24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
Muse #4: The Deer
Frannie Z
At the Game Farm,
a young deer
grabbed hold
of my mom’s skirt
and worried it
with her teeth,
thinking my mom
some large print-embossed
flower.
Forty years later,
after she died,
two male deer
crashed into our yard
in autumn rutting season.
Then, in May,
a fawn
tiptoed under
the neighbor’s hedge
and crossed
over a fallen tree.
She stood,
fearless,
until we inched
the camera out.
Then she fled.
For hour four, I applied the prompt to a poem I had already started a few minutes before. First, the finished poem:
The dream is always the same
Who told bigger lies?
I know, it wasn’t a contest
but I’m always looking for that edge
You may have been better at it
but I made up the difference with sheer quantity
Our self-delusions reached deep into the core
planting the seeds that churned up the earth
as they grew into the monster that devoured us
and left us for dead
We pretended to be the walking wounded
but the truth had other ideas
We buried the corpses and moved on
Here is the poem with all twenty lines, with strikethrough applied to the lines I removed.
Who told bigger lies?
I know, it wasn’t a contest
but I’m always looking for that edge
I think it was a toss-up
You lied to yourself
I lied to myself
You may have been better at it
but I made up the difference with sheer quantity
Our self-delusions reached deep into the core
planting the seeds that churned up the earth
as they grew into the monster that devoured us
eating far too quickly, ignoring its mother’s warnings
threw us up
just like mother said it would
(always listen to your mother)
and left us for dead
We pretended to be the walking wounded
hoping someone would take pity on us
but the truth had other ideas
We buried the corpses and moved on
(13 August 2016)
Before I go down to the river
Lend me your hand
So I can understand how
The way your veins run with blood
And how the water runs over rocks
Are the same
Sleep shattered purple night,
dreams slivered upon the floor
the frame’s glass reflects the moon’s shimmer.
Some reckless chase by old
fur baby brothers
leads to chaos reigned.
They at least have the decency to appear contrite.
Embarrassed mostly,
that their bulk does not run
to nimble passage along a well arranged shelf.
The blessing is the shards were large,
all accounted for,
no barefoot danger to concern me.
Sleep may lie down once more,
though thoughts are going
to chase questions awake.
My muse has left the building
The music has stopped playing
And the brush no longer paints.
I don’t understand why she left,
She was just going out for some
Froyo and never came back.
I have tried her phone, Instagram,
And Facebook. She seems to have
Me blocked. Did I say something wrong?
How does one apologize to a muse?
I am sorry my drawing was ugly, my words
Harsh, my chords dissonant.
I will try to continue my work, but the
Cracks are obnoxiously clear, I fear
Everyone can feel, my muse has left me.
Muse
Lue
August 13, 2016
I am going to miss her smile and the curve of her face. There will be silence where her laugh used to be, nothing to echo around the house but the sullen padding of my footsteps.
I’ll miss the warmth in her eyes in the morning when I see her wrapped up beside me, seeking my curves for closure because her mind is scary at night and I have once again held her through it.
I will miss her.
And no amount of positive poetry or survivors of the same heartbreaking can tell me that I won’t. Because I won’t listen.
I would not love her if she was not worth being missed.
She has lit up every room I have been in for years and my soul was aching to be tangled up in hers and now it will be restless in my loneliness.
I will miss her.
I will miss her guidance.
Her friendship.
I will miss my best friend laying in her pajamas for our third movie night in a row. She always picks better movies.
I will miss how beautiful my future looked with her in it. I have to spend days cutting her out of pictures that don’t exist yet.
I will miss those pictures, those memories that have not happened.
My heart ache will be visible. And when strangers ask me what is wrong, I will simply say I miss her. In any voice.
Because that is all there will be.
Even if I found It I don’t know if
I would know that it was
good for me
And even if I knew it I don’t
Believe I’d see how good that
it could be
And even if I held it in my hand
I don’t think I could understand
how much it meant to me
Minims and crotchets
Of hungry black crows
On shorn autumn fields.
Rewriting the music of the season
As they rise and swoop and fall.
(c) Anne McMaster 2016
I was born with a full head of hair
and I have worn it long
always
at 49 and 11/12ths years old
my hair is exactly the same
as when I was 4 and 11/12ths years old
long
straggly
splittish ends
brushed only in the morning
a day’s worth of adventures captured in my hair
at 4 or 49 my hair looks best braided
two braids
nothing fancy, no French braids or fishtail braids
two braids, one on the left and one on the right, three strands each
you can sleep in them and wake up the next day
and do nothing to your hair
but go out for new adventures
at 4 I added ribbons of all the colors
at 49 I add a bandanna of all the colors
but since the day I was born
I have waited
and wanted
and wished
for my hair to turn gray
not above my ears like it is now
but the full full head of gray hair that others want to wash out
I’m ready to wash in
was born ready
to begin
my moonlight soliloquy