Posts for June 2, 2024 (page 2)

Category
Poem

Parting is such [] sorrow

Romeo declares the bitter end

is written in the stars–
pauses, squints into the sun.
Benvolio cocks his head.
Everyone laughs.
 
Juliet insists it is not day.
Crickets and airplanes and her frantic voice
sing with desperation into a stifling dusk.
It is not day, but no chuckle
lifts the weight of the sky.
 
Someone ought to have warned him,
I think, watching the bodies stiffen.
But in truth, the audience does not care
if he was right. Romeo must meet Juliet.
Their tragedy was parting when the day came.
 
At least the corpses were intertwined,
the audience whispers.
They leave the amphitheatre regretful, content,
complacent in the destruction.

Category
Poem

Drowning

Clear blue all around
yet I can’t see a thing.
You’re gone and I’m flailing,
grasping for purchase
on water that just 
slips through my fingers
and I can’t tell if you were swept away
or if you swam,
but it doesn’t matter because
every time I come up for air I’m still

drowning.


Registration photo of IE for the LexPoMo 2024 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

horse sonnet 2

For a gig, DaVinci drew a warhorse:
our tour guide called it the Gran Cavallo
and wiki adds pseudonym Sforza Horse.
Twenty-four ft. of brass, looming and hollow,
warning that warfare looms for those in his path:
a horse with a message to the bend of his knee.
Like the horse at the bank all twisted in wrath
that made out of copper he cant get free
and might prefer to take walks down to Rupp
and on Vine but he can’t.
 
Meanwhile somewhere else,
under DaVinci’s horse a boy pointed up,
exclaim’d to his brother, uncle, and aunt,
“look! now! before moving on to the falls,
at this horse please just look at the size of his

Content Warning

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Registration photo of Katrina Rolfsen for the LexPoMo 2024 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

Bent, Not Broken

The palm tree
   outside my hotel room
  patio leans to the left.
  Some hurricane tried to push
       it down, but it didn’t fall.
                  Instead,
                             it
                               grew
                                  sideways.
                                     No, it does not
                                            stand tall, but
                                                       nonetheless
                                                               it does stand
                                                                              unbroken.


Registration photo of Ellen Austin-Li for the LexPoMo 2024 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

Trudging (Title to change, one would hope)

Standing in the garden, feet planted
hip-width apart, bent at the waist over
an abundance of ripe raspberries, snacking
directly from the branches, smacking
the sweet—I remember my vow to skip
buying flowers for my pots
this year. In protest. If my beloved sister
is going to be given this diagnosis,
is going to be in pain, I’m not bringing beauty
into the universe. This cruel universe conspires
against us. Still, I drove to the nursery to look.
Picked out pink caladiums with green-edged
leaves, stained-glass coleus, regal red and fuschia,
purslane, with its spongy leaves and jewel-colored
petals—and nasturtiums, already trailing
from their too-small containers, tender buds ready
to burst tangerines and peaches. At the register,
I add bee bright red penta for the butterflies
and the hummingbirds. Just for today, I say
out loud. I load the car with new plants and flowers.  


Registration photo of Sue Neufarth Howard for the LexPoMo 2024 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

untitled

locked and loaded…
government occupied
wombs


Registration photo of Bronson O'Quinn for the LexPoMo 2024 Writing Challenge.
Bronson O'Quinn
Participant
Category
Poem

Video Game Haiku #24: Worms W.M.D.

We’re on the same team.
She kills me anyway, laughs
so hard she can’t breathe.


Registration photo of Sam Arthurs for the LexPoMo 2024 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

Writers Block

I can’t find any words
Today is just not my day
Maybe tomorrow


Category
Poem

untitled

 

You ask me where things went wrong

and i could list a million little moments:

How you talked about your ex,

your sister.

How the women in your life

somehow…

inexplicably…

didn’t know what was good for them.

So obviously, your lectures were helpful.

I wonder if I am that woman now,

an ex

(you talk to new women about),

who just didn’t know a good thing

when she had it.


Category
Poem

and they were friends forever and ever

In early August of
some time last July,
my friend sat with her
smoothie of spinach and rye.

And on that sweltering day,
a short man did appear:
he said, “Hullo, my name is Jack,
would you like a change of career?”

And my friend said “Of course!”
(as she was hot and quire bored),
and the man led her to a stop sign
on which they soared.

As they flew through the air,
iron pole between thighs,
he looked at the horizon and said
“my house is past that rise!”

My friend was eager to see
their destination so distant,
that when they landed, 
she hopped off that instant.

Jack led her into a cave
(and no longer was she bored)
and past the mouth and stalagmites
she saw a great hoard.

“What is this?” she said,
taken aback,
but when she turned,
disappeared had Jack!

And in his place
was a mighty lizard:
a dragon of red
created by a wizard.

Mournfully, the dragon asked:
“Please don’t be mad and don’t kill me neither,
it’s not my fault I’m a were-dragon,
you wouldn’t want to be either!”

And my friend wasn’t mad,
and they’re friends to this day,
because when faced with the choice,
she chose not to slay.