Author: abykittiwakewrites

Long Lay the Shadows

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A Catena Rondo with a repetitive, complicated rhyme scheme.  I’ve left the rhyme scheme within the poem – letters ABBA, etc.  I hope you’ll try it and share one with me!

A Long lay the shadows

B calico stretches, defiant of man’s limits

B I hunch into my coughing fits

A Long lay the shadows

—

A Fatigue washes over me, a bitter rain

B  I smile rainbows when I don’t know what to say

B but daughter laughs sunshine, turns night into day

A Fatigue washes over me, a bitter rain

A Long lay the shadows

B1 calico stretches, defiant of man’s limits

B2 I hunch over into one of my coughing fits

A Long lay the shadows

B1 Calico stretches, defiant of man’s limits

C1  And tells me in sizzles, your death lingers

C2 then Resists my icy fingers

B1 Calico stretches, defiant of man’s limits

C1 And tells me in sizzles, your death lingers

D1 I dance in my bed

D2 She meows in protest, pulls back her head

C1 And tells me in sizzles, your death lingers

D1 I dance in my bed

E1 Distorted voices haunt the walls

E2 feverish steps up and down the halls

D1 I dance in my bed

E1 Distorted voices haunt the walls

A Long lay the shadows

F I silence my heart, I silence my toes

E1 Distorted voices haunt the walls

A Long lay the shadows

B1 Calico stretches, defiant of man’s limits

G then quietly, carefully on my chest she sits

A Long lay the shadows

Where Are Thy Beloved Wheat Fields?

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(Ekphrastic – Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh)

Where are thy beloved wheat fields?

For there is Venus and the Moon and Death

Free and wild

Reaching for the highest star

And there is Hope planted in the village

pale white in a tangle of sleeping souls

Stretching yet Barely scraping sky

And the Mistral! That violent wind

a vent qui rend fou*

Why did you not choose to walk into this beauty born of your imagination

Beyond Death down the hills into that town crowned by Hope

Instead of pacing into those wheat fields

Whose hum pacified you, whose loneliness enveloped you, who muffled your cry

And left you dripping stars all the way to bed

*A wind that drives you crazy 

(pronounced a vonn ki wRon fu-.)

Two English Sonnets

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An English sonnet is a 14 line poem with 10 syllables per line containing two quartrains and two tercets rhyming as follows: ABBA CDDC EFE GHG. Show me your sonnets!  Forgive my lack of formatting as I’m still struggling with the beast that is WordPress.

Forgiveness

Ah, Love! That fatigable mother’s milk

Proves lasting beyond outward appearance

Creation once done holds no difference

Sinew and bone hid by piercable silk

Yet upon piercing, a cry stops the blade

Of doubt – mercy for thy love’s dark actions

Peace born in facing thy love’s infractions

Thy fingers broke skin, thy hatred was made

Bare lasts the bone, white sepulchre now filled

Bare laid thy love – was not your mouth once full?

Thy love continued, thy love’s full mouth stilled

Yet fond memory resurrects the dead

Their laughter endures in thy countenance

Ah, Love! Laugh – tell me what was it I said

In Ways I Cannot Miss You

I missed you in ways I cannot miss you

Whenever skies are darkened by eclipse

Whenever again smoke traces your lips

Or as children who point fingers pew pew!

Different dimensions, time periods

I criss-cross your skin in whispers and shouts

Until you stand aged and loved -without doubts

Of being loved- you rise in myriads

of mended cloaks spread out behind your frame

A sea of healing in your wings -and I?

having nothing left except my poor name

I leave the scene knowing I’ll miss you in

ways I cannot miss you. In moments like

this where the sun hits you, love’s dark twin

Three Haiku

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Homelessness

Starling chick unhoused

Cat springs –  Black night continues

Stars die one by one

Saviors

Stars upon the ground

Starling chicks unhoused – I make

a nest with my hands

Hopelessness

Windless kite aloft

Stars like raspberry jam spread

There!  God’s breath finds me

On a Poem, Read.

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Struck! by ribbons of fire I cry out, renewed

Unlocked tiger cages stand empty

and notes passed in class reveal their reverie

I dance

Tempt the stripes from my frame

Join crows in their crowds

And murmur in strange tongues

True, all is babble –

But what do you expect

From the newly born?

The State of Things

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Three poems in and I use the same title

Love is a curious thing

Or is it safety craved

As I watch my TV and see the flag fall away into static

Do I worry for the future or the past with its tiny pattering footsteps leading to this moment

What can I do but turn in place to a new hope

the railroad switch which turns the world

Vote.

The State of Things

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Ah, Love

The map which lacks a key shows

New moon colonies with streets pristine

For no one walks together since the pandemic

No one breathes the same air

An uneasiness settles like a hen over kittens

Warmth given and no sustenance to be seen

Except in the Creator of safety in the storm

Teeth eat that which provides

Oh, Earth!

In our distance,

In our loss,

We will love better

Thoughts on the Garden Bed

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Another bad board
Unscrew and replace and rescrew
The heart, the liver, the kidney
Like this bad board
Replaceable
how is it then that you
With all your replaceable parts
Your breakable bits
Are irreplaceable?

Any other heart would beat as yours
Any other voice carry to my ear
But not quite right
Not so
With the fiddling of your fingers in my hair
The soft lullaby of laugh
The one only I hear
In the tired dark