Bountiful starlight reverbs with echoes
that fade but hold a bit of that drumfire.
Raising that whimsical smile even higher,
electric shadows cast a glow on your toes.
A sound you can’t place in the real world,
music that was bestowed from the Fey.
You wake and long to be whisked away
on a comet’s tail both pearled and curled.
High dollar melody delicately bouncing
like a wrist wrapped in celestial jewelry.
With a gaze at the sky’s rippling gallery,
three coin tossed wishes and counting.
Diamonds are on a roll hard as a rock,
playing your high hopes with sure strokes.
As if you really need any kind of a coax,
forever a girl in love with sidewalk chalk.
A skull rocking sky-rumbles,
spills over rooftops,
salvos shake mind-cradles,
bruise landscapes.
I return home to a house
crouching under a pressing menace.
A tormenting sky slowly passes by,
nonetheless, I won't leave here
until my timid tabby cat
leads the way.
A dense sky-rubble
trundled and spilled above the rooftops
a runaway thunder ground along unseen tracks,
a near salvo rocking mind-cradles,
then a muted detonation over a far off
storm bruised landscape.
The tumult cracked and sizzled-
leaden were the rayless shades.
I returned home in the nick of
a dispersing moment.
The house seemed crouched,
ceilings low and cowering;
a living-space quashed by a heavy hand
rooms sheltering from the weight of imminent
upheaval.
I paused for the searing glare of lightning
yet a deepening gloom
sparked no ignition nor flash;
only a pressing portent of menace.
Then as rapid as the booming
onslaught arrived
the heavens broke open,
gravity expelled a lighter breath
to rise ballooning into an airy light.
All who huddled beneath that cacophony
sighed now in shamed relief
a prayer unspoken upon their lips.
I did not leave my dwelling that day
until my timid tabby cat
bravely led the way.
Take Me There
Take me to the place where it’s broadly known
In meadows and woods famous poets roamed
Where hosts of blithe yellow daffodils dance
In expectation of budding romance.
To view magnificent mountains and lakes
And spectacular countryside landscapes
In hopefulness that it all will inspire
My muse to explode alike a drumfire.
The Lake District I will visit one day
There’s so much to view and do on a stay
Such serenity and astounding grace
Is found in Cumbria’s stunning showplace.
*+*+*
9th January 2023
Take Me There Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Margarita Lillico
Fractured Light Fragments
Ghostly gloom, born of foreboding stillness,
Cut to smithereens - shattered shards of energy escape
From the whirlwinds in feral fragments with serrated cutting edges -
Wary night watch warned of sirocco’s spinning untamed spiral catastrophe -
Blinding firebolts erupt splitting open serenity
Nightfall dodges crackling outbursts of released electric voltage flying wild
Splintered slivers of eye piercing shards - ragged air’s racing volatility
Sorcerer of sonic thunder bumpers, releases all pent up booms
Rips wide the momentary abyss of suspended oblivion
Slamming closed jagged air’s fractured ozone.
Smashed bits of broken midnight solitude crumble in the drumfire
Rumble in rushing waves of tattered sound through towering thunderheads,
Torn edges of reverberation echo again -
Flashing shadows stalk tranquility with their slashing thunder.
7-21-21
Contest: Fragmented Spaces
Sponsor: Constance La France
He’s gained an audience over the past few years.
Colluding with his missteps and his demons.
Shining a bright light, center mass.
Waiting for applause.
So proud of the spectacle he’s tied
together with sinew and charred hearts.
He chuckles as his puppets squirm.
Promises immortality for such a small
price. What is a soul anyway?
But blood is pouring in from stage left.
Skeletons drumfire, and pile over
the catwalk.
He’s still smiling.
Perspiration falls from a brow intent on
not furrowing.
He’s shown his teeth to a crowd that
now knows why he’s put so much
effort into making tragedy into comedy.
The spotlight crackles.
And he can see the crowd.
Faces scoured by truth.
Nobody is laughing.
The seats are empty.
But the stage is brimming.
The edged remains of his
crooked dreams huddle closer.
The cold crimson fills his lungs.
The gurgling - drowning laughter.
He prays for curtains.
-James Kelley 2019
...listen, wide away;
can you hear it's most solitary sound?
Wailing with a rapture,
causing rumble over ground.
Look now, do not tarry-feel his cold steel embrace? Heaving with a
drumfire, rolling like a thunder. Tis' the T-Train to give chase.
Come closer and do so let us hide, and put away any thought of-or
the T-Train we will ride.
For what can be the use of this? I see we quietly reap the rain...
Why should we have to board, to contemplate it's pain?
So, remember and forget, step down from it's refrain, it's time to
embark-hastening it on... Go and bother me elsewhere, Goodbye!
Farewell, T-Train.