Thin line

 
Today's prompt: Prompt #04: Book + Picture. I chose William Stafford's The Rescued Year, and picked out "still," "heroic deed" and "thunderous."

When I was angry.
When the air in my room was uncomfortably still.
When not even the large memories
of more prosperous times
could calm the horrid bubbling.
Like polka dots of light
arranged in performance
of some heroic deed,

we waited - glass and Mylar,
like it could keep out
the thunderous growl of emptiness.
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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Nas, Life's A Bitch

A wavering note

 
It's that time again: Day three!
Prompt #03: Voicing

In the first dramatic slant of sound,
we hear it all:

A flash of instability, tingling fear
and the sweat of anticipation,
sliding town the inside turn
to a tickling shudder.
If it is to be this way,
we can at least allow the subtle strings
to carry desires outward,
a dancing melody of sex drive
and lowered expectations -
because, really,
who's looking for all the right pieces?
In our voicing, a rising chorus,
it is made plain:
no longer shall we flutter eyelashes
at passing scenes of beauty.
Lock lips at home,
actions shucked of inhibition,
and let crystalline reflections
lend a slight incline to your step,
and keep the brine taste,
bred orange in the seaside homestead,
to remind you of your winning formula.
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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
John Lennon, Working Class Hero

The wronged one

 
I just barely made it for day one yesterday, so this is me being proactive:
Prompt #02: Unwritten Desire

Behind my eyelids is where I keep
all those things I meant to say
in that days-brief moment
before my mind was made up,
whether or not my heart believed it.
Crossing thoughts are apt to crash,
leave debris strewn across shocked acreage,
but no disaster was more fitting
than a fit of second-guessing
spurred by some dull, sad dedication.

There's a classic saying for this
that no one really means when they recite,
a way of showing what's wrong with me
with as little detail as possible;
acknowledgment hurts more than the wounds.
All I know is a decision I regret,
a choice I'd like to crush and remake,
a speckled blue holdover of two years
that hung around just long enough
to see me burn alive one final time.
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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Incubus, Punch Drunk

Flatprint

 
It's day one of the Poem-A-Day Challenge:
Prompt #01: No Narrative

It's hard to imagine an emptier
vessel, something that once
contained so much of you,

all of you, stood up and
straightened out, thrones lifted
on your shoulders for everyday kings.

To what end is our labor?
A lonely buckle prescribes no
relief, but sucks dry what it can.

So let the pieces walk on their own -
intervention is no more than sick foreplay,
gleaming yellow tongues wagging in misuse.

Level with me: It was your intention
all along, wasn't it? To leave ghosts
in the fibers, and carry out my solid ground?
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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
TV on the Radio, Staring at the Sun