Frogs of the Evening
The brightest tomatoes
are lined up on the windowsill
ready for parboiling, and
putting up into Mason jars.
A raincoat drips in the hallway
while steam gathers in the kitchen.
The children are hollering
and running through the house,
while the woman’s elbows bend
to the quiet rhythm of her work.
The frogs at dusk groan deeply
this time of the year. They discuss
the mystery of winter mud,
and the slow approach of renewal.
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Shoggoth (poem 13)
I
Don’t.
II
But, of course, you must.
As we all must.
The Great Eye waits for each
In turn to meet its gaze.
III
The shoggoth whirled in the cosmic winds.
It was all.
IV
A man and a woman
Are none.
A man and a woman and a shoggoth
Are infinite.
V
I do not know what to prefer,
The beauty of chaos
Or the beauty of the Elder Things,
The tentacle suckling
Or just after.
VI
The shadow crosses the stars,
An indecipherable curse
In an ancient tongue: “Tekeli-li!”
VII
Oh men of Sarnath,
Why do you covet golden idols?
Green lights in the mists;
They come to reclaim what’s theirs
VIII
Dreadful, inescapable rhythms;
I know the shoggoth is involved.
IX
When the shoggoth leaves,
Its tentacles inscribe many circles
X
At the sight of ruins,
Impossible geometries
Wrought of ivory unknowably vast,
Even the creatures of Ib
Cry out sharply.
XI
He rode over Celephais
In a dream.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook his own shadow
For a shoggoth.
XII
The chaos is crawling.
The shoggoth must be approaching.
XIII
It was evening for a thousand years.
It was raining
And it was going to rain.
The shoggoth sat
In a tangle of limbs.
Afternoon Waltz #4
Afternoon Waltz
Slapping soaked rags to the floor
She lifts her Crocs and settles
She stretches across the kitchen
Waltzing the Blue Danube
Coffee stains disappear with ease
While sticky juice droplets
Require another pass or two
Until their cling is forever gone
Into the bucket she rinses
And slaps to continue gliding
Now The Waltz of the Flowers
She danced as a child
In time the rags are dark
The floor showing no signs
Of early morning breakfasts
She twirls for the applause
Hour 5
The time is, 2PM or, frankly, central time 12:00
My clock chimes on my laptop undisturbed
By my being.
I’m at brunch
With two delightful beings
Who would rather discuss the world
Than anything else
Be it, 2, or 12, or 9:00
In Tunisia they bake their bread in the sand
We would never
Something about zoning violations
Or even pettier
Just to avoid court letters
For 6, or 8, or any o’clock
Simple method though, this sand bread
Easy ingredients and large enough to fill
The mouths of many, so families
Can work and be healthy
And share bread at no demand of the clock
They skipped meals, I know they did
And they would send their kids to school without any bread
No, not the ones in Tunisia
The ones in Chicago
Pricey shoes but no food
And we could compare sand bread
Simple ingredients
But the same comparison still
No one would let you bake it here
No not here
And the families with kids who have shoes and no food
The system keeps it simple
Keeps it simple
Do one thing without the other and have the roof over your head
Let your child suffer a while and eventually you’ll all be fed
But just like sand bread
Those grains baked into the growing flour
Have to be beaten out
By knocks on doors and reality bruises
Something wonder bread kids live without
But do you know how many ingredients are in wonder bread?
The exact opposite of simple
And those kids spend the rest of their lives doing too much
Thinking they are getting ahead and exhausting every extreme
Never seeing the simple joys
Of flour, oil, and salt
A different sort of clock
The time it takes to bake the bread is the time it needs
No one lives within their means
And the systematic racism keeps the time from being
Anything but run down
Suspended Animation
Steam rises from summer sidewalk, fat droplets fall from humid air
evening rumbles with heat lightning and frogs rumble with mating calls.
August won’t ask for a raincoat, and July won’t keep still in a jar.
The Pond
Frogs
Are caught
By children
And kept in jars
With luck, they return to the pond in evening
Their life spared adds new mystery next day
When children once more
Catch their frogs
Once more
Jars
#13 A Rule of Earth Changes
The children worked and tilled the soil,
they had to do the work and toil,
they did the jobs and got the pay.
It wouldn’t always be that way.
Upon their eighteenth year on earth,
they had earned what they were worth.
It was then that they retired,
some other child would then be hired.
The adults they then were left to play,
do as they wished with friends all day.
When babies came the children got,
to teach them things that they’d been taught.
The adults drank cocktails by the pool,
there was no time for going to school.
The kids made sure their folks were fed,
never grumbled about going to bed.
After this single switch occurred,
little grumbling was ever heard.
The grown-ups knew they had it good,
the kids knew someday soon they would.
The previous rules had all been wrong,
keeping adults at work too long,
while they had longed to simply be
able to be wild and free.
The choice had come to try to see,
if all the youthful energy,
could help the world efficiently run,
while preserving most of life for fun.
After just one generation,
there was a real United Nation,
nobody cared or really knew about the “Great Switcheroo”,
It simply was the way things are.
Peace on earth had come that far!
dial it back
dial it back
The dial rests in my hands –
all of time rests in my hands,
all
I
need
to do is
turn it
forward
or
back.
All of time rests in my hands.
Mine alone.
Only my time alters in this strange new world.
I have to choose where I go –
when I go –
forward
or back
but once.
Only one turn,
one use only.
All else in my world would be altered.
No going back.
Would I turn the dial to 17 or 18?
Would I try that world –
that life –
would I meet you at that age?
Just to see what that would be like?
Those years were bitter and cruel for me.
Would it be worth it?
Losing all I hold dear?
Would it be worth it?
Or would I spin forward
just enough that it wouldn’t matter to anyone but us,
leaving us to ourselves,
our life,
our lives?
I hold the dial in my hand,
truly bound at a crossroads so heavy
as to buckle me under the weight of its possibilities.
I crush it to powder
with the weight of possibility,
choosing not to make a choice as the safest way out.
It was the first time I had ever taken that path.
R. L. Elke
©Aug 5/17 prompt 13
Block
The block party was beginning to wind down
The evening had long since drew down her curtains into the dark of night
the percussion of frog ribbits moved everyone to a relaxed beat
Steam rose from the remaining still-sizzling burgers and hot dogs on the grill
Fireflies were caught in jars poked lids, carried by the most careful of the children
Stories were shared by the oldest of neighbours. People who had long moved away or passed on to the hereafter were made present again
the ghosts shared a beer and toasted to living
The fireflies called out for help
The gnats came and tried their best
But it was the mosquitos who buzzed and bizzed in everyone's ears
That drew the night to a close
the fireflies were let go, one by one
by the sleepy eyed parent of each child
The grill was extinguished with the last of beer
The block celebrated another night, and the ghosts made their way home
(This isn't done by any chance, just really burned out now, will revise)