One Prose Poem by Thompson Emate

 

The Diary of a Bracelet

It was a parting gift, one to be treasured. Her mother knew she was going to the beyond. She knew the night had come for her. She gave it to her as a keepsake.

After her mother had passed away, her mind was in turmoil. Her dreams were filled with unearthed memories, and she couldn't bear to keep the gift.

She found a new home for it, selling it for a price. It was bought by someone else who admired it and took it home.

Although the haunting memories had ceased, she encountered strange occurrences. Her dreams felt like a hazy maze, and the darkness seemed to stand like a mirror before her.

She sought advice from a sage, who explained that some people when near death, could catch a glimpse of other people's future. He revealed that her mother had given her the bracelet as a gift to ward off the tendrils of darkness. Now that it was gone, she had to create a portrait of it.

Even though the portrait wasn't a replica, it made a difference. It changed things. One night, as she gazed at the portrait, tears welled up in her eyes. She wished she hadn't given the real bracelet away.

Thompson Emate spends his leisure time on creative writing, particularly poetry and prose. He has a deep love for nature and the arts. His poems can be seen in Poetry Potion, Poetry Soup, Visual Verse, Written Tales magazine, Writer Space Africa magazine, ScribesMICRO and elsewhere. He lives in Lagos, Nigeria.

Five Poems by April Ridge

 

Ursula Can't Sleep Through the Night

 

 

She tosses and turns  

in an unfit slumber.  

 

Her coral chamber too hot. 

 

Her little purple nightie  

soaked with the familiar cold sweat, 

as if mussels had invaded her bed in the night. 

 

Clammy. 

 

Ursula conjures up a midnight snack of  

spiced eels and curried clown fish. 

 

She changes her clothes, 

a fresh night gown laid out  

earlier in the evening on the bedside table 

as she does every night. 

 

She later dreams feverishly of  

Ariel returning to her. 

 

Her young body unblemished by time.  

Her wish of human love. 

 

Her youthful aspirations clear and untarnished  

by hormones gone haywire. 

 

Ariel, with her flame-red hair returns less and less  

in the later years of Ursula’s life. 

 

Her presence spotty; sometimes Ursula 

doesn't think of her for a year or more, 

and then she shows up again  

in the middle of the night. 

 

Ariel is as interruptive as ever, 

making a jealous mess of her mind. 

 

Ursula turns on the oldies station and hears  

the popular songs of her youth being played. 

 

‘This cannot be!’ she exclaims,  

‘How can ‘Under the Sea’ be on the oldies station?’.

 

The Strength of Nature

 

 

You know, sometimes  

I will get really frustrated with life, 

thinking back to times when  

things seemed easier for me. 

 

They weren't necessarily easier.  

 

I think that once enough time  

has passed  

from a period in life,  

that you're likely to  

elaborate your memories: 

to glamorize, 

to blur the suffering;  

the trials of time that  

you may have experienced then, 

because your current situation  

strikes so loudly within. 

 

In these times  

where I feel hopeless, 

I try to recall the strength of nature. 

 

The turtle I witnessed  

crossing a six lane highway  

a couple of summers ago: 

the fastest I have ever  

seen a turtle move.  

 

I like to imagine  

his or her little face,  

taut with tension: 

little turtle teeth  

gritted against the odds,  

little turtle arms and legs  

flapping maniacally  

against the hot asphalt. 

 

I never saw it complete its journey,  

but it was in the lane  

closest to the shoulder. 

 

The odds were six to one.  

 

For days afterward 

on the way home  

I would look in that area  

to see if the turtle had made it.  

 

I celebrated in a small victory  

each time 

I did not see  

a broken turtle shell  

askew  

on the side of the highway.

 

Pandora Does an Unboxing Video

 

 

She looks defiantly into the camera lens  

as she wraps her long-taloned hands  

around the edge of the blood-red wooden box. 

It is ancient, yet youthful, with a blinking third eye 

carved into the middle of the lid. 

 

She says, 

‘Don’t forget to mash that ‘like’ button  

if you like what you see!’ 

 

She cackles as she rubs her fingertips 

almost erotically  

across the bottom of the box 

as she hoists it from its resting place 

at the center of the golden pedestal.  

 

She indicates with lurid hand motions 

to click the ‘subscribe’ button in the corner. 

 

She shrieks as the floor shakes violently 

beneath her aching hooves, 

the quaking makes her stumble 

causing her pitch black hair  

and all the nightmares within  

to tumble into her vacant eyes. 

 

She clumsily fumbles with the box, 

it stutters in mid-air: 

touching her clawed hands 

bouncing again and again, 

like a mulliganed football 

in the height of playoffs week. 

 

She gestures off camera  

to some beast or demon 

to zoom in on this important feature. 

 

The box crashes to the floor. 

 

Every chaotic manner of sound 

clashes one against the other: 

the tail of a snake slithers into view 

for just a moment  

before she pulls it out, devours it whole. 

 

The box pours black ooze onto the floor: 

a feast of screeching cockroaches a crawling chorus of song,  

scarabs roll out in a tide of wings and dung, 

wheel bugs with giant red stinger fangs, grinning garishly, 

lice and ticks carouse on a mutated dire wolf’s back, 

the wretched hands of time reach out, thick and cracked with age, 

giant student loans all due in this moment, 

the already too-high rent suddenly doubled. 

 

She bends her head off-camera 

to grimace and burp  

the heartburn of a thousand ages, 

reaches into the box and 

pulls out her Sephora haul 

while she grins with childlike wonder,  

pushes its other contents back inside and 

closes the box, 

placing it back on the pedestal. 

 

Pandora has saved us 

once again.

 

 

A Day at the Museum

 

 

Has anyone else noticed 

in studying Van Gogh's  

The Cafe Terrace that 

when you look into 

the night sky 

there are ghosts of the 

buildings he had painted there before, 

that he painted over? 

 

Perhaps 

to save money on canvas 

or to repaint his memory of  

the haunted patio chairs, 

the echoes of unwanted stares of patrons 

who had written him off as a madman. 

 

Perhaps he was a madman. 

 

But aren't we all in some way 

unhinged, lonely, 

feeling dissonant from the  

current cultural climate  

that begs of you 

quiet compliance?  

 

Perhaps we should all 

paint over our ghostly  

buildings of the past, 

walk down the cobbled lane  

to the unknown future 

that's never promised to us, 

in a spirit of hopeful wonder.

 

 

Astrape's Arms Grow Tired 

 

She comes in: 

cheeks darkened, 

lightning behind the eyes. 

 

You can see the cumulus begin to coil into something else. 

 

She twists her arms, 

wringing them out, lightning 

bringing on the wind. 

 

A violent tinge of grey plays behind wisps of hair. 

Cheeks stark as winter trees. 

Brows furrowed as the grasses spring has gathered at the culverts. 

 

She shouts: 

a thunderous echo bounces, 

her voice sparks a light in the darkness, 

zigzags down to the ground. 

 

She succumbs, 

after much precipitation, 

to the idea 

that not all days must be black. 

 

The clouds part. 

 

She lets the sun in for a while 

to dry her weather-beaten hair 

back into a natural twist, 

to lengthen the day again 

with a yellow sky, 

a lightened mind.

 

 

 

April Ridge lives in the expansive hopes and dreams of melancholy rescue cats. She thrives on strong coffee, and lives for danger. In the midst of Indiana pines, she follows her heart out to the horizon of reality and hopes never to return to the misty sands of the nightmarish 9 to 5. April aspires to beat seasonal depression with a well-carved stick, and to one day experience the splendour of the Cucumber Magnolia tree in bloom.