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Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash. Leonard Cohen

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Mask

source
mASK me
I can be anyone you want, just
mASK me
I can be naughty or nice
Sweet or nasty
Your angel or
your whore
It's really all the same
Trick
Treat me however you wish
Pretend you don't know my name
Know my shame vanishes under the mask
So mASK me.


inspired by a glance around our local Halloween costume store in the Women's section, where every costume, it seemed, was overtly sexual and provocative

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Bloom

I planted oleander along the path to my door
You plucked one
and tucked it behind your ear

You made a bouquet
of the marigolds and tulips
and tossed it into the air; it became
sunlight

In my window box, love lies bleeding
You planted snowdrops
to stanch the blood

You stood with me
beneath the willow's branches
and waited
until the rain stopped
and the sun dripped on us
like warm, sweet butter.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Kerry's Wed. Challenge, The Language of Flowers


key to flower symbolism:

oleander - warning
marigold - grief, pain
yellow tulip - hopeless love
love lies bleeding (amaranthus) - hopelessness
snowdrop - hope, consolation
willow - sadness

Monday, October 21, 2013

Two Tanka

Fall leaves red as blood
Cling to branches like pin pricks
Biding time until
Heavy, they drop to the ground
Pooling in crimson puddles.

--------------------------------------------------

The cherry blossoms
Hold spring in their clenched, pink fists
The essence of hope
Released in falling petals
Soft and shy as new love's blush.


submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Sunday Mini Challenge, My Thoughts onTanka, Pt. 2

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Behind Blue Eyes

dog by scavengercat808
You peek at life through your high fence
Hide behind bared teeth and demon growl
but your eyes betray
Behind blue eyes lies the soul of a pup
who wants only to be told he's good
to feel gentle strokes upon his barrel chest
and to hear,
again and again,
that I am yours
and you are mine.

submitted for The Mag, Mag 190



Sunday, October 13, 2013

October Rain

October Rain by Timothy Corbin

October rain makes colors bleed
Bleed from sky to tree to leaves
Leaves the ground in autumn shades
Shades her brown eyes when she grieves.

Grieves a friend she never knew
Knew his soul from words he wrote
Wrote his life as though a song
Song she loved from the first note.

Note how his life embraced hers
Hers far better for the time
Time she wished were ever lasting
Lasting memories, love sublime.

Saturday, October 12, 2013

Redemption For Beginners

Don't come to me asking for redemption
I gave last Christmas
Hella good it did
Now I'm more careful
where I spend my forgiveness
I'd give my last dollar to a busker,
my last smoke to a truant kid
before I'd  give you a damn
You want atonement, go to a priest
or a whore
They make money listening
to lies
You can count your sins
You can count your rosary beads
You can count me gone, and
I'll count myself lucky.


Thursday, October 10, 2013

For the Birds

Count my feathers and judge me
Then pluck out several more
because I fall short
Don't you know that I make this home
for you?
I use scraps of myself for your comfort
I am mostly scrap
Whatever good there is in me
is in my function, not my form
I am a trifle
I can't even escape this place
where the sun is wrong-
bright but not warm-
and night comes, not gently,
but with a thunderous cloud of sudden darkness
It is a wonder
that I sing at all
but I suppose instinct
overcomes intellect
and you are easily entertained
by meaningless cheer.





submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Weds. With Peggy, Point of View and Place

Saturday, October 5, 2013

The Captain



We called him Captain Morgan
for he sailed a sea of rum
We never saw him sober, but
we never saw him glum
His real name had been lost
to the high waves of history
The past he didn’t cotton to;
He was a mystery
His hair was all atangle,
had a hook for his left arm
His teeth were gone; his eyes were red
He had a certain charm
We saw him every day
and then we saw him every night
He wasn’t really rude, although
he wasn’t quite polite
The women were “fine wenches”
and the men were scallywags
He laughed and said he’d steal the gold
out of their hands and bags
He sang an old sea shanty
that was crude as it was loud
He never asked for money
for the man was far too proud
One day he said the time had come
His ship would soon set sail
We shook his hand and wished him well
through sun and rain and gale
Next morn we looked around
No Captain Morgan was in sight
And later on we learned
that he had died that very night
So let us lift our bottles
to the Captain’s final quest
He may have been a drunk old man
but, man, he was the best.

Shiver


Autumn sneaks in
like a wayward lover
between the sheets
Pretend that you don't notice
the change,
even as you wrap yourself in the blankets 
more tightly.


Friday, October 4, 2013

November

source
We live on borrowed time
Now we must return
to our place of birth
The Earth beckons home
her wayward children
Leaves turn to soil
Gardens turn to seed
Ponds turn solid and impenetrable
November's breath 
petrifies as surely as Medusa's gaze
Summer maidens
shed their pale blossoms,
fruit into winter queens
Below the frozen ground,
they dream of innocence
and wait for the cleansing sun.