Category Archives: Uncategorized

sin

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10

The magician’s assistant strums her lyre
as ghoulish shadows flick like fire
snapping as a whip snaps
stinging as a bee stings
Damnation’s light show
glides beneath the altars
of her stone black soul.

Plucked strings mesmerize
lascivious strings,
delirious strings,
wicked and impure.
Millions of victimized innocents fall
plundered to the Under
as they heed the Dark Soul’s call.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This piece is a response to Brian’s prompt at dVerse – Poetics — Third Eye Open. Thanks for the prompt, Brian, I’m not sure why it plunged me into darkness.

residued truth

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27

Lemony moonlight turns through the room
ivory smooth and silent
while this day’s residue settles like a dust of breeze
congregated in a fervent sweep of sparkling
that filters truth through perception
into moments embellished like tattooed skin.

Our trunks become vessels for stories
cloaked in ink, symbols to invoke
our life’s residue, ivory smooth and sighing,
as needles filter truth through matter
conceiving and breeching
a human veneer.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This piece was born from a dozen words offered up at The Sunday Whirl. Visit the Whirl for other pieces that these words inspired.

grape indulgence

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12

So much depends upon
the feet that stomped
the grapes that fed
this wine.

Let me lick them clean
gently spreading each long toe
expressing gratitude for
slight subtleties aroused within my palate
completely bereft of jam
swallowed liquid elixir.
Take me back to the stomp
that freed the flavor
rippling through this heady red.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is a bit of a joke, although my husband keeps shoving his feet in my face. LOL Here it is G-Man, a 55 word poem contributed to your Friday Flash 55.

these hands

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17

for Len

Grooved hills and dales crease time
through the palms of these hands.
Bluish channels create graphemes
under skin, fine-lined with cells like leaves.
Tendon’d talons morph into fingers—
one ringed with gold-crusted meteorite
billions of years old, binding flesh unto flesh.

From the stars
to the Earth
through my heart
to your hand,
with this ring, I thee wed.

These hands we share.
These hands that imprint discourse
commit to boats that arc through air.

These hands that canoe upstream
twist j-strokes,
swaggering against an enigmatic
current of handshape that transfers
directional verbs in space:
help me,
help you,
paddle to perception.

These hands that flutter lotus
blossoms traipse longing
spelled out in gently ridged
veins rising anew
bringing my hands
from the air
to you.

Brenda Warren 2011

Shout out to Margo Roby at  Wordgathering. for the prompt that brought this piece.  Check out the link for yourselves.  It was fun to write.  I also posted this for open link night at dVerse.  Both sites are worthy of a visit. Thanks for reading my words.

Background:
Len and I chose wedding rings from Chris Ploof’s meteorite designs. The italicized words were part of the vows we wrote for our wedding. There are several sign language references in the piece. American Sign Language, ASL, has several directional verbs….the direction you move your hands determines or enhances meaning. Len and I have been married for 7 years. My daughter teaches him 10 words in ASL every few weeks.

hunger

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9

Blister hot highway sheens black
around glossy cracked sheets of rusty patina
sheer against the Blackfoot’s cool spitting foam
where the river salivates, imagining
slippery-limbed cliff jumpers
tickling its low places
as they eddy and weave
through its succulent flow.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Victoria provided an interesting prompt at dVerse Poets Pub. Visit the link for more contributions to the prompt. We were to use texture as a tool in our poems.

hey bully

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32

hey bully
you coward
you strange wasted slouch of humanity
screw your cheap revolution
stop pulverizing people smaller than you

spinning cracked ideas of power
weakens your granite façade

exile desperation to the streets
stomp on the disenchanting garbage
you spread like ash

cleanse the hollows of your soul
clear some space for light to shine

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
School starts soon. That and this week’s wordle words at The Sunday Whirl, got me thinking about bullies, I always have at least one.  There is a big poster in my classroom that starts with “Bullies are sad little people inside….”  It engenders some interesting discussion with my seventh and eighth grade students.

Fish Food

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42

I.

Warden is married to his keys –
keeps them on a cord
snaps them back to hip.
Chink, step, chink, step–making rounds.

Twenty years, I worked these walls.
Last month, finished a forest,
a world blooms in my cell.
Swirling clouds cover my sky.
Branches beckon above my bunk.
Eyes of squirrels and other critters
peek from the umber of brush.

Chink, step, chink, step.
Today I rise. Warden pulls his keys
unlocks my cage.
Sschllup!
Back to hip.
Sending me home—
Sending me where I began.

II.

Home.
Forest insists I visit.
In twenty years,
pine trees stretch,
trails disappear.

Tracing paths on Ponderosa’s skin,
I place my cheek against her sturdiness,
and beg for answers to time’s sweet passage.

Considering all this forest holds,
I course through memory.
A snort disrupts my reverie.
I feel eyes upon my flesh.

Never losing contact with Ponderosa’s trunk,
I turn.
Rising up this she bear towers–her broad head
bruises the underside of branches
until she knocks something loose.

Maybe that’s all she wanted.
On all fours she turns,
and lumbers deep into dense dark woods.

My breath whooshes out
as I settle in a crumpled heap at the base of the tree.
The sun’s light draws my eyes to the ground.
There–what the she bear knocked down.

