Day 12 PAD 2023

 This poem is presented in its rough draft form for the PAD 2023 challenge and will be revised.

“Awashed in the Past”

The cascade of history
bruises my eardrums
    fills my lungs
    constricts my heart
        until I have to give in to the drenching
        rush of what might have been

Snippets of the past create a roar
against the stones of time
I catch a few drops
    traveling back
    into the stream of memories
        that pelt my skin
        sharp, then dissipating on my sense
        of who I should have been

I hear milestones of my past

Shotgun blast
Broken drywall
Drunken speech
Dead dial tone

But my heart drops me into a moment of possibilities
    I am your son
    sitting at your feet
    football in my hands
    Waiting to hear “I love you”
        in the spiral of a pass
        I catch on the run
            in the backyard
    I see your hands raised
        the air filled with “Touchdownnnnn!”

A wave crashes into my chest
    bringing me back to now
    my hands empty
    wondering what it sounds like
        to have your father’s voice
            cheer for you in real life

PAD 2022 Day 18: We BLANK

 This poem is presented in its rough draft form for the PAD 2022 challenge and will be revised. 

PAD Prompt: We BLANK

Poetic Form: Free Verse

“Fate Hates Us, We Don’t Stand a Chance”

Tarot cards

And crystal balls

Tell different stories

But they agree

That Fate is a jealous lover

She makes you believe 

That this life is a choice

We can make with our hearts

Or minds

Or some combination of

But she has a choice already made for us

Only she won’t tell what it is

We have to pay the price 

As she gives us the silent treatment

Or changes the mood in the room

With a single glance

Or a casual, “It’s fine”

Just when we think we can’t take anymore

She snuggles close

With an unexpected kiss

That tempts us with its passion

Tempts us to believe

To believe that we are all right

We draw her near

Breathe in the scent of flowers

From her hair

Heart hurting from the joy of the moment

Then we make the mistake

We move

We ask if she wants anything

She turns her head silently

The look says we should know

We don’t

And the temperature drops 10 degrees

Suddenly, it feels like Fate hates us

We don’t stand a chance

Poem from the MVICW Conference

 

Today is the first day of the Martha's Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing Writers' Conference. I thought it would be fun to share the works I create during this week. These works may be revised after the conference is over.

"This is a Moment"

This is a moment

    The one between the lighting strike

    And the thunder

Like children counting Mississippies

    To know when to cower

    In fear of the storm

The window panes

    Rattling the historical pain

    Of every tornado

    That touched down in our fields

    Of dreams

Tearing up the newly planted crops of stories and poems

    That could one day feed the souls of this Earth

This is a moment

    Filled with backward steps

    Mental debates

    Like standing on the high dive in June

Your dad watching

Your mom’s hand resting on his shoulder

The water looks so far away

    And the teenagers are getting angry

    At the bottom of the ladder

This is the moment

    This is the sentence

    This is the word

    That allows us to crawl out of the covers

        To play in the rain 

        12 feet above everyone

April Poetry Challenge 2021: Day Five

 

Day 5 Prompt: The First (Blank)

Form: Free Verse

The First Time I Saw a Spirit

It was past my bedtime

I was six years old

My father

sitting at the table

Illuminated by the light above

His shoulders sloped down

He did not know I was there

I walked to his left

that is when I saw my first spirit

A demon, a wisp, floating

above the ice cubes bobbing

 in caramel colored liquid

My father sipped the spirit 

down with the liquid

As the glass hit the table a different

spirit would materialize

I must have let out a breath

because my father turned toward me

But it was the spirit speaking

his words dragged out of his mouth

slow and trembly

“What are you doing up?”

His hand heavy on my head

I stepped back, 

afraid of the spirit

swimming in his eyes

“Had to use the bathroom”

My father smiled

I did not recognize it

There were too many teeth

He sipped the second spirit

a third appeared

I stumble

as the wisp, the demon,

smiled

at me

   like my father

“Goodnight” I said

And hear a grumble from the figure

At the table

As he sipped again

 and again

 and again.

