Dreamless

Dreamless

We don't discuss which one is blacker

the starstrewn night or sister death

balanced here on living's edge.

Death has no moving moon

no firefly's strobe,

still we say she

comes all this

way with

sleep.

~June 2016

posted for   real toads

Weekend Mini-Challenge

Images: Untitled by Zdzisław Beksiński, fair use
Deadlight, © joyannjones

Flash And Thunder

Flash And Thunder

Flash and thunder can’t break the panes in

the hothouse I keep at heart's core    

where you’re centered in my cells

moonflower on fire

where no careless-shut

door can let in

a flash of

killing

frost.

Frost

curdles

as sure as

fire consumes

or flood waters drown

but who wouldn't plead for

quick burning over a soaked

sponge of lung or the long white death,

stiff in winter's numbing arms alone.

March 2012

Posted for   Fireblossom Friday   at real toads

where her challenge is to write on a topic, er... embodied... by some aspect(s) of the physical body.

This is a more or less a nonet (or maybe two) a syllable counting form of nine lines, beginning with nine syllables and ending with one. I've arbitrarily introduced a second stanza and reversed the form, going from one syllable to nine. 

Image: winter time, by micmol, on flick'r

Shared under a Creative Commons 2.0 Generic License 

Words

Words

Write your soul a blanket on the page

with black wrinkled stripes on pure white,

in any tongue on earth. Throw

your zebra quilt over

every shivering   

heart and offer

refuge there,

wrapped in

words.

July 2011

Posted for       Form Monday   at  OneStopPoetry

This poem is in the Nonet form, a nine line single stanza poem where the first line contains nine syllables, and each succeeding line one less, with the last line a single syllable. Thanks to  Corbie Sinclair for this great look at the form, with sincere regrets that this is Gay Cannon's penultimate appearance hosting Form Monday.Thanks for everything, Gay.