Poetry

Image by M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives, University at Albany, SUNY (via NPR’s Hidden Brain Podcast), for the Day 24 prompt. Inspired by Emma, Carrie and Vivian’s stories. --- They branded them the feeble minded, when all they were were the wronged ones. Once a face begins to fade into the fog of otherness, doubt begins to assail the humanity of the other. We wished we spoke for you when they came - before your lives were stashed behind that cordon of red brick ...

After the sun, for the Day 19 prompt. --- A lone man stands in front of the bus shelter, his bag slung across his shoulder, hands stuck deep in his pockets, staring out towards the square, at the space where the bus should be.Behind him, four bicycles lie in various states of harness. Before him, the square liessuffused with light. The calm, strange for this time of the day, is broken when as though dumped from an arriving train, a flood of people begins to traverse the square. After that comes the rain, after which it becomes clear that the quiet that came before was only the calm before the storm. Alone, his bag slung across his shoulder he stares. The square lies suffused with light. Calm, strange day. Then the rain.

After Eduardo C. Corral’s Ceremonial, for the Day 18 prompt. --- Here I am lord, crouched behind the door of this sanctuary, wedding dress crammed into a closet, clenched fist clutching a rosary hoping the bite of its ragged edges will bring absolution for this fleeing. Like a dream hovering just beyond the reach of remembering the taste of sugared rancid sweat lingers. This war within, between the ghosts of things once thought and things now heard rages. These thick thighs and belly fat belie the assignation of beauty. Prayer cannot assuage this tumult, this self flagellation. I pinch and pull, cry myself hoarse In deliruim.

Photo by Ruxandra Mateiu on Unsplash, for the Day 16 prompt. --- Where once we Wrapped ourselves in heavy Furs and coats We now skip Free, drawn by the warmth of the Reborn sun. The scent of Daffodils, chirp of spring birds Unfurls joy Spring has sprung And like children, giddy with Joy, we play.

– Cry for the riven country. For the ones for whom doom descended from the skies in Douma, spreading death in the wake of its yellow green tendrils. Cry for the dead and the dying. For the ones culled from the living, whose blood, like a libation rejected pools at the altar of the sixth fleet. The whine of drones, swish of tomahawks and boom of hellfires pounding earth into tired dust assail their ears, lighting up the night sky. ...

A Haibun, for the Day Twelve prompt. --- The greyness subsumes everything, water filled skies allied to grey granite blocks defining the sky line. Sometimes, a mist will drift in from the sea, shrouding the city in a gloomy pall. The winds howl incessantly, its fingers reaching through every gap and every crack spreading chill and forcing a quickening of the footstep of all who brave the elements. The defining characteristic though is one of just getting on with it. Sometimes - for two days of summer as we say - the sun comes out. ...

Image source: Huffington Post. For the Day 11 prompt. --- Time tinges the Future with death and demise Certain end. Each day is A war won by birthing the Self anew. The claws of Time etch themselves in our skin Separating Desire from Response,bending will to reality. The world ends Not with a bang but with a Whimper*. – \* T.S Elliot, The Hollow Men.

Photo by Josh Applegate on Unsplash, for the Day 8 prompt, revisited. --- Sanctify my body as I pray; with clasped hands, bowed head, kneeling here, before this altar of remembering. I come for the broken bread, blessed, become shredded body. And wine in urn, become blood, spilt forty times but one. Sin seethes beneath the surface of this body, this flesh from earth descended, unravelling like a thread roughly yanked from frayed yarn. ...

Photo by Josh Applegate on Unsplash, for the Day 8 prompt. --- With bowed heads and clasped hands we come In quiet supplication, knees bowed, flesh unstrung- Hearts humbled, at the feet of the priest For bread broken. Blessed. Becoming crackling body And wine. Slipped into silver urn. Spilt blood. Divine liquid. Pange, lingua, gloriósi Córporis mystérium, Sanguinísque pretiósi,

My father looms Like a colossus in my mind His voice, tinged with righteous anger The lyric of my powerless youth But now in my season of adulthood, I see him as he is, A man who tried his very best But was human too.