[x]

Papercuts and RecollectionsI had forgotten your love letters
until they cut my finger when I
grazed the bottom of my drawer.
Folded crisp and neat,
some of the ink had smudged like
the crimson filling the whorls of my thumb.

I could hear your voice clearly,
saturated in the scrawling script.
You promised me forever,
now forever's gone.

Lost in that rush of reanimated feeling,
I could almost remember
the way your cheek felt resting
warm against my hair,
how you smelled like home.

The traces of you lingered like
the last hours of yesterday
before turning to the smell of dust
and the feel of paper too dry
to write on again.

The First Thunder of JuneI could tell from the way
the truck barreled down the road,
how its motor revved and caught on the air,
that a storm was coming.

The dog shook,
his twelve-year hips aching with the effort
of tucking his tail between his legs
in the hope that such displays of submission
would appease the weather.
They did not.

The sky turned feral and spat on the house.
While my old-hound panted
with his panic-wide eyes,
mine filled with awe and lightning.

I took offMy day off.
I stand in sunlight
without asking.
I can watch it being day.

The mud is soft and cool at home.
I'd bury well without a casket,
I’ll be a naked pill for earth.

I build a garden box from wood,
smash my thumb.
Red bell
peppers;
too late for lettuce.

I had a premonition
I would live like this.
No one will remember me.
I’ll forget by Tuesday.

Almost LifelikeMy very life is plastic,
similar in hue
to the dirty water in the sink.
My cage is windowed,
but still a cage,
and however dark my song,
I am nothing but his "little bird,"
a pet well-trained.
A doll.
Pose me,
playing house,
my aspirations poised
to burn it down.

HangnailCatch on the fabric of my memory;
painful,
you perturb me.
Would that I could,
I would chew you off and spit you out,
but you twinge,
draw blood,
and evade me.

Girl, Reincarnated.Perhaps in a past life you were made of ink,
your eyes speckled like blotting paper,
complexion smooth as parchment.

And maybe your voice was storm cloud rolling
because I see your words
and they fill my heart with rain,
not the heavy kind that revels
in punching holes in butterfly wings but rather
the mist that paints the dew and
leaves the sky beautifully grey.

At the very least your soul was a mourning dove,
as there's a lilting sorrow in your words
that the air carries like a melody,
were I to speak them aloud
I would sing, hoping that my voice wouldn't shake
with your weeping.

Strung OutConsider me hanging on the line,
a dress without a body waiting for the sun,
vibrant when she's not heavy, waterlogged.
As a child, I enjoyed making orange smiles,
while wondering why we didn't have
a clothesline stretching from tree to tree
like I'd seen on the television.
I admired the way skirts became birds,
picked up by the wind they adored,
while sheets grabbed the wind like a sail,
and the clouds were always made of cotton,
and the denim sat like lead.

Now every time I put myself out to dry,
the sky gets heavy and breaks on me.
I am halfway towards being ready,
and then the rain rips me down again.
Maybe that's why

The Midnight InheritanceAll I had was the waxing gibbous
admiring the tilt of my chin
as I played with one shower-fresh curl
still perfectly corkscrewed
and lightly perfumed.

What strange relief,
watching the advancing rain,
a walking wall of grey
that made the mountains tip their heads back,
to drink that midnight wine.

Before the storm could eat the moon
and whisper rumors to my windows closed,
I watched how Cassiopeia
alighted on my reflection.

Seven stars graced my brow like a garland.
I felt my heart swell like a myth,
my breathing hushed as I found myself anointed.

When the last bead of water
rolled down the small of my back,
the sky rel

CombustionI can smell the smoke from fires
that tease the sky outside,
in suburban gardens
that make up this city;
set around a cathedral
like the centre of a clock face.

From the inhalation
I have ash on my tongue
and on my teeth.
It may whiten the enamel
the way bicarbonate soda does.
My smile reads like a newspaper,
may I replace it daily
as I press the grey into my gums
and try to outwit my reflection.

I have gathered cuttings
from new growths;
the saplings are far too young burn.
They must know the flames.
I hear them scream
from beneath the bark –
it does not burn but blacken.

The blossom is browning
having fallen from the branch
beside

For the Man Who One Day Holds My HeartI want to be your Summer girl,
peaches, sunshine,
and August thunder.

I want to be the Autumn hearted,
colorful and always falling,
vibrant.

And I could be your Winter bride,
clean and innocent,
blushing on the snow,

while my spirit smelled of Spring,
smiling with the lilacs,
every kiss a crocus.

We'd be more than seasonal lovers,
but steadfast as the years and
ever-dancing with the Earth.

Shapeless CloudsI suppose you feel ugly.
Left to "miscellaneous" and perfectly discarded,
you are aimless.
While lovers press their backs against the world
and ignore your existence,
you shift into a different nothing
and float onto another purpose.

The RunawayMy muse left a note
in the frost on my window,
saying:
"Call me when your ink runs out."

I imagined her vaulting from the sill
into the freshly falling snow
cocking her hat just so
as she stepped into the East
before it iced over.

She leaves no prints for me to follow,
no re-imagined trail for me to trod,
and I could spend years
tumbling after her shadow,
only to find her
gone.

So Spaceman SleepThe spaceman died on soil
of the planet he was born on
and not in endless space,
open with stars and detritus.

His words were a constant
on promotional posters
and part of the general memory;
a consensus after our boys
were Earth bound again.

The world watched him walking
as he claimed that satellite for us.

Ninety-nineIt probably feels like a broken sigh,
witnessing a century of repetition and change,
becoming a testament to human tenacity,
and watching too many wars on television.

The nursing home is too sterile for you,
but as your children near sixty,
with problems of their own,
you have no place in their houses.
While everybody visits,
they never stay for long enough.
you are lonely.

