Swing
Low
The playground is
empty save
for a song
wavering on wind
gusts and the
repetitive snap
and release
clinking of chains.
Swiiing low
sweeeet chariot
commin’ for to
carry me home.
And home is a
place she hopes
someday to find as
higher and
higher she climbs
with each pump
and thrust of her
legs – fingers
wrapped tightly
round the links
of the chain
tethering her to the
world - this
playground of dust.
I looked over
Jordan and what
did I see - her father’s a
ghost who
rarely returns – a
band of angels
commin’ after me –
her
mother a
disembodied smile
– commin’ for to
carryyy meee home.
As
the metal
poles churn losing
grip on the ground –
Ka CHUNK Ka CHUNK
– with each
snap and release
of the slack in the
chains her fingers
still cling to. She
saw clouds crumble
in the roof of the
sky when the world
was a playground
of dust - when all
things were possible –
when forgiveness
was enough –
commin’ for to
carry me home.
The
Way Things Shine When Cloaked
in darkness. Stars fleeing like
bats from black
holes
hidden in the sky.
Lights from
mastheads moored
along
the shore that
stare and blue like
glowing eyes over
a black
sea. Indoor lights
that beckon just
like hands to lost
souls
passing by to move
in closer for
a shaft of comfort
which cannot warm.
Sparks that
float like paper
lanterns from the
hollows of
ringed black eyes
of nocturnal
raccoons who
prowl past the
last
perimeters of
light. The chartreuse
shock of a green
shoot
inside a moist
black cocoon of soil
as it wakes. Or
how bad
dreams drive hands
to reach
for bedside lamp
chains in the
middle of long
and lonely
nights.
The last bright
white blaze
that shrieks from
death’s darkening
gaze before
each synaptic snap
and spark is
suddenly erased.
Who
Am I?
I hide behind a mask.
I am a blast
of black breath –
a smile climbing out
the window of
a roadside wreck.
I am a flatlining sun
beneath cloak
of grey. A gutter of
moon in an emptying
drain. A neon
white vein stripped
clean of its blood. A
gale
hooded neck against
a gleaming windowpane. A
black plastic scrap
ripped
free of its load. A
curled paper of darkness
left stranded in the
middle of
a deserted road.
Words are permanent
graffiti scrawled across
my
skin. My ears ring a hum
of pandemonium. My
eyes are mere cut outs of
parchment epiphanies.
My fingers are flailing
acrobats over a widening
hole
scribbling equations
on my yellowing vellum
soul.
Greetings -
Judith is a poet living in Port Townsend, Washington. Her poems have appeared online and in print journals including: The Raven Chronicles: Last Call, The Floating Bridge Press Review IV, Ethel Zines 3 & 4, Synchronized Chaos, The POETiCA Review, The Night Heron Barks. Her chapbook, The Evidence & The Evermore was published by Ethel Zine in 2019. She used to have a black cat named Lothlorien.
No comments:
Post a Comment