I did not sleep well for years

Until I finally gave into the spirits

beckoning

But I have no son to bother me

It is just me

Ice

Caramel liquid

And a little spirit floating above my glass.

 

April Poetry Challenge 2021: Day Four

 

Day 4 Prompt: Active

Form: Free Verse

"Easter 2021"

Easter morning

All the eggs have been found

Worship filled our souls

I’m out walking, trying to remove the age from my legs

It has been

A year since the world locked down

I notice some homes have

Out-of-state plates

While others have nothing but dark windows

How many stories have ended in the last 

356 days

How many lives 

began in those same thousands of hours

I feel the contradiction of this world

As the sun warms my face

With the promise of a new beginning

Yet, the breeze cools my neck with the memory of winter

Our stories are solid beneath our feet

But flow together like cirrus clouds in the sky above me

My name 

unknown to almost everyone

My title of father, though, has cemented generations to come

I don’t know 

If my neighbors see me reach my front step

As I open the front door

My family knows I’m home

A Shire Morning

A Shire Morning

Early morning, late July in the year of vision

Sun just leaving the horizon

Morning chill mixes with the symphony of birds

Corn a deep green fence sitting across the road

White clouds mixing with the changing hues of blue

I stand at the end of my driveway

Breathing in the new air

Exhaling the fear of troubled sleep

The neighborhood goes quiet as my soul spins

into an eternal moment

I feel how all directions 

lead back to where I am standing

No matter where my story leads

or the adventures my children grow into

Home is here

The sun warms my neck while the breeze cools my face

I close my eyes

At least for a moment

I felt that all was good in the world

Poetic Form 29: Free Verse

Believe

I’m trying to hold on, I swear, 

to believing in love.

Dear God, I feel like an 8 year old again,

hearing the stories that Santa isn’t real

from the school yard bullies.

Standing on that cusp of a belief

between what I feel on Christmas morning

and what my mind knows of the world.

Even though I can’t stand their voices,

their jaded taunts.

Always in a group, their laughter mean.

My mind knows there is truth

in their destruction of my joy.

Is there no longer a desire to see what love can do?

Have we dumped all our resources into hate?

The flames high,

heat radiating for days.

I know how tempting a fire is in the middle of a cold night.

Red flames dancing seductively,

promising to keep the wolves at bay.

But the fire will only burn if it is constantly fed.

There is only so much a person can sacrifice to pain,

until there are no more planks left to build a life with.

Dear God, I am tired!

My armour pierced.

My reserve spent.

My fingers blistering.

My body weak from holding my children away from

the onslaught of division and wreckage.

I am tired!

My eyes closed from the sweat dripping into them.

I want to believe,

I want

to believe.

To believe…

I believe,

I do...

I have lived long enough to know

that Christmas mornings

are still filled with joy

because I am the one that wraps the presents,

fills the stockings

and places the packages under the tree,

as all my children dream.

I know of the joy they will feel come morning,

because I believe.

I believe in love,

    even as I stand up on spent legs.

Poetic Form #29: Free Verse

Free verse is a form that is free from limitations of regular meter or rhythm, and 
does not rhyme with fixed forms, yet still uses literary devices like metaphors, 
personification, irony, and similes.

Denotation Life

Happiness is just a cliché

A simile that is supposed to paint a picture perfect smile

To cover the cracks that show through your skin

This is not a hyperbole

Darkness outshines light, let’s be honest about

The paradox of this existence

The connotations are just too cloudy for anyone’s point of view

See this anecdote doesn’t have a happy Hollywood ending

There is no sequel to this short story,

only flashbacks that interrupt the narrative

Disrupting the tone of my verse

The rhyme scheme off

    because I write in free verse

    but with a sonnet mindset

I know no one will save these words as an allusion to explain

The irony of a story with no symbolism

Just a one star rating for this autobiographical soliloquy