gratitude

the imperceptible rise and fall of your chest draws me near until your scent overwhelms memories into being

I tiptoe through moments of us so dear water fills my eyes

And then —
there it is, perceptibly

your chest rises my sighs
through its breath
and I settle into knowing
you’re still here

gratitude

bwarren 23

Driving Home

driving home
from home
knuckles
as white as the roads
the sky
the trees
my face
white
on white
on white
on white
binding my freedom
filling it with thoughts of ditches
of metal on metal
crashing
crunching
bleeding oil
bleeding gas
bleeding me

my side of the highway
unplowed
drifted over
deep
it pulls Mona’s wheels like an undercurrent
this way
and that

her electric blue must look beautiful from above
straining against the white
striving like a salmon to get back home

~bwarren 22

Cracked not Broken

Slivers of breath sent her plans clattering through to
that place
where nothing ever mattered but now.

How did the light dim?

Where did her angels go?
Dancing on pins,
deep , where secrets whisper,
they move through the crack in her everything.
Light against dark –
tracing paths to summon themselves.
Nothing works like it used to.

When she walks, feathers fall from her feet.

She laughs.

~bw 22

Day Ten — off prompt. This one came after I tried to construct a cento from some of my older poems. While pieces of other poems are present, this is not what I expected to write. Like so many poems, it became itself.

there but for the grace of gods

The dead man chased answers to neurotically contrived questions
budding flowers blossomed, then withered in his wake
There were bugs writhing inside his skull
They ate pieces of his brain
He heard from inside out
Everything he remembered disappeared
Answers tricked him
riddles — forever
unsolved

~bw 22

Day Nine asked for a nonet. 9 words per line, 8 words, 7 words  . . .

untitled glosa

in a language of unquestionable voice,
I hear the night break, the moon
toss back her hair. I hear the hum
of contentment shuddering in the grass
–Tiffany Midge “Night Caller”

Strong and remote we hold onto the void
spinning webs – fibrous orbs that
trace the patterns of stars over our eyes
in a language of unquestionable voice

of silky scribbled syllables that syncopate
like fingertips indiscriminately tapping
dropping sounds from rhythm until
I hear the night break the moon.

Luna hides her face in craters of cloud cover
unconsciously peeking through wispy dis-clarity.
Swelling tides respond with waves begging her to
toss back her hair. I hear the hum

of salvation bearing witness to its birth.
Tangled and tethered, her hair breaks through its
cloud-covered chrysalis illuminating a sweet yet unsettled feeling
of contentment shuddering in the grass.

~bw 22

Day 8: I repeated an earlier prompt for today. This is my second glossa from the prompt for day three. You can find my first glosa here. Both were from quatrains found in Tiffany Midge poems. This one is from a poem, Night Crawler, found in Midge’s book, The Woman Who Married a Bear.

Magnetic Poetry

Moist sacred breath
tendrils through dusk forests
vining secrets
to the moon.

~bw 22

Day Seven— Today’s prompt eluded me, so i resorted to my magnetic poetry set. I used an old tray my mother-in-law left us to guide the poem’s direction.

That Crow

Hold that image—
fast, before it fades
to fog, to
dreams not remembered.

For many days
if a crow caws, its
dreams nudge her, the roll of a
die that makes
life feel fragile, maybe it
is fragile, like that image,

a crow
broken-winged, strutting across an old stone wall, a
bird that swallowed her whole
that crow from her dreams, that crow that
cannot
fly.

~bw 22

Day Six prompted us to write a variation of an acrostic poem.  The first word of each line in this piece is from the first stanza of Dreams by Langston Hughes. This one didn’t come easy, but it is my sixth.