Tuesday, April 22, 2014

PAD - Day 21 - Optimist/Pessimist Poems


Fire – Bearers

Be they risen from the
sludged shore of bygone
yesteryear – lumbering
with smudged faces
Or dropped drifting from
the tip of a Celestial finger
they were
they are
they will be
the fire-bearers
arsonists and illuminators
it all depends …..
on a flicker


Old Story

a child in a room filled
with fragrant hay
whirls and claps
flushed with joy
another in a room
filled with hay collapses
dipped in desolation
one child flings sunshine
scented hay in the air
looking for the pony sure
somewhere to be there
the other smells only
shit

Awaiting

Puts on her party hat
and waits in the waft
of urine-lilac scented
sunroom – beams
lighting parchment skin
waiting for them
to come even as
shadows grow tall
ready to laugh


Laughter and Tears

Comics and Poets

There are those who
exult in the laughter
they draw with silver
tongues and clever words
There are those who
exult in the tears
they extract as aloe
from cacti
Optimists?
Pessimists?
who decides?
who decides?


Sand Castle

“Don’t build your sand
castle near the water”
she cawed cigarette
dangling from her lips
“It’ll get washed away”
But the child drizzled
sweet wet sand into
turrets and placed a
bright tiny red flag at the
top – dug a trench and
dropped shells into the
gathered water and
watched as the bit of banner
waved in the late afternoon
breeze and the shells
sank shimmering in
the setting sun
and the child sat
and watched as
the inevitable tide
crept and licked at
the sides and did not
cry when the castle
began to tilt
knowing that all
castles eventually
do
return
to
the
sea
eventually

and as her mother
lit a cigarette and
packed the blankets
she let her chiding
“You see?!!”
melt into the cawing
of seagulls
smiling

And walking from
the beach dragging
her plastic pail and
shovel she knew with
the certainty of the coming
dark – better to have
had that castle of
drizzled- arc beauty
returned to the sea
than create a bunker
sturdy and arid
built for a bit longer
only to be kicked to
oblivion

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