inner cities (a sort of versified haibun, an experiment)
draperies of wrinkled winds the affectations we traded for dawn kisses straining the moon
listen to the children beginning their climb on a spiral of electives we elders concocted out of broken yarn
they’ll string them together with knots we had thought as we waxed the yarn sliding them between our canines
a child bursts into a scream at birth shedding his mother’s blood-coating a slimy red he knew he did not need but by then gurgling through his veins
this evening of attrition it’s blood roiling unseen that drives him to untangle the net he knotted and wove from broken yarn those strands his mother also called blood
we watch out for when he and his siblings scramble up our limbs and bite our tongue and begin to scale the spiral to the moon
a tale of inner cities
…flat lining a wall
solstice (a tanka*-ish reflection for One Shot Wednesday)
only in fullness
am I still–
i cast no shadow
as a rendezvous
dissipates into a sob
the wind flails
hapless
in the gingko twigs–
where perfection
encases feelings
if punctured
fibres
of wombs burst
water before blood
into birthing
a cry of rage
flags what a heart
hoards–
peace when it settles
lines its chambers
nothing like a Nautilus
the heart is but a pump
the fist opening
and closing
for fluids to flow
red colors
a river the heart
conjures–
layers of molecules
veil its nature
until the solstice
skids past its point
of stillness
wholeness is truth
until
a heart breaks
until a birthing point
reverts
to that first sound
that cry of rage
*tanka, sometimes known to be the precursor of haiku, is a 5-line Japanese poetic form used by court poets of ancient Japan. Scroll down for my post on this form in February.
Posted for One Shot Wednesday at On Stop Poetry where poets and artists of the most inimitable talents gather to share and support each other. Check it out!