Our love is a nest of twigs
intricately woven
where secrets whisper
in dark spaces and
we giggle
we find each other
in coins on the side of the road
~bw
Tag Archives: Len
Self Portrait as Cinderella
It’s time to dress for the ball!
My grandmother’s backless dress
beckons with cascades of tulle
in buttery yellow sheets.
Its underdress brushes warmth
with satin against my skin
And then, my prince waltzes in.
His fingers trace the path of
the labyrinth tat on my back.
Our eyes meet in the mirror
where he gestures with his head.
There’s a gift beneath the bed.
From beneath the bed I pull
a pair of lemon slippers,
jeweled flats that flatter my dress.
They find my feet. I love them.
He offers a hand in dance
our bodies pull us to trance
Balls can(‘t) wait, it’s not too late.
Fade to music twisting sheets.
~bw
Notes:
For this piece I followed the early bird prompt at NaPo. To give myself some parameters, I made every line 7 syllables (if you say jeweled as one syllable). The rhythm feels choppy and odd in some places, but it was fun to write.
Something Sacred Fills Our Sway
For Len
Your touch ripples me liquid
Swelling tides within
As whispers of miracles
Drop like pins
Summoning angels
Dancing a trance
Water moves through our low spots
Surging sighs
That ebb our flow
Until shores reemerge
Spent with foam
And soft sweet sleep
Evens our tide
Brenda Warren 2017
Visit The Sunday Whirl
Sex Poem
Brief me erotic with endless grace.
Feed my roots.
Fill me until empty threads itself gone.
We speak of starlings
dancing murmurations
moving through us
rare and rendered sacred.
Beneath Pandora’s shadowed sky
we claim witness.
Brief me erotic
plant your secrets ‘tween my thighs.
Brenda Warren 2016
Visit The Sunday Whirl
As the Crow Flies
I’m preparing my house for one to two weeks of only me.
Limbo Land
as opposed to LaLa Land
on its way to Ohio.
Caw! Caw! Caw!
We scavenge all our shit
with story
threading knotted connections
tangling strength.
Brenda Warren 2015
Morning’s Mirror
Morning sighs its arrival
breathing sleep aside.
Denying her charms
you slumber,
holy in repose.
Silent, I watch
as the dog curls into your side
nuzzling the last of night
beside you.
Shifting my weight, I rise,
turning to your form’s reflection,
barely perceptible in dawn’s
tenuous light.
I stand here watching
until color chimes its way
through the blinds,
urging your departure,
while I imprint morning’s mirror
in my mind.
Brenda Warren 2015
Today’s prompt asks for an aubade, a form that explores lovers’ morning farewells.
We am
The tongues of angels clatter against
ten thousand stolen beginnings
fluttering syllables like wings gone
wild, until letters float like
feathers through
my dreams. Reminding sleep you
nestle next to me.
We end our day in silent
reverie, like spoons of primal
clay merged in a single am, filled
with shards of marmalade and jam.
Brenda Warren 2015
The prompt:
Love poems are a staple of the poetry scene. It’s pretty hard to be a poet and not write a few – or a dozen – or maybe six books’ worth. But because so many love poems have been written, there are lots of clichés. Fill your poems with robins and hearts and flowers, and you’ll sound more like a greeting card than a bard. So today, I challenge you to write a “loveless” love poem. Don’t use the word love! And avoid the flowers and rainbows.
I also used words from a previous Sunday Whirl.
LaLa
There’s a crack in everything
that’s how the light gets in
– Leonard Cohen
Soil me.
Let your magic hair tickle secrets from my thighs,
as you sing our ragged future through my soul.
There’s no turning back (you fine furry fuck).
You are my man. My sorcerer.
Majestic, you move through the crack in my everything.
That’s how your light gets in.
That’s how you help me breathe.
Your fingers move through the spaces of my bones
as you shoulder loose the gloaming of another well-lived day.
You are it for me, my LaLa.
If only you were home tonight,
connecting constellations
for the monkey on my back,
balancing a lotus act
along its crooked track.
Brenda Warren 2014
Written for Elizabeth’s Day 2 prompt.
Bird Woman Falls is Weeping
Bird Woman Falls ~ Glacier National Park ~ June 28, 2013 ~ Photo by Brenda Warren
Bird Woman Falls is Weeping
As light bends shadowed lanes across glacial faces,
my insignificance tumbles thoughts of self
through the hollow bones of birds
that hop in puddles through highway tunnels.
Unstable walls of ice edge stretches of the road,
forcing fallen streams of winter across our drive.
Beyond the vast and wild expanse,
Bird Woman Falls weeps showers of diamonds
over stone cliffs into a small steep meadow,
a glittering emerald island,
greened by melting glaciers
that carve a hanging valley
to feed Bird Woman’s flow.
The highway pivots mountains left and right,
a dizzying dazzling retreat for cars Going to the Sun
to bear witness to Bird Woman’s weeping
on this road that bridges canyons to heaven.
Brenda Warren 2013
Visit The Sunday Whirl
Keeping Ahead of Jimmie
for Thyra Louise
Most parents of deaf kids applaud conversation.
Your parents, grandparents, and family friends
paid for your silence with quarters in cars.
Soon, we collected bills,
and fanned them in front of your eyes.
After a specified amount of time,
we would rain dollars down on you
paying for quiet on long distance road trips,
where your incessant observations never ended.
Every now and then,
you’d ask us to slow down,
so your invisible friend Jimmie
could keep up with the car.
~~~~~~~~~
No wonder we left our family.
We both needed Len,
who told me once with jewels in his eyes,
“Everything children say is fascinating.”
He laughed, then added,
“How can anyone not listen?”
Years of your imagination were lost
in silent cars,
running down roads I don’t remember,
trying hard to keep ahead of Jimmie.
Brenda Warren 2013
The prompt for this piece came from the Trifecta Challenge. Click on the tricycle to visit their site, and read some more pieces that used the word “rain” in a rather odd fashion. I will also share this at open link night at dVerse Poets Pub. Thanks for being there.
This is my third piece for April. Thyra likes it. I am grateful for her life, her wisdom, and her kindness. Len is the light in my eyes; he inspires me to listen harder.
