#Prompt 9 – 2023
Halloween
A lightbulb moment
Under the carport
Elbow deep in a black bucket
Rummaging for a trick
Or hopefully a treat
My hands began to tremor with excitement
As I pulled out a cinnamon stick
Hour 9 – Jacket
Jacket
That jacket
The one you wore throughout your childhood
Beet red
Rips at the collar and elbow
A black elk head emblazoned on the back
I see it still
See you in it the night you stole the lightbulb from the carport
Not considering our fort in the woods had no electricity
Your bright red jacket could have been a dead giveaway
But you were always too quick to get caught
I remember the bait you carried in that rusted old bucket
Beet red jacket trudging down the path
Thinking you were going to fish in the bayou
Without a pole, or net, or boat
Just a pailful of smelly old worms
I’d share my stash of Halloween candy with you
Your costume that year a biker in a red jacket
You said you liked the cinnamon ones best
But was that just because you knew I didn’t like them?
You seemed only to have whatever was left over
I remember your tremor when the streetlights came on
Knowing you were expected home
I thought it was leaving play behind that upset you
Never knowing it was the idea of home that made you shake
I wish I had that jacket now
I could sew the torn places for you
Make it look as sharp as you deserve
But nothing can fix what happened to you
And you don’t need a jacket anymore
Definition
Hello, it’s me…
Ain’t the sea of knowledge, but the sea of love, the sea that would never bite your ankles.
Don’t hit me with a letter, since ideas are water, needn’t to make it difficult to swallow.
Give it to me, the shades of excellence, verily, you’ll find from me the wheels of justice.
I’ve had a deep dark secret
which refers to the definition of my happiness. Although I’ve not been given a noisy stomach, but my parents are constant source of my happiness.
Get friends in high places
Get promoted so quickly
There is no wisdom
In flogging a dead horse.
The predefinition
You heard about me: I easily forget
things, if your imagination
can change nature into a picture, you’ll see
Is it obvious ’cause I am
From the locality
Where many rivers flow and the sky bears rainbows.
Hour Nine: Pockets
Pockets
In the bucket
under the carport
is a lightbulb.
She placed it there
so she wouldn’t forget.
In her jacket pocket
she kept a jar of “cinnomen”
as she called it, this woman from the bayou,
to keep away “the bad.”
In the other pocket we found
a shrivel up beet.
And the hole in the elbow
of her jacket was a testament
of her everyday ceremony,
drinking her coffee
on the porch
with her elbow
on the arm
of the wooden rocker her
grandfather made
and no one ever
refinished.
She told us stories of elk
in the meadow where she
moved to raise her children.
They said it was a tremor
that took her.
And in the quiet
as I drink my coffee
leaning on the arm of
the rocker my great grandpa
crafted and no one ever refinished,
I feel her hugs,
this woman of the bayou,
in the jacket I wear with the
shriveled beet and the cinnomen
in the pockets.
post 9
perhaps forgiveness
a beet red jacket, the easy tremor of leaves in the background, some exotic variety of bamboo grown to make a seasonal screen to hide the carport from the house and suddenly two giant swallowtail butterflies on my sleeve just above the elbow, their presence a gift, a lightbulb moment, almost
Reprieve
Reprieve
A bull elk, large rack
on his head, stands
alone in the bayou.
The hunter, in his beet red jacket,
stands in his carport on the hill
above the bayou.
He chews on a cinnamon stick,
its peppery flavor calms
the tremor in his hands.
He lifts the rifle to take aim
But knocks the tin bucket
That hangs by his elbow to the ground.
The lone lightbulb stored there
falls to the cement floor with a crash.
The elk lives to walk another day.
Execution under humming street light #9
Under the orange street light
The stain grew
Spreading out
The colour of ripe beet
Creating a map on his jacket
He sank to his knees
Goner, there was no doubt
And his voice came in a tremor
‘Hey Jack, that you?
Don’t you dump me, Spanish Jack,
In any god damned bayou’
He sank slowly first to his knees
Then slumped over on one elbow
He knew he’d paid his debt
The humming light overhead flickered
It was the only eulogy he would get
His skin the colour of cinnomen
Turned grey as he paid his price
He had lived his very last day
Thrown his very last dice
And as the blood stained
The ground around him
I watched his life die hard
‘Bought a bullet, kicked the bucket,
Played his last sharp card’
I shot again just to be sure
Then removed my elk skin gloves
I’d taken Jim far and away
From everyone he ever loved
I left him in his trunk
In his own carport that night
And drove my cadillac from that place
And on into the night.
Hour six
I didn’t use the prompt. We had a pet die this morning and I chose to instead use my hour six poem to write about the chicken.
Nugget
You were sweet and onery
Quick to escape and a little bit of fun.
We are sorry to see you go
You started out one of the most mean
Of the litter we received,,
But you mellowed quickly.
We named her nugget because
She was onery and quick witted,
Damn it nugget was often heard…
Now we say that for the tears
Cried because we miss you.
Your funeral pyre was glorious
Go ahead, show the gods
You are magnificent!
Depression
DEPRESSION
Draining thoughts
Entangling my mind
Productive energy swept away
Radically unmotivated
Embarrassed to ask for help – I am told to
Suck it up, grow up
Silence
Incredibly
Overpowering
Nudging me to disconnect, disassociate from the world
IX- Heirophant
Atop the hill he stood,
steadfast, immovable
revered by the castle
and the land beneath its spires
Bards spun tales of his skill,
his grace, and the wounds
that would lead him to his cave
He peers out from within
the rock face, motion slowed
by his fairweather gait
and looks beyond the hill
beyond a warrior’s pride
beyond the wildflowers
who would wither within
the disorder of the seasons
Through the marigolds,
a young man appears
valiance written
on his unburdened face
The withered knight
steps into the mid-day sun
to greet the hero seeking
his hard-earned wisdom