Day 29 – Prompt: Ignored!

Beldam Series: Daughter Wind

Beldam sighed,
and Wind was born.  Like a colt,
She stumbled while learning her own power;
Wind blew and gusted and caressed and puffed
trying to find stable footing, for even mere minutes old,
Wind knew of the World and longed to be a part of it.
She whispered, murmured, screamed and howled
trying to speak the language of man.

Beldam chuckled,
shaking her grey mane at such utterings,
“Child, worry not about the languages of men.
You speak the Mother Tongue.  Men will
endeavor to hear your voice, never fear.”

Wind bubbled, blushing like a new dawn at the gentle
remonstration but Beldam simply smiled,
teeth gleaming like darkling stars.
Reassured, Wind roiled and enveloped the Crone,
a gentle embrace of love and fealty.
Her gnarled hands caressed Wind
once and then like the sparrow-mother
sent Her young from the nest.

Wind fluttered outside the now-hidden bower,
weeping gentle rain for a time before she realized
what a gift had been given by the Seamstress:
the very world,
this well-worn pearl,
was Wind’s.

And so…She flew.

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(C) jp 4-29-12

Days 14 & 15 – Prompts: IGNORED! :)

Sorry for the delayed entries – went out to enjoy the sun on Saturday (pics on my main blog) and worked today.  I didn’t check what the prompts are but I am sure I am ignoring them – again .

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Day 15:
The Crone

Wind travelled the world, knew every nook and cranny
yet one day found a door,
an entrance never seen before.
And so Wind tip-toed through to find a simple scene;
there sat a woman, a pigeon among peacocks.
For she was clad in grey
while the vast tapestry around her shouted colors and yet,
she was not belittled by the blaze but made brighter
…a peacock among pigeons.

Wind watched for a while, wondering
and then whisper-spoke a question,
“Why?”

The crone stitched silent and skillful,
centuries of sepia-hued memories stained her gnarled fingers
and yet…
she carried on, a seamstress of monotony
and did not answer.

Wind dove deeper, a diver in search of a lovely pearl
and breeze-queried the question,
“Why?”

Still the wizened woman pricked cloth with thread,
her hands a map of perse-colored veins,
hands that utterly refused to relinquish this task,
that knew only to create stitch after stitch…

and did not answer.

Wind fluttered, curious beyond curious now
and gusted yet louder,
“Why?”

And though the harridan’s dirty mane tousled in the draft
and her knobby knuckles creaked unceasingly,
yes, they kept on…
and on and on,
In, out, over, under
those frail fingers kept focus on that rudimentary method and
still she did not answer.

Wind stormed and raged and bellowed,
all sophistication lost in sirocco fury,
and thundered,
“Why?”

And finally,
Beldam raised her eyes from that grandiose design,
eyes clear of age, not wisdom,
eyes so aqua the seas could have poured forth
and she spoke.

I feel no fear at your fury,
Not I who have sat and made the centuries,
stitch by stitch, inch by inch.
You presume to ask me why?

Because I love.

And she smiled,
those aged, beautiful fingers still marking,
and making
Time…

…stitch by loving stitch.

(C) jp 4-15-12

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Day 14:
The Dreamer

From diseased Eden the dreamer emerges,
leaving behind fiberglass gallows
and suburban hallucination,
naked flesh craving chemicals
they filled her veins with; toxic love.

She wades through the shallows,
in a delirium of demented desire,
trying to reach the graveyard’s tower.

Wind whistles over the crumbling
structure, causing friction and decay,
then disappears into the catacombs,
where blood is currency…

The dreamer waltzes onwards,
in a lithium and morphine haze.
Her eyes flicker, like fading holograms,
as she gazes into the past’s time line;
that falling tower, yet still…
it is perpetuating survival of the fittest.

Her heart beats loudly; electrical impulses.
Horizon looms, parallel to the skyline
and as zero hour looms closer, she hears
the faint roar of the nuclear city
beyond the tower in her path.

She must reach it; lamination of steel,
glass and vodka induced ethics.
There will be no more detours,
the dreamer moves resolutely forward.

(C) 4-14-12 jp

Day 13 – Prompt: Ghazal

Today’s prompt is to write a ghazal. I’m ignoring it (yes, again!).
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Lovely Amaranth

Lament for me, lovely amaranth,
that you will not adorn my tomb.
Instead, I will be handmaid
to Persephone and don a garland
of somber asphodel,
plucked from the banks of Styx.

From Hades’ realm, I will throw
wide my vision, aching to
gaze upon the living,
weeping that I may not join.
Yet every tear I shed shall
serve to feed the cypress guardians.

No instrument have I, save voice
yet I shall be a lyre,
and keen soft and sad,
a dirge to cause even those
who reside in Tartarus,
to stand in silence,
ignorant of their torment
for only scant, sharp moments.

They shall be swept up
by piercing sadness finally recalled
and a taste of life once more given,
only to awake from reverie
as the last note
wastes away to cold silence,
dead in the air.

And then they shall weep,
for all that has slipped
from their grasp,
and despair for just a moment
of warmth in the sun.

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(c) jp 4/13/12