Four Hours

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Four Hours

 

 

Four cold hours

far from dawn

I sit in

manipulated darkness

waiting to see

what will come lie down in

this coffin of a moment,

 

thieving the spray of rosemary from my hand.

 

I've followed

the spark

all my life

seen it birth and kindle

seen it flicker deep

in eyes dark-sweet as berries

when all other light

 

was taken

 

but there is

nothing in this roving 

black behind the blindfold tonight

not a single reflection glancing bright

off the book of stone; only that absence

which is the certainty of death

its witchlight capricious as hope

 

with no thing fair about it.

 

Why have you

brought me here now

to such circular endings, to

this museum of

stolen seeds, false gods, burned

fields, raped children?

Four hours cold

hold too much

 

too many graves

too much

silence.

 

 

 

November 10 2024 

 

 

posted for Word Garden Word List

at Shay's Word Garden

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Note: This includes words from both this word list and the previous one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Black Bowl, 1907  © George Seeley   Public Domain

Curse the Darkness, ©Thomas Dodd  Fair Use

Haunt's Road

Haunt's Road

You resurrect

on the long road rolling,

with your homeless soul a

prairie schooner full of dull copper

 blood and moonshine, nightmares wild in 

the harness, their snaffled tongues slipping

into dreams with a slow-steeped poison, 

changing sun to eclipse, good to bad, 

alive to dead in a bone-shaking shock,

down along the wheel ruts

 where the wagons 

used to pass.

By 4:00 a.m. 

you're in the house.

The sound of your last rasping

 breaths liquid with suffering still

floating your medicine show, barking

on the mattress-midway the subtle

vibration of your restless shifts,

 a moan and a gasp on the empty

 crater of our bed, hawking

a snake-oil brewed 

for love, or

death.

I put 

your ashes 

out on the hill by

 the dog who loved us

so you may leave

 this haunt's road,

this dead-end.

 Run with 

her 

beloved, 

painless, free,

 green in cloudy  forest,

prairie wind to wrap

you in a place of

 naked stars.

If you 

knew who I am

you'd never
have come.

 August 2020

posted for

The Sunday Muse

*This poem has been edited since publishing

Images via internet, artists unknown     Fair Use

Friday 55 October 6 2017

Greetings, fellow travelers. It's once again Friday, the threshold of a weekend and of our jaunt down Route 55. This is a writing challenge, asking you to put your thoughts into 55 words of prose or poetry, no more, no less, but it is also a gathering of spirits. Spirits battered or unbowed, spirits flying rudderless--some of us in a sad case when it comes to our muse. Therefor I want to emphasize that this is a place where there are no rules except that you use the form, no endless Mr Linky or obligatory chit-chat, no mandatory one-phrase comments dragged from reluctant keyboards, and most of all, no faking it. We are here to enjoy each other and feel comfortable with working with words together, whether it's every week or once a year.

This link I found through Rommy Driks talks about the difficulty of being creative in the crazyhouse of Trump's America--some of you may relate. That said, with the hat tipped to a better human than I will ever be (you can read about Galen here,) I hope for us all to have a kickass weekend, despite the times and the dismal real-world provocations otherwise.

So, let's begin. 

(Oh, and it *is* the month of All Hallows, by the way...)

The Arrival

The eyes of the hag

stare from the night,

broken windows

in a house with no kitchen.

October has come

to harvest the bright

to coo to the dead

to slip the razor

inside the fruit.

The red way shines

in the bitter light.

There's nowhere to hide,

no road that runs out

of Murdertown.

~October 2017

Image via internet; author unknown. Fair use.

Personal Note--My blog-hopping days of "love yours--here's mine" are over and items posted in this spirit may not be answered. There are literally dozens of sites for that--you don't need this one.  Also, each prompt begins on Friday and expires Sunday evening. Older prompts are not monitored.

Hex

Hex

When night is black

and miles deep

packed around the sleeping sheep,

when stars hang, turning

on the gallows breeze,

past the witchwood, past the reavers

come the shadows, come the hexers.

When steel blade breaks,

when there is no hammer,

the weak must make do

with the flames of summer

to burn the curse in with red and yellow,

with living swords

with poison murmur.

There where the ivy

chokes the oak

old ones fall in the unraveling work

the young complete, for

cradle-cloth ends in a winding sheet.

Hands that bake bread

will dress the meat

and black night will come

neither swift nor slow

to lay kings low.

   

~April 2017

Images: The Sheepfold by Moonlight, 1856, Jean-Francois Millet, public domain

Photograph, via the internet, author and title unknown. Fair use.