humid green that hovers
within the very air,
the path appearing
before me, pulled home.

“The land knows you, even when you are lost.” Robin Wall-Kimmerer

 

Beginning to End

In the beginning
the world was dark
The stars began to shine so bright
Creatures started to roam around
Scampering, hopping throughout the night.
The trees they grew to reach the sky
Flowers began to fragrantly bloom
Bees were buzzing gleefully
Birds were chirping
Happily
In the beginning.
Then..
In the end
The world was dark
The stars brightness waned
All throughout every night
Not a creature could be found even hiding
The future did not look so bright.
No live trees could be found
No more flowers bloomed
The bees were absent
The birds music
Was gone.
In the end.

ANGEL CUM DEVIL

Ruled by the others she was till date,
Serene and innocent.
A damsel indeed;
Attempting to prevent apocalypse,
With a smile on her face.

But she was made to write her own fate
Growing in the shadow of the apocalypse,
Strong and fierce she became,
An independent queen with fire in her eyes.

Fairytale was her life.
Little did she know,
She was a monster in the making.
Did apocalypse change her?

Angel cum devil
As she thought of herself now,
She understood she was –
An angel
With invisible wings and robe
And
A devil
With invisible horns and tail

Sticks and Stones (Mirror Hay(na)ku, Hour Fifteen)

Sticks and Stones

 

Words

penetrate flesh,

piercing my heart.

 

My mouth moves.

I scream.

Silence.

(A hay(na)ku poem is composed of three lines, the only rule being one word in the first line, two words in the second, and three words in the last line. A reverse hay(na)ku is three lines where the first line is three words, the second is two, and the last line is one word. I compiled the two styles together and created the mirror hay(na)ku… assuming someone out there hasn’t already beat me to it!)

2019 – Fifteen – From Prompt 18, Hour 15, The Beginning – In Principio

Cultures from the Amazon to the Nile,
have dreamed of gods to bring them to their lives,
the better to explain life, and to while
away night hours with mighty tales of wives
and children, husbands living just like them,
just out of sight. Whose stories are the same
but grand in ways to demonstrate mayhem
beyond their comprehension, without shame.

But if they really knew the depths of space
and how long it has come, how far to go,
would they ignore their gods, let reason come?
Or would they shout, “The bang began the race!”

For me, my seat to see the Kick Off Show,
would be amongst the gods, to question some.

In the beginning/post apocalypse

Sshhh, silence echoes

What a thought, shooting star

Catch it, light it on fire and set it free

Dancing in circles, surround by watchers

A separation between space and time, thought.

In the beginning was an idea. And we Dance.

---

---

The darkness in man has been let free, not like you have seen in the movies of old, so I’ve been told stories use to have pictures moving.

The world is cold to the touch, what can grow here? A fire surrounds the wanders, where can we go? No one knows why man fell but we are here now.

Surviving this deserted garden. Turn and be eaten, eat and be turned. Ill forgotten, lost in plain sight; a child still wonders. *smile*

The only yesterdays we remember, running, fighting, freezing in fire, the water is on fire, eat what a goal maybe tomorrow.

Fighting striving for that next breath, not to be on top just to have enough to wake up. Do it all again, ready or not

fire consuming the man himself. Pick your desire, worst than animals we’ve become.

In this last note I write a civilized cry. A memory lost, a dream, maybe even hope. A poem lost to time. A language gone.

I will wake tomorrow, but tomorrow I will be gone.

Understand, if found, pure thought can be sung-song, writ-poem, numbers rule the universe, All Around you death, there is art in hateful sorrow.

Respect the Strugggle

*Always find a reason to SMILE*

Beginning to End

Anxiously awaiting~

she longs to create

it is herself, she can’t escape

 

Purposely Pointed

tired and disjointed

ready for re-birthing

The beginning of the end

 

 

Amanda Potter©: 2019 Poetry Marathon

 

 

First Day

poem 15

First day of freshman year.
My heart slams in my chest and rattles my rib cage.
I hear my shoes squeaking on the linoleum floor.
I glance at my phone.
Ten minutes until the bell rings.
My best bet is to hide out for a few minutes before I go to class.
I make a beeline for the bathroom.
It’s poorly lit and there are no paper towels
but at least, for a moment,
I am alone.
I wash my hands,
dry my wet fingers on my new jeans,
and head to the classroom.
The first to arrive,
but my teacher greets me with a smile that makes me feel welcome.
“Sit anywhere, honey.”
I try to comply.
The desks are arranged in groups of four,
pushed together like tables.
Picking one seems a staggering task.
I sit down, praying to catch a glimpse of a familiar face soon.
My prayers are answered.
My eighth grade friend is the second person to walk through the doorway.
We greet with relieved smiles.
We are in this together.
A nervous blonde girl asks to join us at our table.
She is friendly and makes a successful attempt at breaking the ice.
The three of us have the same second hour.
A sigh of relief.
Our teacher hands out a syllabus and explains the rules,
and we spend the remainder of the hour talking.
Conversation starts slowly, then flows.
We are equally nervous,
but somehow nerves feel better shared.
For the first time all day, my smile is real.
This is the first hour of my first day of my first year of high school.
Breathe.
It gets better.

-h.e.m.

Hour 15: Freckles

I didn’t have freckles when I was young

I noticed the first one when my first crush broke my heart

The next was when my best friend became my enemy

Each heart break brought a new freckle, a new scar

The deeper the connection the darker the freckle

My darkest appeared the day my grandma passed

Each one a story of love and loss

The physical to my emotional scars

 

I wasn’t feeling this hours prompt so I decided to skip it. Pinterest has been useful for when I switch out a prompt.

B.H.

Before
Humans
there was peace

There was predation, yes,
and pain, but the world lacked the
torture, murder, and blatant selfishness
that only the human animal
brings to the proverbial table.

Before people, there was nature.
Back when ever-expanding cities
(who now bulldoze all
that stands in their way)
weren’t even a thought. Weren’t presumed
the necessity (to whom?) that they now are.
The natural world was unscathed by our
greed, our endless capacity for destruction.

Before men and women, there were animals,
now long since deceased. Our thoughtless
actions the direct cause of their species
dying.
We don’t notice, refuse to open our
eyes, as long as their absence
doesn’t affect our standard of living.

The world was far better off
before
humans.