Your daydreams are like old jazz records--
sometimes you confuse them with memory.
Were you really such a beauty on your suburb streets?
Did you really love that boy so completely?

Perhaps you have forgotten.

Morning PerspectiveNothing registered until
I heard a wet crack on the honey-toned floor.
Looking down,
I had dropped the egg and
only two thoughts cycled through my mind;
"that's a metaphor for a broken heart"
and
"damn, ain't that a mess."

These are interchangeable.

But it's too early in the morning
for thinking deep,
so I drank coffee and watched
the dogs eat the yolk instead;
all the while reaching for another egg,
saying,
"And here's my metaphor for moving on."

Browse More Like This

Download File
HTML, 578 bytes more ▶

More from *callerofcrows

Little SinsMy lips blister at your name;
you are the devil on my skin.
Each moment is another bead
falling off my rosary-
rolling,
clattering,
sticking somewhere between common sense
and a brimstone heart.
Prayer is but a temporary balm-
relief in upturned eyes and cool resolve,
but burning at the back of my skull
is a hollow cry
for anything but this brand of redemption.

Empty LettersI know I'll find nothing,
but it's worth hoping that
somehow I'll hear from you
though it can't be good for me.
Every day I spend my thoughts
on a hope as false as wooden bones
that you'll take it on yourself
to remember how to talk to me.
We were friends once.
My arms will never tire
of throwing water on this bridge
you've set alight,
but my heart is burnt
and becoming exhausted.

The Things I PonderPerhaps I was reading too much,
sucked into "The Corner of Bitter and Sweet"
where the older man with the grief-lined face
places flowers on the tombstone of his wife
and talks with her into the overcast sky.

While I listen to more songs about breaking down,
I wonder if I'll ever find someone of my own
willing to put lilies on my headstone
and tell me what's happening on the ground
though I have no breath to reply.

TinmanMy skull is
sh
sh
shattered
and my brain is like a clockwork;
but there's something in the gears
and they are sticking.

I could
a-a-a-a-ask
for some sort of repair but
my short-circuit voice-box
is out of date
and my creator-God is gone.

If only I could trade
these burnt out eyes for real ones,
and get myself some sort of heart
that wouldn't tick.

Re-KindlingShe held the moment in her lungs.
It lingered in the air
like a spiderweb strand;
she could feel its presence
more than see it.

She meditated on the human condition,
one hand on her chest like a prayer.
Hopeless was her heart two minutes ago,
now faithful in its hummingbird thrum.

"Ah," it whispered in her ear,
"you do remember love."

FacelessI have photographed this trail,
from its matchbox beginning
to the church it burned down
and when faced with the unholy trinity
in the center of my chest...
Past,
Present,
Future,
I am overwhelmed.

I want to leave tear stains on his shirt
but when I look to his face for comfort,
it has changed.
I am disillusioned...
for years love had a visage,
and now it's blank
or ever-shifting.

My father once told me
the heart's a bandit.
He never mentioned
it wore different masks.

View Gallery · View Prints

Featured in Groups:

#EliteLiterature
Elite Literature Collective

Details

Submitted: June 26, 2012
File Size: 578 bytes

Link

Thumb

Statistics

Comments: 33
Favourites: 24 [who?]
Views: 314 (0 today)
Downloads: 5 (0 today)

License

Creative Commons License

Some rights reserved. This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

[x]

Half-Past a Different Kind of Broken

by *callerofcrows, Jun 26, 2012, 9:43:36 AM
Literature / Poetry / General Poetry / Free Verse

Trauma looks like my kitchen clock.
The hours,
minutes,
they are dead
and the second hand stutters,
heartbroken.
I imagine every inconsequential twitch
is a plea for the freedom
it will never see again.
When its futile heart finally gives out,
I won't try to fix the timepiece
because after all its wasted sufferings,
allowing again such a disjointed tic
would be a deeper level of cruelty.

Half-Past a Different Kind of Brokenby *callerofcrows

Literature / Poetry / General Poetry / Free Verse

The prompt was "the second-hand of a clock" from =QuiEstInLiteris. The first few attempts were dreadful, until I remembered the poor clock behind me in the kitchen. It makes me sad to look at, as there is something dreadfully heartbreaking about a second-hand that tries to move forward, but can't.

The Artist has requested Critique on this Artwork

Please sign up or login to post a critique.

~~joy 0 0~~

~~wow 0 0~~

~~mad 0 0~~

~~sad 0 0~~

~~fear 0 0~~

~~neutral 0 0~~

=Sammur-amat Apr 9, 2013 General Artist

Hello there, dear heart.

I've used this piece's title in my title poem over HERE: [link]

I hope you enjoy the read!

Reply

=Sammur-amat Nov 5, 2012 General Artist

Congratulations on the well-deserved DLD, lovely!

Reply

*callerofcrows Dec 27, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

Thank you so much!!!

Reply

=Sammur-amat Dec 28, 2012 General Artist

My pleasure, darling!

Hope you've been having an incredible holiday experience, belated Merry Christmas and advanced Happy New Year!

Reply

*callerofcrows Dec 28, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

Thank you!

Reply

=Sammur-amat Dec 28, 2012 General Artist

Mmhmm

Reply

~pomohippie7 Nov 4, 2012 Writer

Congratulations on the DLD, dear! Well deserved.

Reply

*callerofcrows Dec 27, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

Many thanks!!!

Reply

=LadyofGaerdon Nov 4, 2012 Professional Writer

This is lovely. So sad and poignant. Congrats on the DLD!

Reply

*callerofcrows Dec 27, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

Thank you so much!

Reply

Previous
1
2
3
Next