Tag Archives: JNW’s Halloween Challenge

Martyred by The Camino de Santiago

Martyred by The Camino de Santiago

I’m jabbed by thorns and scratched by hay, and we have barely started.
I must say this hike you planned is not for the fainted-hearted.
I never was a nature girl, in spite of what you think.
With just this amount of moving, I’m already at the brink.

It isn’t even noon yet, and we began at dawn.
“We’ll laugh about this later,” you say as I trudge on.
As we approach the cliff face,  I worry about falling.
This mountain-climbing business is simply not my calling.

You say it’s a mere hillock, but to my exhausted eyes,
a hillock’s just a mountain in another guise.
Are we coming back this way? I ask, hoping the best,
thinking I’ll just wait here as the others mount the crest.

But alas, my hopes don’t gel. This trail leads to another.
Inside, I swear a bloody streak. Aloud, I mutter, “brother,”
as I lift my pack again and leave my comfy rock
to walk and walk and walk and walk and walk and walk and walk.

When the day is finally done and in my bed I’m lying,
I am not laughing much at all, in fact, my dear, I’m crying!
I’ve grown blisters on my blisters and bruises on my bruises.
You can have your damn “Camino.” In the future, I’ll take cruises!!!

 

Word prompts for the day are: moving, laugh, jab, trudge, falling and hay.

JNW’s Halloween Prompt: Werewolf

Well, I know this is a photo prompt, but I can’t resist posting this poem as well. Just too appropriate to pass up:

The Moon Is Full and Waiting

The moon is full and waiting, but the night is full of chill,
though my true love expects me over yonder hill.
His ardent calls invite me to join him for the night,
and yet I dread the cold cold wind and the night air’s bite.
If I were only twenty I’d have no choice to make,
but I have guests arriving and sweet bites yet to bake.

My true love lies waiting over yonder hill,
but he’ll return another night. I’m confident he will,
for he has no other to overlook his flaws:
the roughness of his ardor, the power of his jaws.
His embrace often bruises, though this isn’t his intent.
In the excess of his ardor, only tenderness is meant.

The warm cave of our meeting still carves out yonder hill,
yet tonight I may not join him, and perhaps I never will.
Tomorrow night the full moon will partially be spent.
and tonight as time fills up the moon, I vow to not relent.
Perhaps I’ll find another closer to my kind,
though an equal to his passion I’m unlikely to find.

A mild wind blows the clouds away to clear the shrouded moon.
My guests will be arriving. I know it will be soon.
I stir in leavening powder. I stir in heavy cream.
Across the hand I stir with falls the moon’s broad beam.
I drop the spoon and go again to open up the door.
I hear the gentle song of wind, my lover’s beckoning roar.

I answer with a beat of blood. A spasm in my thigh
invites me to be climbing over distant hill and high.
The crumbs fall from my fingers as I run into the night.
I do not feel the bruising stones or the wind’s cold bite.
My lover calls me onward, and once again I go.
For when the full moon calls me, not once have I said no.

 

Jennifer’s Halloween prompt today is werewolf.

JNW’s Halloween Challenge: Blood

The Halloween prompt today is blood.  Here are some sugar skulls made by kids for the Day of the Dead that reflect that theme to a small degree.And finally, no blood posting is complete without a posting of a blood moon.For Jennifer’s Halloween Challenge.