I found her as a whispered line in an editorial
stuck on the silk folds of a silver jubilee
like regret.
She had bled once in a different continent
A red thread pulled taut at thirteen
Doctors sealed the loom forever.
I was thirteen too, still learning the
topography of my brown skin.
My hands trembled like birdcage doors
unsure whether to open or close.
The article was a medical moonspeak
which orbited her wound like gravity.
Her body was an eclipse,
a shadow swallowing the sun before its rise.
Some thresholds are chasms I learned that day
shaped like hospital beds,
where young girls are unravelled.
The editorial has faded like old ink
on rain-soaked newsprint, but her sentence lingers.
And I am still standing barefoot at the edge,
where pain and empathy hold hands
like hesitant strangers beneath the doorway called thirteen.
Forward thinking astronomer Frank Drake
did not worry about a mistake
Tried contacting aliens with radio,
waves had rather far to beam and go.
Frank orbited into outer space last May
Extraterrestrials from Venus do not play
He has put on their flag a USA flag
Even up in space, Frank is showing his swag
Happiness is easily found in a multitude of the sweetest components
Grateful for you, often swept from the feats, of our hours, sharring meaningful moments
Your citrines comprised burning bright; scorching everywhere
As an orbited sphere; willed they are a perfect solar flare
Climbing a summit inside my thoughts; that is all you
Beside me, you wrap me up while we both enjoy the view
One could mine for eternity; excavating nothing valued; seeking a gem worthy of a crown
But, I would stop digging at the surface of the earth; if it matched your eyes, superfluous shade of brown
On first glance all seemed well
but the stooped stance betrayed,
tremulous heart shaken,
under weight of struggles,
soul yet to awaken.
On first glance all seemed well
but then we saw bondage
to cravings of ego,
which our fellow soul was
unable to let go.
On first glance all seemed well
but the conversation
only orbited fear,
so we had to conclude,
dark desires they held dear.
On first glance all seemed well
but something was amiss,
with head and heart not linked,
it showed inner conflict,
soul as yet not love inked.
The first exploration was to the moon
Where we saw how its craters are hewn
We have orbited Jupiter to unveil the shroud
and unlocked the mystery beneath its dense cloud,
Man's curiousity has taken him to Mars
He's seen Saturn's rings as he journeyed among the stars,
Traveling to planets light years away
To reveal mysteries long held at bay
Exploring the universe is the ultimate goal
But they must avoid the deadly black hole,
and as the technology does improve
To colonize other planets is the next move
3-31-2023
Sponsor: Constance La France
Writing Challenge - 'Q' Words - Poetry Contest
Four Billion years or thereabouts
Earth has orbited its appointed place
Slowly and surely developing into
A safe and hospitable living space
What a strange year this has been
Year Two Thousand and Twenty Two
You seem to have bern so long passing
And I’m so glad to see the back of you.
A year of invasion and Warfare
Of bullies flexing their might
Seeming secure in their belief
That might alone is right.
A year of political spectres
Of crooks, spivs and ghouls
Carelessly showing to the world we
Are lead by blatant self seeking fools.
The greedy and avaricious seem
To want, and take, more and more
Leaving even less for the peasants
To fight and grub for off the floor.
The rich man in his castle still,
Security light and guard at his gate,
More and more decrying the excesses
Of the battered remnant Welfare State.
So goodbye twenty twenty two
Heaven only knows what we’ll see,
More of the same and worse I think, when
They usher in year Twenty Twenty Three.
Four thousand years give a century or two
That’s just about as long as it’s taken
For man to abuse Earth’s delicate balance
And leave it stunned and badly shaken
Once the centre of creation
Orbited by a sun and every star
Until growing knowledge showed
Just how insignificant we really are.
Riding a spec of dust at a Galaxy rim,
Occupying our out of the way place
As that Galaxy increasingly speeds
Through a mysterious, endless space
In a cycle of birth and death,
Of destruction and creation,
Until billions of years on
Comes a slow gradual situation
That, all energy burnt, the final stars
Collapse and, once full of light,
Our Universe become a place of
Endless lifeless eternal night.
