Awarded for entry titled ‘Peace’.
This week I nominate Mark.

For every step
And hour met
We join and shout, “Hurray!”

We start this life
One shape, one form
As the vase that flowers hold.

But we grow, we change
We rearrange
We fall-and break the mold.

Don’t mourn the vase,
Your tear to waste,
Lost-asleep within the sand.

It forms in surf
A different worth
A sea glass treasure grand.

So-

Erase the year
Ignore the date
Face those mirrors down.

The measure of
Your age and worth
In heart and soul is found.

My words break, like waves on rocks
Worn like sea stones
Blank as your eyes,
Smooth like frosted glass.

I am parched,
Surrounded by the sea
The sound of surf is the sound
of my pulse in my quiet ears.

I stand in the sun and shiver
The salt on my lips the only taste.
Though I stand in the sand with you by my side,
I am marooned.

Perhaps I should,
Like the rain
And the mist,
Follow the falling
rivers and streams.
The drops and the drips
snake and turn.
Ebb and flow
over rocks and mud,
over grass and leaves.
Rinse the world clean
and pull it all after me.
Formless and free
To
plunge,
to
fall.

Wanted: one Muse to aid in inspiration and creativity for the writing of my novel and various lines of poetry. Must show up everyday and at reasonable hours. No 1:30am brainstorming wake-up calls, please. Must stay for entirety of time alloted for writing. No sneaking off for a “coffee break” and taking the rest of the day off. (That Bitch.)  Must be able to stay on task and not stare off daydreaming about that other book you read. Editing and critiquing are NOT part of the job description.  Will be paid with wine and chocolate.  If interested, apply immediately and be ready to work.  Oh, and no flirting with the husband.  Keep your gremlies off.

This was a poor attempt to put into words the helplessness felt watching my child suffer. This is very raw, unedited and untouched since the day I wrote it about two years ago. So…forgive the all the whiny drama.

I could not reach you.
You were gone to a land of nightmares
And static dreams.

Born a foreigner in your homeland,
You wander,
And my maps point the way but not the means.

A poor guide
I try to lead you, blindfolded, down a maze I never walked
While your belly gnaws like a wound.

I see you surface in your eyes
Before it pulls you down again
And I try to fight it for you
Though I can neither see nor name it.

You must think I have failed you.

Picture by Aline

I dug way down
until the dirt rose around me
and the smell of earth was everything
and I tasted the dirt on my teeth.

Until the sky was narrowed to a small window
And the clouds were just quick things,
darting and gone.

Until the sounds were far away
Until the ground was chill, untouched by the sun.
Until the roots reached out to brush my cheeks, stroke my hair.

I dug way down until I found it.
Then I lay down
in the damp
in the dirt
in the quiet
to wait.

Thank you, Poets Rally.

Sanity is a fragile thing,
Not a thing to live in barren worlds.

Flames licked little bones,
The waters came and flooded her lungs,
And I watched the rise and fall of man,
In the eons between each breath.

Still, Death kissed her once-rounded cheeks.
I, unarmed against the carelessness of microbes,
Am left to ponder the ways of worms, clay, and roots.

I am taken aback at the silence of Armageddon,
Gazing upon the gaping wound of earth, scab of sod.
Now she is nothing…no more.
No more than the dream of angels.

And I Know…they cannot exist.