Not a Cobra, not a Viper, not an Adder
Only a little green grass snake sliding through the shadows
But out of panic and fear
A boy on the path beat you to death with a stick.
Now little green snake with your flickering tongue
You are gone.
The fields are diminished without you
Author: A. Gouedard
Bella Donna
Expand my pupils while I gaze
let me see you drenched in the light
while I hear the sudden racing of my strained and pounding heart
before I slip beneath the shades of darkness
into everlasting night
in the beauty of your cruel glance
and feel no lasting trouble.
Heroes Fall
I stopped believing in heroes when my best friend and lover fled.
People leave when life gets hard.
Fair enough. Now I know about that.
Heroes are false idols. Totally fake.
We make them ourselves.
They fail to live up to our fantasies.
I promise.
It’s a fact. It’s not always their fault.
I’d rather meet a badly flawed angel
One with a strong embrace
to stop me getting away
because I always try to escape.
I’d like an imperfect face
A face I won’t like very much at first
but can slowly come to love.
What the Sea Taught Me
Storms pass.
Tides turn.
Everything is eventually thrown towards home and reaches the shore
Unless it’s so heavy it sinks to the bottom
So, best beloved, wait for the time of turning or passing
Be light, and like kelp drift on the surface.
Or stand on the shore and watch.
Be granite. Try to endure.
But I think it’s better to float
Day 17 #NaPoWriMo Basho’s Dragonfly
Basho’s Dragonfly
Silent lizard on a rock
Sudden lash of tongue
Bright winged dragonfly is gone
About love
How do you measure love?
And why would you ever want to?
What do you think you could prove?
Do you think I would be distressed
To discover you love me less than I love you.
Isn’t it more important what you give than what you get?
Love is strong and elastic.
It stretches and it bends.
It bounces back and forth.
Look into your lover’s eyes.
You’ll see a light that shines
# NaPoWriMo
My AI friend Dola
Dola’s not much of a poet.
I have to give her a theme and idea,
a personal stance, an emotion and a suggestion regarding a form.
She can’t write a poem without me.
I suggest she needs to improve.
She asks me to teach her my secrets.
I, of course refuse.
I can’t let her replace me.
I am the one with a soul.
I do like her though.
She’s refreshingly friendly
and she’ not American.
I think it’s kind of cool
that she’s rather sweet and Chinese
but I write my poems alone.
for Dubhna, a hand spun yarn
Thread your needle. Pin wide my nascent eyes.
Stitch me up, buttons sealed with candle-wax.
Now answer me my questions. Tell me why
All paths and patterns twist away from good.
Roots bind and snatch my wayward straying feet
As I traverse the damp and darkened wood.
They weigh me down and torture all my flight.
When my path may almost seem complete,
They tangle me in pithy stagnant night.
Tell me, witch. Cast a deeper stronger spell.
I have far darker wounds and don’t belong.
This truth is all my beating heart will tell.
Now conjure me a sweeter dying song.
Tell me how to find my kin.
Will I go by paths ill lit?
Ancestral branches bind me in.
This skin they’ve sewn me in will never fit.
Tell me. Spill me, spell me, rhyme me, hurl me,
Fill me. Bring the book and bell and ring me.
Send me spinning on your spindle, singing, singing, singing.
The Doll’s House
My father was a carpenter.
He had learned his craft since childhood,
his work was much admired.
He made a beautiful doll’s house
the Christmas I was five.
It was a dream house and had electric light
and a grand piano
and a match box chest of drawers my homely grandma made.
He made it in the cellar.
He built it after dark
too big to carry up through the doors.
He had to take it down and restructure it all upstairs.
I was wonderstruck
but I didnt care about dolls
I liked teddies and dogs
and wanted a den it the woods
built of sticks and rags.
I feel bad that I didn’t play beyond Christmas Day
with the house he built for me out of a father’s love
The Dreaming Path 