For our brief existence
As our knowledge grows
We strive to learn more
In our driving need to know.
Were we an accident that happened
An incidental, unplanned construction
Were we alone, temporary, solitary prophets
In this process of birth and destruction.
Or, did we serve a purpose to learn,
And record for some purpose unknown
Until, somehow, with us soon gone
Our knowledge somehow flown
To another developing planet raising
Another developing sentient race,
The next chosen recording angels
There to take our privileged place.
We are not alone in this place
Just isolated in space
Our star isn’t dim
Just at our Galaxy‘s very rim
For no other reason
Than it was their mating season
They wined and they dined
With tentacles entwined
Then they merged and they all
Made mass love in free fall
So engrossed with that act
They overlooked the fact
That it just might be worth
Investigating planet Earth
Then they orbited Mars
And headed back to the stars
Their report just said
System boring and dead
And so to this very day
They’ve not been back this way
The church I went to as a teenager
was full of sex.
It seeped through the worn wooden pews
into the pours of our hands.
It sluiced around the stucco walls
and fake stained-glass windows.
The aroma of young girls at prayer
was overpowering.
On the surface older people
seemed oblivious to this sea of sensuality,
yet when I looked closer
peeping over the edge of my hymnal
I saw folks with closed eyes,
backs arching, many
holding onto some unexpected
yet well-known arousal.
A stirring gravity enthralled us
as we orbited a magnetic divinity.
That day I knew intuitively
that the holiness of life was a passion
gifted to us by an even greater passion -
one that loves us.
Roller skates
Roll smooth
In circles and orbited figure eights
Gliding great with the rhythmic moves
So quick
So slow
So cool
Ice skate
Aerodynamically
On icy floors slick and wet
A ballet on a frozen slough
Beautiful blades
Upon delicate
Crystal blue
Rumbling wheels
Radioactively
Alive with pumping legs that reel
Forcing friction like a mad banshee
Athletically willed
Heart rate
Speed kills
January 15, 2020
Double Dactyl Poetry Contest
Sponsored by William Kekaula
So distant was love from her heart to mine,
We orbited different worlds
Yet we spun with a passion on destiny's path
Rotating with desire as we eclipsed;
The enchanting shadow of love, for a moment in time,
Fell on distant hearts, passing through the night
6-15-2020
An almost perfect being
That lived on a planet
Which orbited a mid size star
Living all alone
But not minding herself as company
For she was sister
Sister to the witch
Juniper’s Daughter’s Sister
Like her sister she had no name
But she didn’t want to be called
Juniper’s Daughter’s Sister
It was too much of a mouthful
So she went by the name Miranda
It was nice and innocent and right
A girly girl’s name even if
Miranda was a Lady Boy!
Juniper’s Daughter: Fookin' Weech
Nick Armbrister
~*~
She floated down
on a shimmering
moonbeam
and my eyes
saw starlight
glowing in her
cosmic smile
as perfect love
orbited my
heart
and the
universe
became ours
Moon Walk
They took off from Cape Kennedy
In a gasoline filled Saturn V
They orbited round
To find some smooth ground
In the Sea of Tranquility
So Neil Armstrong bounced on the moon
Like some extraterrestrial buffoon
But he wasn’t alone
And his space suited clone
Would be bouncing around very soon
The lunar module had some locks
To make sure the capsule undocks
They'd wired a flag
So it wouldn't sag
And then they came home with some rocks
...Of Universes In Parallel…
I never got to know ye
And I’ll regret it
For the rest of my life
Perhaps there are
Parallel universes wherein
One you became my wife
Another in which
I knew you not and
One where I knew you (Quite a lot)
Another perhaps where we
Orbited around in galaxies
That dwarf the sun
Yet managed still
By sheer force of will
To merge…and become one
As many are the pernicious wishes
As are the grains of sand
That deep neath the sea lie
Of a star struck soul
From a far flung land
That We should meet many more times
…You and I…
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