MAGPIE/ Prompt #95

                                                      Image/ Mostafa Habibi

THIS WEEK'S Magpie Tales....thanks, Tess Kincaid.



QUICKSAND

Forever and a day you were right,
yet there you stand in quicksand
believing that the sucking sound
will lift you up to the second floor.

I hold the lifesaver,
a sweet candy
on the tip of my tongue,
bright red, a sugared cherry

the color of a heady summer's bloom.

I recall when you were
my redeemer,
knew the answers,

but you painted everything grey.

The years are an ocean,
lapping against the shore,
rising to flood your intentions.

It took so long for me
to gather my fragments
and shape them into a fortress.

You are
the medicine years,
a drug ground down
to swallow with water.
Now you sink
as a grain of sand,
part of the fate of hermit crabs.


copyright/ all rights reserved/ 2011

http://www.minblu.blogspot.com
http://twitter.com/lynxny

Building A Beach...

THE  CHOICE FOR THIS MONDAY'S POETRY POTLUCK, OFFERED BY JINGLE, at Jingle Poetry, is to write a poem about BEACHES or MOUNTAINS.  The stuff of dreams...


BUILDING A BEACH

I'm building a beach on top of my bed,
pouring a pail of blistering sand,
composing a dune
with sea grass swaying,

tilting my face to take in the sun,
hearing the pulse of the ocean
absorb the beat of my heart.

I kick some shells
as if that was sport,
brush a flutter
buzzing next to my ear,
an emissary from actuality

trying to convince me
that I'm just dreaming of August.

As I roll over to let the radiance
burnish my legs,
a floorboard creaks,
cat ready to pounce,
summoning me to awaken
and tend to my day...

Monday, go away.


c copyright/all rights reserved/2010

http://www.minblu.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/lynxny

Balance

xxxxxxxxBALANCE
X
Sorrow plummets down to the ocean's floor
where sightless creatures need only mouths
to strain the salt
from what they devour,
x
and panoramic vistas can never be explained
to a universe pushing
against a surge of light.
x
Seeking an answer in a cave of darkness,
pivoting to open and close my skin,
x
will I receive a clear balance
on the scales of justice?
x
No longer buoyant, I sink,
pour my tears into a cup to mix with the sea.
x
Who can tell which is my salt?
x
For all the sorrow in the deep
can't be perceived
by beings blind from the outset.
x
x
c copyright all rights reserved
x
x

Heading for Shore

THE WAVE IS A CLICHE'


Ebbing and flowing,
the horizontal sky fills with the sea,
carrying myths and detritus.

Here floats again
the broken cup,
heading for shore alongside whitened bones,
hollows filled with sand and sea glass.

Fear,
or is it hope
that rides the waves?

Fear,
or life itself
the buoyancy?

A switch in my brain
makes physical all my dreams,
finds my soul's laughter.

When I wrap my arms around you
I embrace the air.
Gone so soon?

A far speck of sunlight on the horizon,

you again swim to shore,

telling yourself this fear is good.

I do the same.