PAD 2022 Day 7: Abundance

 

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

PAD Prompt: Abundance 

Poetic Form: Shadorma

“There’s too much Light”

Orion’s 

belt doesn’t look good

in neon.

Cities are

now constellations formed by

sleepless wandering.

Our stars are

red, green, and yellow.

The moon is 

a night light

that we have outgrown because

we forgot the night

was meant to

be dark so we may

discover

the beauty

of our wondering found in

what the stars revealed.

Poetic Form 41: Contrapuntal

All the World

It feels like the weight of the world

is strapped to me like a backpack

that someone has tighten the straps

so tight they dig into my armpits

The moon is a spotlight

And I am on stage

At the end of my driveway

I can’t shake the weight of the world

around to a comfortable spot

or remove my arms from the pack

without dislocating my shoulders

My audience is every star in the galaxy

The crickets my orchestra

So I trudge forward with the weight of the world

But I never received the script

For this show and the moon is out

Casting light on my spot

sighing like Robert Frost

at the fork in the road as others

pass me by, laughing in groups

And I don’t know which way is stage right

Poetic Form #41: Contrapuntal

A contrapuntal poem intertwines two (or more) separate poems into a single
new poem. The traditional format is using one line of poem A, then a 
corresponding line in poem B from start to finish, but you can combine them
in different ways. I took the creative liberty of messing with the form.

Poem A: “Weight of the world” - available in my book From My Years.

Poem B: “The Moon is a Spotlight” - Unpublished.

Walking the Path

I’ve walked so far that I've lost my way  

My shoestrings are so frazzled they can't be tied 

To keep my shoes on I shuffle along

My hands are cold from the ever-changing wind 

That penetrate my tattered gloves 

Everyone wonders where I'm going 

All I can say is where I've been 

My map shredded, unfolded too many times 

Coffee stains and fast food residue 

Make the legend and roads hard to read 

I look up to the sky to aligning myself with the North Star 

But it simply watches me 

My Boy Scout badges are no help 

I've wandered from place to place 

Having my mail forward
But somehow I never get the letter you say you wrote so many years ago.

Falling Star

Where would I be if I hadn’t

         wished upon a Falling star?

Would I be chained to this dream,

         forever chasing a possibility

         that never reaches the horizon

It was a spur-of-the-moment wish

Made in the innocence of youth

I was sitting on my front step

Enamored by the endless night

         For a moment I understood eternity

                  and my place in it

                  sitting there on my front step

A knee-jerk reaction as a star fell.

A wish,

A hope,

A dream made at such a young age.

I was not mature enough to know that falling stars do not land.

So here I am

         face peppered with stardust

         as I run across eternity.

My legs and heart growing tired with age

Wondering where I would be

if I hadn’t wished upon a Falling star.