Interactions, Arguably Reactions

Apr 12, 2017

Interactions, Arguably Reactions

A monologue of confession hung frozen between them in the icy air.

Waiting for the reciprocating swing of the pendulum.

Only to be played false just like a perpetual motion machine

Slowly grinding to a halt.

Two bodies long locked in orbit on an ovoid bent,

Accelerating on a tangent only to slow and turn away,

Coming close, yet never to connect.

Friend or foe,

On one interpretation spent

All on a rapid spiraling vent.

Misinterpretations chide.

As day chases away night,

Light revealing all that is done in darkness.

Time spreads out spanning the distance

Of overlapping existences.

Collide.

Sometimes we’re knocked off axis to spin wildly,

Spewing content like a centrifuge.

As densities separate our depths,

Layers of truth fly.

Pure or putrid, pleasurable or painful,

Traits rise to the surface,

Once hidden at the depth of our cores.

What lies beneath your mantle, dear kindred?

What lies at the heart of the matter once barred?

What happens when the hurt you bear you can no longer hide?

Writing Club: "The garden was overgrown now."

Writing Club 

March 21,2017

Prompt: “The garden was overgrown now.” 

Time Allotted: 10 minutes  -This was a quick one.  Better write what comes to mind ASAP!

Here's what I got:

Perennials gone wild amid the greens and silver grasses.  Spreading tendrils into little knots among the monocots, vine over vine, crisscrossing the hillside, covering all the sins of the fields.  Cross pollination.  Contamination after a sprinkling of tiny invaders. A jugger-knotted jungle impossible to differentiate where the deep brown scars ran long and deep.  A definite ankle twisting trap for the unassuming hiker hoping to head off over the southern trail.  Speedy periwinkle in deep green choking out half the grapevine meandering along the split rail.  Pumpkin vines, with heavy fruits sagging, scrambling up over everlasting sweet peas and growling tiger lilies for top tier sunshine.  Seed casings sprang open to the four winds. Their scaffolding, a rusted-out co-op truck laid to rest one unlucky early spring day after some freak freezing rain.

Writing Club: Sing Blue Bird Sleep

Writing Club 

April 4, 2017 

Prompt: “He woke to bird song.”

 You have 30 minutes!  Go!

Sing Blue Bird Sleep!

He woke to bird song and jammed his pillow over his head.  Just 5 more minutes.  His hand sprawled over the bedside table feeling for the alarm clock.  The sun was a bit too bright in the room, Carl should have noticed that the shadows had been chased completely from the wooden boards.  That would have been the first sign to rise. 

A warm breeze blew in the window and ruffled his hair.  Another sign the world was waking and it was going to be one of those tra la la days. Blah!  An 8 hour shift of plinkets shaped into plunkets.  Plunkets hammering to the tune of tweeting birds. 

Instead of joining the dance of sunshine, he pursued the land of Winkin, Blinkin and Nod.  Nod off.  Counting sheep falling from their ship of star dust until blue birds started flying overhead and plucking wool from the sheeps’ bloody backs.  Then the birds chirping much too loudly soared up becoming dots to be tucked away in unknown places in the sky.

Flipping himself violently away from the window, Carl hammered down his pillow in a ball and heaved the comforter up over his head willing silence and the dark to return.  The bed began to tip away and disappear from beneath him, he jumped awake again.  The fake fall brought back the light and then the twitter of birds.  

Pin pricks grabbed his feet, his ankles.

There was a plunk on the covers at his feet, followed by light tapping and rubbing down his side, then fur and loud purring.   Carl opened his eyes to tiger striped tabby fluff in his face.  For a moment, he was 10 again.  Wait. But Barney had orange fur, this cat was grey.  His childhood bedroom had sky blue walls with aeroplane decals.  This wall was slate grey.  He looked at the burn on his hand. Yes, he was a 32 year old welder in an automotive plant. 

            “Carl, Carl!” It was Shelia stirring him from slumber now.  She sounded exasperated.  “You forgot to close the window last night and that dirty old cat alley cat climbed in the house after my parakeets again.”

            Looking up to see the red numbers blaring.  Carl was late for work.  He’d take tra la la any day over the song his boss would sing.  He picked a feather from the sheets, paused for a moment and then carried on.

Amid a Cypress Swamp.

June 26, 2016

I've been thinking about how to end this poem for a while now.  It's one of those little things that pops into my head spontaneously and flows along easily to a certain point and then nothing I write seems to belong.

Amid the cypress swamp knobby nodes spring up,
Defiant little gnomes stand rebellious
Against a spongy descent into midnight soup.

Weeping willows wave, sag and droop.
Spanish moss sagging in the westward breeze does sway.
While below amid the branches sparrows swoop and play.

From secret spaces, damp and dark places,
Wild and winged things creep.
Their houses, in the murky weep, secret they do keep.

Crawling, sloshing sprawling over root,
Swimming, sailing, stalking in the sub terrain slime.
Spying from under log and covered in grime.

With worried steps, travellers timidly wade,
Sweaty palms push away leafy fronds,
For who knows what scaly thing unseen lies in wait,
One wrong choice and it's too late!


And that's where it drops off, maybe because I feel like I've been stuck in the swamp for a while now, afraid to take another step because the ground might give way on me or something might snap at me out of the murk.  Afraid to step forward or backwards to find myself in a worse position than I am now.  Maybe it's just that muddled part of life where you're old enough to see things aren't shaping up the way you thought they would.  Sometimes you have to step out on faith and hope that it will be enough to hold you up.

When you're standing at the precipice of adulthood, the water seems so clear and the path looks so straight. You're made of strong timber and nothing is going to chop you down.  Then something major comes along like a water buffalo.  That cleanly marked out highway you've been speeding down is barred by a massive road block.  You're forced onto a gravelled sidewalk full of weeds and you can't see past the next hundred meters or a bog where even the spongy ground beneath your feet feels like it could betray you.

A younger me thought jungle path would head back to the flat highway and I would just jump back on and run all that much faster to make up for lost time.  I had always been the quick kid, on the field and in the classroom.

Instead, the turns of life lead to new roads, some clear for a while until they become so overgrown they seem impassable.  I have to find a way through a thicket or change course once more.   It's an adventure!

I've thought for a while when things were rough and everywhere I looked my peers seemed to have smooth sailing and sunny skies.  It's an illusion.  Everyone has highways, narrow mountain passes, wilderness and swamps to cross at some point in their lives, no matter how easy life looks to an outside.

Hey, wetlands can be good.  They act like water filters for other areas.  Perhaps like the water, I am being purified as I am poured out.  Maturity and wisdom do come with age.