Surrender
"...this is the way the world ends/not with a bang but a whimper." ~T.S.Elliot
You've come a long way
to see me slip my skin
across the star-burrowed sky
past Cassiopeia's iron chair
past the spear of Orion
to the killing floor.
You've come for the show
that must always go on
to see my hair burning trees
on my lips the black hole
night for my breath
dripping acid rain.
A big bang for your buck
now the requisite whimper
that comes in the dark
with the last surrender.
I wanted to stay just
a little bit longer
but everything wavers
when fate breaks her lamp.
October 2020
posted for
Images: California Wildfires From Space © NASA Scott Kelly Fair Use
Title unknown © Mathew Brohder via Internet Fair Use
~SCROLL DOWN FOR THE 55~
A Delirium Of Butterflies
There will be
a delirium
of butterflies
after the fever wins,
when the sterile step is taken
under the star-masked void,
when the bounce hits dust a thousand years
unstirred by wind or small-handed rain,
then
in freefall
instead of white detritus
butterflies stagger up
owners of the impossible
hitting your protective suit
like a trauma of cotton candy
then
you have crossed the threshold
of sweetness, otherness
then
what you call
your life
will lose its casing
will become
a fluttering
an awe
a delirium
of
butterflies.
October 2020
posted for
Images: So Long As You Wish it, © Liz Houston Fair Use
Unknown title, unknown author, via Sunday Muse Fair Use
Welcome, all, if somewhat belatedly, to the Friday 55 for September, 2020. Apologies for the late post, but since last week, things at my place have been disrupted by plumbing emergencies, brick masons and the unpleasant necessity of allowing workmen into my home when my state is 5th in the nation for COVID positivity, creating a very expensive and stressful chaos to match the larger chaos around us. But the 55 must go on, and I know everyone has a great deal on his or her plate right now, what with the fiasco of a debate, the rise of an old/new racist fascism and various other things, like the plague mounting to over 200,000 deaths in the U.S, and our West Coast burning to a cinder. I hope as writers we can use this exercise to some purpose, either to exorcise, excoriate, or escape.
That said, the rules remain the same. Write a poem, piece of prose poetry or flash fiction on any topic, so long as it is in 55 words, no more, no less, and post a link in the comments below. The meme will be live from Thursday at midnight to Sunday at 4 pm CST.
~*~
Once again, I've chosen to escape to the world of dreams in my 55.
Green Snake
Spirits reach for me
but no owls come,
only the smallest snake
curled as a vine tendril,
the jade of an early apple,
sleeping on my pillow.
You
send your fetch
to curse my hearth
ashen grey with death
but the snake slithers me
to cover where
morning kisses water,
where you have
no power.
October 2020
Images: Bullsnake, author unknown, Fair Use
Viking Cemetery, Färjas, Sweden author unknown, Fair Use