living still

pressed into the moss,
I am living, living still
breathing water green and stagnant--
a repair for what I've lost.

there are plenty enough holes
for the picture of this scene
to invade my very core,
climb inside and push away
all the things that once bought moments
in exchange for nothing less
than a moment ever after,
set as prop against the dream

but I am living, living still
decomposing by half-measures
as obscene amounts of nature
take the best of me away

--
Prompt was a lovely picture of moss and waterfalls. I then made it creepy, as I'm apt to do.

latter

seeing the world through a camera lens,
where the eyes can easily take a silhouette
and lend it more than mere shape;
in florescent light that neither seems too dim, nor yellow,
no warmth on skin from accustomed unnatural glow.

--

rather than title, inspired more by this picture, taken this morning as dawn broke through my dirty window, and the contrast between what my camera and my eyes could see:

waiting

I expected fanfare
fireworks,
sunsets and springtime.

I waited all fall, all winter
knowing it would come.


I never expected
to just stumble across it

lying in the dirt
like a crumpled candy wrapper.


--
Title and this picture are prompt. Short because it's been a busy day, and I'm dead tired.

climb

a place to hold on,
to watch, wait,
and wonder
for stars make shaky handgrips
as the night becomes the day,

and shadow surrenders
its courtyard eclipse
to let water play
in the sparkles of sun--
and leave afternoon plans,
for the moment,
undone

as the bustle fades to benches
and places to rest
in the lazy summer light,
and buzzing conversation
slips a breeze
through the circuit of these stones.

for these private public places,
sitting with no one to see
but tall terraced buildings
with mirrorless eyes
and a distracted sun
pacing slowly through the sky,


none but this handle to hold onto
and let the hours pass,
to watch the ways of a weary world
when it feels itself unwatched.

--
Title and this picture are prompt.

possess

an innocence carefully crafted
in gentle falls of white,
as toes crossed on hardwood gently tap
and wait for the dark
to set her alight

like a lamp, set aside and forgotten,
when the moment of need has passed,
for only in the grips of a night without stars
do we remember
how she shines.


and knees unused to prayer
find any place to fall,
and lips move silent desperation
in a stirring of the air
through the hall too bright with setting sun.

--
Title and this picture are prompt.

call

across the space of sunlit curtains
comes the sound of pages turning,
and the summer buzzing silence
enhanced by concentration;

against a background of afternoon
a story unfolds,
spreading to every nook and corner
of the place her mind has found
to let these words flow
in a stream without breath--
patient syllables intoned
in the echoes of architecture
no cathedral could claim.


intimate, personal sound
of a voice given no lips,
no language of breath--
merely the resonance of a thought;
a calm moment forming harmony
with sun
and hearing answer from the only name
she ever gave her dreams.

--
Title and this picture are prompt.

baby

he burst from the earth,
a bundle of limbs and pounding heart
exploding outward.

he formed a shape in the dark,
then crawled, slowly,
through thin ice and deep mud.


until the sun melted the white
into reflection of sky
and he had a reason to look up

past the weeds
and cattails, the murk
and mother dirt

and for the first time,
in the wake of that welcoming expanse,
he had a reason to dream of flight.

--
Title is prompt in that it brought me to this picture and told me how to interpret it.

bad

I was always too good
at mincing words--spreading sympathy
like jelly on bread.
so when your desert heart
spun stories of me
I was far too polite to dispute.

I left a promise
to keep you looking to the sky,
far from where I crept away in the night.
knowing in my own guilty heart
how you would count the days
until the rain brought the lie,
and the truth.

--
Title prompt led me to this picture, the true inspiration for the poem.

hang

iron fence, open gate
seems enough barrier to suggest
something special is kept within,
but whether that be the bones--
dug up by roots, dangling
precariously in the ground--
or the tree itself
has yet to be decided

for the years seem to take these bodies
(certainly the souls)
and smooth their names from stone,
while all that centuries give to this tree
is more time to grow.

as the sun sets and shows
just how dramatic a shade it can cast,
I am left to wonder
if the years will find this gate still open,
or show nothing
as metal is warped and wound by fleshy trunk,
swallowed
just as all the starry nights
these branches have seen;
all the clouds this crown has cupped.

