5-Ari (a freeform haiku triplet)
Tiniest bursting, expanding our Universe with pure love and joy
gingerborn toehead, your cottony perfection redefined angels
…and then you were gone. I never held you, but I cleaned away your blood.
Hour Five – write about a dream…
Can it be true?
Is that your face I see?
Welcome!
Please sit and talk with me
I’ve missed you so
It’s been far too long
Where do we begin?
I have much to catch you up on
What do you mean you cannot stay?
Heaven has had you for years
It’s my turn again
I need you near
Where are you going?
Stop fading away
I heard you say you’re proud of me
How so? In what way?
STOP!
STOP!
WHERE ARE YOU?!
Awake.
gj
Vision
. . . and I look down to realize I am rowing a boat. My arms create waves that loop white on blue-purple water. With each stroke, I come closer to the shore where the castle stands. Three more heaves, two more, and this final one come before I step onto the crag. Doors immediately open to me, and I look up high as I enter this castle. Treading upon the floor of a chess board, I note billowing clouds through the windows above opening to the sky. One step speeds into hundreds, and I stand in the center of hallways, but which to walk? Down one hallway I come upon self-portraits: two years old, then fifteen, then twenty, thirty five, fifty into ages beyond me now. Am I seeing my future? I wonder, for on the wall opposite I find the memories for those years. Memories yes - but I don't recall until just now, this walk, this moment. The hallway ends, and I stand on yet another crag, this a mountain with a path back down the hill to where I've been or a new boat with billowing sails, positioned towards the now setting sun. The day has passed. Which choice do I make?
5. Thank You
I asked you something, never really expecting a response.
Yet, you came to me later
I could smell your perfume
And hear the subtle timbre of your voice
All at once, I knew
You spoke of many things
Alluded to much more
When it was over, I sat beside myself
Crying
Thank you
2019 #5-Act of defiance
I wish I could wield
These fiery synapses
Like a pen
Drawing lines at my discretion
Coloring and shading at my will
But they resist
I cannot control their narrative
I am but a player
Free-falling and directionless
Under the blindness of my nocturnal occasions.
Conflation
A poet friend asks me to take a photo of her
with a younger woman I don’t know.
They hide their faces with Japanese fans
while I fumble with a disintegrating camera.
Stacked cubes appear in the middle of the image.
My beloved partner in the puzzlers’ league appears,
even though she died last month.
She introduces me to a tall, gray-haired woman…
Hour Five – Reflection on Time
Image courtesy of Annca at Pixabay
Once upon a Summer Dream
On a beach tinted gold
By the rays of Sol,
I watched shadows
Growing old too soon
And disappear…
Startled, I saw the sun dive out of sight
Making way for
An overly- eager moon
And suddenly, it was dark…
But, as Luna smiled upon the ocean,
She turned the golden beach to silver…
I barely had a minute to admire the scene
When her silver began to fade
As she bowed out
And left only the stars behind;
I smiled and winked at my special star,
Amazed at how fast her glitter seemed to dim…
Early dawn, and Sol was back,
Galloping across the sky
And a few moments later
Luna smiled upon the waves again,
Then bowed and disappeared…
Leaving only the stars again
Disappearing in fleeting moments…
In retrosppect, I couldn’t help
but realize the tragedy of time
Just hurtling by us as we,
In ignorance, perpetually fail
To grip, and take hold of,
Even a single moment…
And virtually let our entire life slip away
And disappear…
Antoinette LeRoux © 2019
Death and the Ark
The sun shone brightly,
we, children of our parents
playing effortlessly, laughing, running, not a care in the world.
Soldiers marching in the street
people lifelessly falling to the earth, rat-a-tat-tat,rat-a-tat,
distant scared-to-death-screaming, scrambling to get under-cover.
Please, God, let me hide, in the closet, a soldier screams loudly to the little girl in German.
As i close my eyes, the vision of pooling red blood is all i can see as i lay quietly praying not to be noticed.
Walking, walking, walking, alone.
I see a hill in the distance,
people weary, hungry, scared,
carrying weeping babies, ushering the elderly up higher with each labored breath.
Where is my brother? I can’t see my parents as I search the crowds that are gathering at the top.
There are sheep, goats, cows, ducks, dogs! Where is my dog, is she here? I frantically call her name, then stop abruptly when i see a tall, humble looking younger man leading those who are gone astray to an Ark!
Tho’it’s on a hill in the form of a building, i slowly enter and see my brother and my dog!
What a joyous occasion! We are all safe for now, far away from the fighting and chaos. But where
are my parents?
5. The Messenger V
Four years have gone
I can’t believe it
Since I started writing
About my future and
It started Manifesting
More and often bigger
Than I ever imagined
Now, I am pushing it to the next level
Writing the story of
How it all happened
And is still happening
Exactly as I wrote it and beyond
The best part is that
If I want to re-write
Any part of any story
I can update it easily
Ambiguity
I entered my home and found myself in a fish market
Where I dipped my hand in a tub
And emerged with a fish, wriggling out of my grasp.
A tiny bottle flew to my other hand
And I squeezed,
The scent of sampaguita wafting to my nostrils.
A door opened and I could swear that I saw my priest
Lying on the bed, his innards on display,
His faint Our Father floating towards my ears
As I climbed down the stairs to the bottom of the ocean
Where the bed was made of soft rocks.
I picked one, read about my future,
And somewhere, a ringing was telling someone
That there wasn’t enough time
To feast on the waterfalls.