A key.
A skeleton key.
The skeleton key.

My laughter resonates through every tree’s being.

III.

Twenty years ago, I climbed this tree.
Twenty years ago, I hid this key.
The key to a secret chest I’d stolen
from the cup on my brother’s desk.
The cup with
Don’t Touch
(this means you Bitch)
scrawled on its side.

When confronted, I told him
I threw it in the lake.
At that, one hand grabbed the back of my neck,
the other engulfed my wrist.
He half-pushed, half-pulled me to the lake—
a back and forth waltz to the shore’s rocky edge.

“Get it!” he said.
“Make me!” I dared.

He danced me through the icy wet
until water lapped at my waist.
“Where is it!” he screamed.
No answer.
“Where is it!”
Nothing.

He grasped my hair
in both his hands and
shoved me under.
I struggled to hold onto
the limited air in my lungs,
letting it out in stops and starts.
I tried twisting, turning, kicking.
He jerked my head back,
and got in my face.
“Where is it, you little bitch?”
Nothing but heaving gasps with time for one deep breath.
Under again—I forced myself to open my eyes.
Mossy stones summoned through the muck.
My hands felt for stones with substance.
My hands felt for stones with sharp edges.
I let myself go limp.

He yanked me up.
I swung behind me.
A crack of stone on skull
punctuated the morning air.
He let loose, stunned,
blood dripping from his temple
and slid beneath the surface of the lake.

I held him there, under the water
until his bubbling ceased, thinking
he’d become part of the lake, and
nourish its fish with his blood.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This prose poem is my first contribution to Open Link Night at dVerse The Poet’s Pub.

Process Notes:
The first draft of Fish Food was constructed from an intense prompt during a writer’s workshop I attended two years ago. The prompt was delivered an image at a time as we were writing, and the story unfolded from each image. The prompt was designed to explore Jungian archetypes. The images included key, forest, cup, bear, and body of water. The person who delivered the prompt had us close our eyes, and paint each new image into our piece mentally before writing. I revised this piece last summer, but still felt it was unfinished. I cut about 20% tightening it up today. This may be the final draft…but who knows? It just might beckon again some day.

Falling Angel

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36

You plaster your dreads with the skin of serpents
enmeshing a Medusa, compelling society
to look the other way. A seditious struggle
pierces flesh with iron and ink,
rendering the sacred lost
beneath its pledge.
A stigma.
A falling away.

Wingless limbs falter while
sporadic sparks of truth
flint off your soul’s tufted feathers
and fall like tread from your feet
through this nether world
appled in sin’s black veil.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Process Notes:
“Dreads” are dreadlocks. When I was in Ohio we dreaded my daughter Julie’s hair. People treated her differently. One woman actually pulled her children closer to her in a protective effort as we passed. It was disconcerting. Now I think Jules is an amazing young woman, not a falling angel, but obviously this poem contains a bit of her dreadlocked experience.

Visit The Sunday Whirl for more poems constructed around the wordle words below. I used all of the words except hinder. I had it in there as “hindering the sacred lost” – rendering made more sense.

listening underwater

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14

Our voices disappear, behind
turned heads, within
darkened rooms, under
running water, and among
the hum of crowds, until
your world becomes
a scratchy out of tune radio station
where you fill in the blanks
and pretend to sing along
smiling a nod.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
At We Write Poems this week, a prompt of mine set the stage. Poets watched documentaries and wrote a poem from their viewing. Visit We Write Poems for a closer look at the prompt and other takes on it.

Process Notes:
My daughter TL is deaf. On Netflix TL and I watched the movie, See What I’m Saying: The Deaf Entertainers Documentary. Wow. TL performs with a group called EOS, Expressions of Silence. A group of hard of hearing and deaf children with a brilliant reputation, they perform songs in sign language at many venues throughout the school year. TL’s performances bring people to tears, she becomes the music, the words…she gives them life. My daughter is a star! 🙂

The movie follows four deaf adults through pieces of their lives as both deaf people, and as deaf entertainers. For us, it was a highly engaging movie. One of the four adults is TL Forsberg, a rock star from Toronto. She has beautiful speech, like my TL. Their beautiful speech and engaging personalities cause many people to think that they hear far more than they do. This piece came from the descriptions both TLs provide about communication.

I like the piece, but it makes me feel sad. “Our voices” and “your world” sets up tension. I almost pulled the “our” out of the piece, but there really are “two worlds” so I left it in the poem. How about all of those prepositions at the end of lines? To me, it makes the list prominent.

burnt confession

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15

The prophet in my heart bleeds rusty sermons
while flowers push through cracked cement
tickling my soul’s long walk, softening it,
until sun’s filtered light exposes
scores of melted scars
feeding on my tender flesh.

Before morning, I exist as I am.
Torment crawls under darkness,
my life swept aside. Sometimes
when the moon is new, I hum.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Process Notes:
In burnt confession, I took on the persona of someone with visible burn scars. For inspiration, I imagined the main character of the young adult book, Firegirl, grown-up. For further inspiration, I used the wordle words from The Sunday Whirl. Visit the whirl for more pieces using the word’s in the wordle below: