Category Archives: Uncategorized

Vanquish the Dragon

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22

Your mouth hemorrhages flames
that lick beastly lies
until a sheen covers your words
–slick polished speak.

Beneath jagged teeth
that gnash newly grafted branches
your tongue forks an agenda
that spreads its cancer
through social media channels
while accusations of cheating
float through the wake of your words.

Few can stomach your hat in the ring.
Fear of your becoming
beads sweat on brows,
so we leave our houses
to release you at the polls.

Brenda Warren 2014

Written for Elizabeth’s Day 26 prompt, and The Sunday Whirl.

 

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speak

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3

am learning to speak myself into being
make myself known
uncover the soul suckers
locked in padded corridors
sealed beneath my skin
serpents that course my life
with stories

stories of what everyone else thinks

am learning to speak myself into being
no compass
no guide
picking locks to release
dragons that conquer thinking

casting them out with words

am learning to speak myself into being
before padded corridors
become the norm

Brenda Warren 2014

Notes: The first (repeated) line is from Elizabeth Crawford Katch’s poem, Here, But For Me, There Be Dragons.  This piece came quickly (thank goodness…April grows long), and I chose not to add punctuation.  It is screaming revision at me, but time runs short.  Next month.  🙂  Although, I may make changes as I revisit it.

I observed the presentation of snakes and other amazing reptiles in a 7th grade science classroom today.  The man with the snakes mentioned a type of python called a soul sucker.  The phrase had to enter my piece today.  Soul sucker.

This is for Elizabeth’s Day 25 prompt.

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April 23

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3

The cotoneaster is alive with birds
encouraging its leaves to open like wings.
A rush of wind inspires their raucous exodus.

Craving spring’s sweet sap,
the bush releases a silent sigh
as buds burst green along its arcing branches.

Brenda Warren 2014

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Trump

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7

When I try to start a poem with,
“If I could only be an elephant,”
it ends with too much sadness
to begin.

Fierce love disrupted
through culling’s lethal game.

Circus crowds
with ooooos and ahhhhhs,
pay for elephant chains.

It’s over before it begins.

Humanity holds the trump card
yearning for cash and coins.

They win.

Ladies and Gentlemen!
In the center ring!

Brenda Warren 2014

Blink

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6

Your ghost lingers
in the eyes of buildings
afraid to blink,
afraid I’ll disappear.
Salty trails trace my cheeks
like tracks of rain on windows,
tickling me awake,
taking me back
to your breath on my spirit
lacing words through life’s
lost condensation.

Looking up,
I close my eyes and open them
diminishing the possibility of you.

Brenda Warren 2014

Thank you Elizabeth for this Day 21 prompt.

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Let My Finnish Bones Sweat

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9

finland 1968 george f mobley

Finland 1968 George F Mobley

Nothing matters but the rain
beating glory from balloons
driving our clothes heavy
in sheaths against our cemetery sides.

We came to heal,
we came to mourn,
all in all we came newborn
to the possibilities your deaths open.

Later, saunas will welt it out of us
until we’re left with all we’ve got
a collection of pebbles
and livestock bones
enough for some

strange for others.

Continuation.

Brenda Warren 2014

 

Thank you Tess, and The Mag, for ekphrastic inspiration.

Villanelle’s Ache

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10

A hidden ache enunciates her sway
as broken bridges sink beneath her gaze.
She gathers words within a public bray,

some purloined bones to read another day.
She mends them into limbs amid the lace.
An open ache enunciates her sway,

it sings out sounds with all she does not say.
She strives to hide the phonemes she’s displaced.
Her stitches filter out the public bray

as mending meaning takes her ache away.
She waltzes secret stories under lace
like water whirling rhythm through her sway.

Embroidering the words her heart betrays,
she craves release from graphemes’ sharp embrace,
and hides again beneath the public bray.

Sometimes her needle stitches up the day,
arranging messy words she can’t displace.
A hidden ache enunciates her sway
and keeps her secrets from the public bray.

Brenda Warren 2014

157

Visit The Sunday Whirl

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Luna

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1

Women dance themselves sacred
beneath a blood moon,
twirling to reveal
ragged edges of secrets
whispering from waves.

Cascading skirts mesmerize
beneath serpentine arms.
sporadic caws, hoots, and howls.

Brenda Warren 2014

Written for Elizabeth’s Day 16 prompt.

Chimpanzees pant-hoot.

 

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