Arriving Home
Frogs.
Raincoat, steam percolating.
Evening tomatoes, jars.
Children elbow: mystery.
14 Golden Shovel based on Tracy Plath’s Metamorphosis
14 2017 Golden Shovel form from Tracy Plath’s poem Morpheus hour 5 2017 marathon.
Morpheus extended.
By Paul Robert Sanford
I stripped away my outer layers
until I lay naked in the sun,
a yearning Ophelia, unable to complete
my wish for oblivion deeper than sleep,
instead allowing a silence
that was not silent
to fill and heal
an aching teen’s troubled soul.
From Morpheus by Tracy Plath (Used by permission)
Let us go, you and I
our schedule stripped,
stealing a chance to get away.
It has been so long since my
feet carried me into the outer
world. This is the chance to cast away layers
of languid torpor until
you in your modest way and I
singing a free song, a lay,
strip our beings naked.
This is the world we live in.
like moles we have hidden from the
life giving rays of the sun.
No wonder there has been a
dissatisfaction, a yearning.
Like Ophelia
we are unable
to imagine a world to
make us complete
but now, having broken my
bonds and fulfilling my wish
to enjoy the world in a deeper
way. What more do we need than
food and friends and drink and sleep.
Let us celebrate life instead,
seeking out joy and allowing
hope to give us a
burst of energy that will silence
not only the voices that
we hear, but transport us to a state that was
ours when our birth had not
taken place and all was silent
except for the music of our mother’s heartbeat that served to
calm us, and fill
us with the rhythm of life, and
the sounds of voices, music to heal
us and prepare us for the harshness of reality, an
experience called birth that leaves us aching
for the safety of the womb, until eventually a teen’s
imagination tells us only we are troubled,
only we have a soul.
Rush Hour – Hour Fourteen
The traffic begins to croak like frogs
In the rush-hour chorus of the evening
Stop
Start
Red
Green
Lights changing unco-operatively like ripening tomatoes
Beginning at green
Giving the perfect excuse for letting off steam
From under hot stuffy raincoats
Hot under the white collar
Wrapped round their throats
Crammed onto trams
Speeding towards retirement.
Hour 14
Stormy Night
The steam rises from my tea
The candles on the table flickering with my breath
The evening darker than normal
The storm shutting out any lingering sun
The raincoat dripping water steadily
The little storm I let follow me inside
The mystery of my heart on my mind again
The thought of him flowing through my mind
The jars of thoughts in my mind get shoved away
The rain calling for me to leave those thoughts behind
Hour 14: Dormouse
Tea time or nap time
Twinkle, twinkle, little bat
Make mine decaf please
Matrix
Matrix
Where snow capped mountains
Shed their old skins
And passes on life to the new;
Where the ravens sing
The song of death
Where doom vanishes
In the ambiance
And secures the sky;
Where ocean pays homage
By touching the bottom
Where waves lap up
The sands of freedom
And erase old foot paws;
Where stillness of the night
Wreathes in pain
Where emptiness of the sky
Laughs with joyous rapture
And breaks the bonds of shadow;
Where silence stifles
The greater voice
Where hands reach out
To the universe
And claim the earth in hollow.
Hour 12
Hour Fourteen
Write a poem that contains at least five of the following ten words. Feel free to include all ten if you wish.
Frogs
Evening
Tomatoes
Jars
Raincoat
Steam
Peculating
Children
Elbow
Mystery
Summer Fields
By Patricia Harris
The mystery of summer,
The joys that are contained.
A time for catching frogs during the day,
And lighting bugs in the evening late.
For children and fireworks,
Gardens and jars,
Fresh veggies,
And fried green tomatoes.
Raincoats and puddles,
Songs and dancing,
Wedding parties and fun
On beaches under the summer sun.
In the winds and rain
We walked,
Joined at the elbows
Enjoying the each other
In the summer breeze.
Billy Willy #3
Billy Willy
They’d be putting Billy Willy
In the sad corner of the cemetery
Near Mrs. Pringle’s children
All four of them
The baby passed before
She could blink at
Her mother or
Smile at her father
One of the twins
The handsome one
Perished in his sleep
His apartment on fire
Years later his brother
Now the sad twin
Blew his brains out
Folks understanding why
But it would be the last son
Also taking his life
Leaving wife and children
With no explanation
Billy Willy brings his
Hearty laugh and
Good intentions to
This sad corner of the cemetery
Halfway
The dancing nouns have slowed. Nervousness subdued. Kids home dogs feeling neglected confused
Fingers achy minus the pain just eager to use them for writing again everyone has made this a true event so far all is well no need to vent
.
Fruits of my Labor
I stand at the open window
On an evening warm and damp.
The steam rises off the canning pot
I slowly switch on a lamp.
The tomatoes in their canning jars
The children at my elbow
At the open window I stand
Hear the frogs croak their nightly show.
One great mystery in life
Is how I came to be
Standing in my raincoat
With a sea of children surrounding me.