napowrimo
I know how to write a sonnet.
I’ve written many before
But I’m not going write one now.
That’s not against the law.
I’d much rather write a ballad
Or a poem that’s free of all form.
I was writing pictorial poems
Even before I was born.
I hummed before I heard words.
I needed no metre or rhyme.
I was given a gift that’s divine.
Out on a limb
Hanging on a thread
A crystal swings and turns
Capturing lights reflected.
Like my life.
A brief flash of fire in the dark.
If music is the food of love
Turn it down, don’t sing along.
All those words of sweet romance
Lull us in a lovestruck trance.
Loves and doves and stars above
Disguise the fist in velvet glove.
The honeymoons that don’t last long
Soon grow cold, as does the song.
I’m grateful for all the small glances
and glimpses of futures to come,
Portents and patterns I see in the sky,
The formations of birds I see as they fly
Foretelling fortunes, they never deceive.
Rely on the written word of the birds.
They never lie.
They tell every morning their message of truth
By the colour of eggs, the shapes of their legs
And direction of flight.
My grandmother gave me the gift of these things.
I understand all that the dawn chorus brings.
There’s a deep dark hue
to the worst of dreams.
I’ve been hanging out with the dead.
Those old ghosts are controlling my head
My heart is an open wound
Sweet grapes stuck in old glue.
Baby, I’m crushed, battered and blue
from banging myself on these boarded-up walls
with the juice pouring out on you.
When you were a lop eared rabbit
and I was a battered old bear
we rattled around the countryside
In an unbalanced three wheel cart.
On a whim you broke my heart.
But when my arm dropped off
and all my straw stuffing fell out
you pushed it all back in.
Only a very good friend would care enough to do that.
Ob-la-di Ob-la-da was a happy song
Sung in a happy time
But we were tangled in blue.
La la la la life goes on.
I found a new love
but I’m still wrapped up in you.
Poems used to come easy;
I could refine them or not as I wished.
Now I have to struggle and strain using only six lines
To squeeze out some half-born attempt
That ends as a whimpering flop.
I should really know when to stop.
The Dreaming Path 