Crust

The Daily Post prompt word today is ‘encrusted’. I haven’t looked at this site for a while, and I rather like this word.

 

Crust forms when movement ceases,

When the river slows and sluggish stops,

When the ring is taken from the finger,

Never worn and lies forgotten.

This heart, like the riverbank, beats

Beneath the debris of the years,

The days and months that pass unnoticed,

A hand raised in farewell then laid to rest,

While the sun sinks, and the roses fall,

And dead leaves gather in the river bend.

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Star dance

The Daily Post prompt is: radiate.

From the cracks in the sky,

light radiates,

a web of star points,

keyholes to eternity.

Come the day,

suffused with pastels and petals,

I see the starlight in water glitter,

dancing the same dance

as in my childhood summers,

leading the way,

step by precious step,

into the star dance

of the last long night.

Blush

This is for the Daily Post prompt—infuse.

 

Dusky sun, dropping

beneath horizon’s rim,

death throes of a day now spent,

infuses the light with pink:

final flush

of the mortician’s brush.

Silence slumbers

The Daily Post prompt is: silence. Appropriate for a migrainy day.

Silence slumbers on the far reaches,

Sand slips between clawing fingers,

And the pounding roar of the surf

Fills every hollow inside the skull.

Where does the darkness hide

When the night is full of light?

And the streetlights throb like open wounds,

Their gaudy lament jingle-jangling

On the hard glitter of the streets?

Silent sleep evades, furtive as cat shadows,

And the clanging of the night train,

Rollocking through the last tunnel,

Draws nearer and louder,

But though I wait with anguished withheld breath,

It never arrives.

Hanging by a thread

The Daily Post prompt is: fragile.

The year hangs by a golden thread,

Though soft we tread,

The apple falls,

When winter calls.

 

The leaf hangs by a withered stalk,

The plunging hawk

Could tear it free,

With fierce bird glee.

 

My heart hangs by such fragile ties,

Tissues of lies,

I daren’t let go,

Still love you so.

Step by step

The Daily Post prompt is: Sidewalk

Photo ©Tomascastelazo

Step by /step echoes on the flags

Head bent low /rain spits in the wind

So it’s hard to see /how the raised face glistens!

The outstretched hand /and the soft voice pleading

Harden your heart  /for there is hope in a smile

When the rain turns to tears /to give is to care

Walk on by /and the sun comes out.

Fiery fierce

The Daily Post prompt was: Fierce. It took me so long to finish this poem I went to bed without posting it. Here it is anyway.

Photo ©Frank Olsen

In shadows cast by summer sun,

Fierce heat outrun,

I close my eyes

From burnished skies.

 

Gone is the night with cooling breeze

From northern seas,

Where white whales sound,

Grey geese, snow bound.

 

Behind my eyes a northern sky,

Mocks while I cry,

Casts garish lights,

As cold grief bites.

Counting, or not

The Daily Post prompt is: mistake.

I counted days until we’d meet,

In summer heat.

Agreement cool:

Was I a fool?

 

I count the minutes on the train:

Not be in vain,

My silent plea,

Be there for me.

 

I count the faces at the gate,

The train is late,

But you’re not there;

You didn’t care.

I saw the cloud burst

The Daily Post prompt is: Witness.

I saw the cloud burst on the lake

And no sound make

But falling rain

Like summer grain.

 

I saw the water dimple-specked,

With silver flecked,

Beneath the clouds,

Outspread like shrouds.

 

The path you’d take by the lake’s edge,

Where wind-swept sedge

Bodes winter chill,

Is empty still.

 

Drowning

For the Daily Post prompt: Surface.

Photo ©Domenico Salvagnin

Just a second ago it was there,

Shining brightly as an August sky,

If I reached I could break through the skin.

 

Cold water on every side presses,

I hear the pale sounds of life draining,

Of rocks fraying lifelines worn too thin.

 

Bright diamonds of air stream away,

The surface a dream or a mirror

Of the darkness that fills me within.