--
Prompt is title in that it inspired one image, and helped me found the picture which this actually ended up being about.

traffic

fingers blurred with spilling ink
from cuts straight to the spine,
traveling like light and shadow
along the watermarked binding;
lines that follow curve of page

with the scent of well-worn words
and all that remains
of the dreams of centuries past--
caught in an endless flow of turns
as the signs designate
a place to slow down;
a singular tree to the side
grabs the eye,
standing out like a neon sign

a comfortable weight in your hand
as you realize you stand
with all the knowledge in the world
and have no concept of it--
a paradox you set to fade
with every turn of the page.

--
Title is . . . hmm. Well, a prompt for awful metaphors, if nothing else, combined with this picture. It was most definitely not a poetry day.

drive

four times the hour fell past her
as she crouched behind the counter
regarding the stain on the tile,
no longer spreading.

as each chime hit she blinked
once
but never found the clarity she'd shattered
with one desperate blow.

it was the fifth hour,
as the dawn crept slowly across the back lawn
like a barefoot child with no concept
of what she'd done,

she released what she held clenched in her hand,
heard it clatter,
and soothed the grooves she'd worn in her palm
by picking up the phone.

--
Title and this picture are prompt.

bed

spilling cool clarity to the remnants of dreams,
she springs--
pausing only to decide if she's risen,
for this feels more like sky
than bare mattress on skin,
as what has no place as rain
finds her eyes
and sinks within.


--
Title is prompt which led me to this amazing picture.

boss

a splash of red shouts authority
to the timid pastel sighs of spring.
as branches open slowly to the sun
he is gone--a flash of wings in motion
and a call that shivers from crown to roots.

he rises as a shape against the sky
to break apart the florid silhouettes;
feet caught in bark, he hangs sipping freedom,
knowing power comes of more
than just the color spilling from his brow:
the keen senses that overtake the afternoon monotony--
no lazy warmth to be found in the green
as each moment is spent in competition with
the rest of the world
that wakes from long winter with the want
to fly again.

--
Title is semi-prompt, in that it made me look for something assertive to pair it with. I chose this picture.

match

a darkened tunnel gives illumination
to lines in the sand,
fingers that draw with the striking of day;
a palette made of pointing at falling stars.

images that light me like sunfire, dragged across stone;
finding every crack
with the raw skin of my back--
an uncomfortable sensation
between my shoulder-blades,
of being watched for things accomplished
in past lives.


these shining sins draw a fetching border
for the lies I weave today
with cast away stone and towers
of blessed loneliness,
a place for the sky to describe these destinies.

one last flick of a broken wrist
cupping glory to my breast;
shaded lines of veins
trace my softly fading eyes--
no longer befitting of a soul.


--
Title and this picture are prompt.

three

words embossed with captured sound,
mouth pursing murmurs to press to the page
as the swirl of thought creates a moment
lit like fireflies and summer breath.


each gentle curve of soft-lit serif
mimics the limbs caught in motion;
fingers wrapped decorously in ink
spend a languid eternity
trapped in a phrase

as her lips flutter stories to the captured wind--
gossamer emotions and letters
stacked like bricks,
with her mortar-twitching fingertips
to build a life
and draw an end to the dream.


with both eyes open,
clasping the last memory of sun:
three butter-yellow pages
crinkled by time, worn
as a weight around her neck.


---
Title is a bare prompt--it worked more to draw my eye to this picture, and the three pages she holds in her hands.

spider

legs that hold lazy-day dreams aloft,
cupping water-lined belly
against shivers of chill waves
that crash only twice a day
but bring with them an end to a hidden place,
rushing into the gaps left of silence;
a calm flirting with disaster.

we draw our footprint legacy in the lull
and watch for the sun to splash the horizon,
sink beneath the waves
and send one last thrill
to the friends of danger


with far more legs than eight,
this never curled spider
brings asylum to beach--
sandy retreat for shoreline dreams.


--
Title is prompt, coupled with this picture.