The gift child

Looking at the OctPoWriMo prompts that I missed, I saw that day two’s theme was ‘changeling’ and the poetry form, the minute poem. I haven’t written on of those for a long time, so here goes…

 

They came when all the world was dark

Before the lark

Had risen high

To sing the sky.

 

They took my child who was so fair

With golden hair

And left instead

A dusky head.

 

I think I see in his brown gaze

When music plays

A fairy joy—

I’ll keep this boy.

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Last tide ebbs

Another minute poem for the dverse prompt.

Photo ©Traumrune

On dim green banks the silence clings,

And no bird sings,

The day is dull,

The river full.

 

Swollen cords of water streaming,

Once fish teeming,

Now corrupt things,

Ebbing tide brings.

 

Somewhere inland death is brewing,

Poison spewing.

Sick as the sea—

humanity.

Street Light

The dverse prompt today is to write a Minute Poem.

In city skies, though moon swells bright,

No silver light

Deep shadow throws—

The street light glows.

 

No field of stars the heavens fills,

No peace distills

From open sky—

No night bird’s cry.

 

The orange glare bathes all in gloom,

This darkened room

That once held you—

Until you flew.

Above our heads

Above our heads the bright stars wheel,

our hearts’ wish steal,

and toss the husk

into the dusk.

 

The setting sun pours fire-red beams

in liquid streams—

our eyes closed tight

against the light.

 

In silhouette against the night

we, burning bright

and side by side

will turn the tide.

I had a heart and gave it you

For dVerse, the theme is ‘heart’, the form is a minute poem, though I think I’ve added an extra stanza.

I had a heart and gave it you:

In gold and blue,

I painted love,

In skies above.

 

You took it, put it in a cage,

Not in a rage:

Its song was sweet,

Its life was fleet.

 

You crushed my wings behind the bars:

No moon, no stars

Could comfort me

Nor set me free.

 

You took my heart, a little thing:

You made it sing,

Until the day

It flew away.

In the primal darkness

For the Secret Keeper’s writing prompt. The words this week are:

BIRTH | TRANCE | PRIDE | SEEK | FLIRT

Photo©Helgi Halldórsson

In primal darkness when the earth

Came to birth,

She spread her wings,

Embraced all things.

 

When first we dared to sing and dance

In magic trance,

Beneath the light

Of stars at night,

 

We sought to master all of life,

Created strife,

Our downfall pride,

The turning tide.

 

And now the dark rolls back again

With no birth pain,

No joyful cry,

This time we die.

Scars

For the Secret Keeper’s writing prompt, using the words:

BRIEF – END – SHAPE – LAND – BLAST

Each one of us brief moments lives,

That nature gives

To shape our world,

Beauty unfurled.

 

Deep in the bones, ancestral land,

By thought and hand,

Its contours changed

And rearranged.

 

The fertile plain, the blasted heath,

Above, beneath

We scourge and steal:

The wounds don’t heal.

Together we wished

Another illustration from that fund of inspiration ‘The Story of the Sun, the Moon and the Stars’.

Together we watched in the night

The trailing light

A comet’s tail

Dark midnight trail.

 

I made a wish my lips tight sealed

My eyes revealed

The hopes and fears

For coming years.

 

I didn’t ask, but you wished too

Away you flew

Left me behind.

Star fate’s unkind.

Casual violence

For the Secret Keeper’s weekly writing prompt.

This week’s words are:

HARM – DEEP – ACT – STARE – LOSS

Photo ©Ilmari Karonen

He’d meant no harm, a casual act,

Quick to react,

But harm was done

With his black gun.

 

An idle shot into the tree,

He couldn’t see

Unblinking stare

Of cat up there.

 

The hunt has rights, no one’s to blame,

But all the same,

Each loss is deep,

Some heart will weep.

 

Unbending

For The Secret Keeper’s writing prompt. This week’s words:

PROOF – SHARE – SECRET – BEND – SCOOP

Photo©Aleksander Kaasik

You’ve always wanted proof of love,

No turtledove

You’d ever give,

Or faults forgive.

 

You scoop up secrets by the pail,

And then bewail

How secrets known

Are sorrows sown.

 

What I hold dear, you most despise,

So at sunrise,

If you’ll not bend,

I’ll make an end.