Homage to Edgar (RWP # 120)

(Gathering by Alice Popkorn)

Upon first glance, this prompt photo brought to mind all things Poe (and strangely enough, "The Addams Family"). So I took the dark theme developing in my mind and ran with it. It needs more work, but I am very tired of all the gloom. (I think I'm ready for some butterfly, flower, and sunshine prompts!)

The ravens watch,
the ravens wait,
in inked repose,
with shrugging wings
and beckoning beaks,
patiently, patiently.
Through wailing winds
and bagpipe's dirge,
as violets paper
frost rimed ground
with cloying melt.

The ravens watch,
the ravens wait,
guarding against
the carrion birds,
throughout a battle
hard fought, yet lost.
The soul finally
relinquishing
it’s morbid home,
to be escorted
to parts unknown.

The Big Bang (RWP #119)

"Consider the fact that, before people can meet people, other people need to meet people just to create the people who will one day meet, fall down and sometimes make other people who will one day meet people. Follow the trail into the future and the line never ends. Head in reverse, you eventually arrive at the first meeting of seed and soil." Dave Jarecki - (Read Write Poem prompt #119)

This part of the prompt struck a cord with me, as I just had a recent conversation about existence, procreation, and all things in between. This piece may not follow the prompt idea to the letter, but it sure got my mind working...(below the poem you will find a more detailed description of the conversation I had.)

From those brimstone prophets,
concrete in their message,
entrusted to them and
their fathers before,
to smug-lipped scientists,
with reams of equations,
pumped full of their knowledge,
and insistence to share.
While banging their fists,
they duel over theories,
but each is just worthy
of a bare, passing glance.
For no one that sure
should be quite believed in.
Have only they been anointed
with miraculous answers?
We each possess our own gift,
to be sure as those sages,
or happily spend our lives
-searching-
and exist for the questions.
For beneath each small slice
of a star-shot night,
lies every wondrous,
magical,
astonishing truth.
Just empty your mind of
your crammed in convictions,
embracing amazement
within your heart.
Be free to fly, to imagine,
and open childlike eyes,
Then quite simply,
joyfully-

Look
Up.

Last week my 8 year old granddaughter started asking me the "BIG" questions...what came first, the chicken or the egg? The seed or the flower? Were there other people on other planets out there somewhere? Did I think God made the world or was it just some lucky accident? I told her no one really knows or ever truly can and the best thing she could do is think these things out for herself, (which is what her grandma is STILL doing), and that sometimes the quest for knowledge is the greatest gift.

Siren Song

(photo courtesy of Photobucket)

I had a devil of a time trying to figure out this prompt idea with it's "hinge" (having a sharp, divisive change within a poem). Here is my feeble attempt ...ps I left out most punctuation on purpose, hopefully giving it a seductive, whispering quality. Tell me if you think it works.

On a soft, warm evening
with dew-slicked grasses
and heat lightning flashes
adventure’s afoot
for anyone willing
to see with night eyes
and hear crickets fiddling
buzzing and teasing
“come on, come on.”

Through dark passageways
of tall tasseled cornstalks
their leathery leaves
slap small tanned legs
while toads trill tales
to speed the way
and fireflies wink
their magical code of
"follow us, follow us.”

To a stream-side black
with a thick sludgy mudbank
and tangled-web willows
full of night owls cajoling
while the moon slyly beckons
upon irresistible waters
so quietly lapping
as the bullfrogs beg
"join us, join us.”

On a fog-shrouded morning
through torn, trampled cropland
with barking hounds leading
the morbid parade
of stoic-faced searchers
near a dank, filthy ditch
with it’s unwanted knowledge
and a mother that whispers,
“please no, please no.”

When very small, I was told the precautionary tale of another child who wandered away from her family one summer evening to be found drowned in the small ditch behind the cornrows. That story did it's job, as I never strayed from where my mother could see me. I've often wondered what the "Siren Song" was that lured that other unfortunate child. That is the inspiration for this piece.

The Movie in Your Head (RWP #116)

(Charon by H. Koppdelaney)

I was quite taken by this painting. It had such a dreamlike (nightmarish) quality to it. As I have been plagued throughout my life by extremely vivid dreams, I went with that scenario.

In dreamtime

muddling thoughts

carouse and dance

through

drowsy minds

as childlike

chimera of

gentle, swirling magic

float upon softly

lapping waters.

soon to melt and

metamorphosis

into a manic carnival of

tumbling,

wild-eyed

throat-choked panic,

blood-drained fear

as demons guide

your empty screams

In dreamtime.

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