Monthly Archives: March 2015

Sand Castles

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Sand Castles

Under the sand are palaces, I’ve seen them in my dreams.
Vast halls and empty chambers smooth rounded at their seams.
Every wall is made of sand. Each ceiling, archway, floor
carved by master craftsmen–each digging at its core–
so magnificent, you’d think they were the stuff of lore.
You, too, are free to see them, but you must provide the door.

For the chambers are filled in, though they are there without a doubt.
You are the one creating them by what you will scoop out.
The beauty’s hidden in the sand, waiting in your sleep
for you to dig the castles out from where they’re buried deep.
All your day’s exhaustion your dream labor will abort,
for what you build in slumber is work of a different sort.

Sand brought to the surface is what you get to keep
of subterranean palaces dug out in your sleep.
As you build above ground castles in the world that we all know
you reveal the outward structure of the inner rooms below,
furnishing the magic that the world will see through you,
showing what’s inside of you by what you choose to do.

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The Prompt:  Just a Dream

See also: This!!!  (This video may be one of the most remarkable things you’ve ever seen in your life.  Don’t miss it!)

One Word Photo Challenge: Teal

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      Teal

DSC08894 IMG_0768IMG_0767  DSC08904

Rain

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DSC08898 - Version 2

Rain

Gives an excuse
for that bright orange umbrella
and yellow overshoes
toppled over in the hall closet,
yet it is nighttime and I am old.
I lie under blankets on the sofa,
content with its comforting
rat-a-tat
on the plastic skylight
overhead.

It is a friend knocking
insistently,
calling me out to play.

Six years old,
Imprisoned by summer,
we were given occasionally
the refreshing release
of a hard summer rain.
Bare feet splashing,
we raced dry leaf boats
manned by our imaginations
through the caves of culverts,
down to those ultimate puddles
magnificent in their magnitude.

Sixty years later,
I am caught up in the currents
of that sudden rush downwards
and backwards to
a plastic umbrella
abandoned on the sidewalk
as we opened like  flowers.

Rain
hides tears.
Forces growth.
Cleans up our messes
and provides glorious new ones.
Washes away today
and grows tomorrow.

Five Shadormas

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The Prompt: For this week, write a shadorma (a non-rhyming six-line poem consisting of 3/5/3/3/7/5 syllables.)  Instead of following the WordPress prompt, My Circle of 5 will be 5 Shadormas. Thanks, Sam, for the prompt.

Used

 This paper
very slightly used–
erasures
and a stab.
This morning’s poem now dead–
unsung, unmourned.


Chinese Takeout

That rice grain
and the plastic fork–
evidence
against me
of another food court sin.
Yes, I ate it all.


Misanthrope

Walk away
lest you find reason
to stay here,
fouling up
your determination to
have a fucked-up life.


Signing the Papers

You prompt me
to mind my timing.
Five o’clock
on the dot.
I come early anyway.
Her scent signs the air.


Salt Water Taffy

Sweet toffee
cannot hide the tang–
bitter salt
on my tongue–
of all the tears I swallowed,
waiting for your touch.

To see more shadormas, go HERE.

Fault Lines

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Fault Lines

She lives up on a hillside far from the busy town,
and every year she lives there, she’s less likely to come down.
Her dog sits on her house’s dome and barks at all that pass.
One day she’ll likely join it, but for now she feels it’s crass.
Besides, she’s not that agile.  She seems to fall a lot–
merely due to clumsiness. A drinker, she is not.

She spends too much on artwork. The results hang down her halls,
sit upon her furniture and cover all her walls.
Her closets? Full to bulging with sizes large to small.
Her friends keep telling her there is no need to keep them all,
but to toss the ones that do not fit would cause her great duress.
She cannot throw any away, for next year she’ll weigh less.

Her refrigerator is her favorite scenic spot,
though entering’s an adventure with dangers amply fraught:
dog food barely balanced on a small sweet pickle jar
she has to brush against to get to where the short ribs are.
I’ve said that she is clumsy.  She doesn’t take her time.
This really isn’t new, for she was like this in her prime.

Her elbow strikes the pickle jar, the dog food comes out spinning.
They crash upon the tile floor. Our heroine stops grinning–
her thoughts no longer on the food but on the awful mess
of dogfood, pickles, broken glass–the rest you’ll surely guess.
The exercise that she will get mopping all this glop up.
will surely compensate for all the ribs she’ll later sop up.

And so she’ll lose her weight again and fit in that size eight.
As soon as this feat comes to be, he’ll ask her for a date.
Her dog will come down from the roof and she’ll come down the hill.
Her fridge and all her closets will suddenly unfill.
She’ll sell the art and cease to fall and fulfill all her scheming.
For the sixth thing true about her is that she’s prone to dreaming!

The Prompt: Far from Normal–Take a step back and take a look at your life as an outsider might. Now, tell us at least six unique, exciting, or just plain odd things about yourself.

For more writing on this topic go here: https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/far-from-normal/

Today’s prompt was really “Plead the Fifth” about a question we hate to answer.  We were given the choice of an alternate prompt, which is the one I chose, but ironically, it was one I didn’t want to answer so my post really fulfills both prompts.  Tricky.  If you want to see today’s prompt and other answers to it, you will find it:  HERE.