December Challenge - The Poems

[Trixareforkids]

Here I will place all the pairings. Please comment in the original thread.

 

[Trixareforkids]

Pairing #1

Removed by author


Remember

We were full of awesome ability
the world opened up as realization strikes
we exist far beyond a single point of geography.
Immensity is a word made larger
with ideas of infinity and a singularity.
the point in which all possibilities
are history and future bundled in now
and we exist even though we haven't even
been born in this instant or died tomorrow.

 

[Trixareforkids]

Pairing #2

The big question for those of little faith

Energy is neither created, nor destroyed
but does transform
witness the log burning in the fireplace
cellulose and lignin combining with oxygen
yielding heat, water and CO2
and with you sitting so close beside me
another transformation's coming on.

Yet cracks appear as we age,
time and entropy take their toll,
and we're going to more funerals
than weddings and christenings.
We've made arrangements to smooth
our affairs for those who remain and
laid up good whiskey and cognac
for our last remembrance.
I've chosen green burial
in a 500 year forest;
you cremation,
with your ashes
pressed into
a forever
diamond.

While we know our genes
carry on in our children
and our atoms will still cycle,
there remains the question
of how the bit that makes us us
will merge with the cosmos.

Sphere

We are born gifted,
energy, burning, intense.
Together, our closeness
creates sparks, the reactions
of youthful joy.

Time turns brilliance to a glow,
quiets the effervescence
as we start the descending slope.
Gathering now at funerals,
reminiscing over more joyful times,
weddings, christenings, beginnings.

We choose our routes
of departure, smoothing the way
for those who might stumble
over the rubble of our discarded lives.
I will be forest, forever. You, a diamond,
brilliant in gem form, priceless as always.

We will continue on
in our children,
in the minds of many friends,
life after death
after a fashion.
The thing that makes us “us”
will fly, merging with the cosmos,
energy once more.​

 

[Trixareforkids]

Pairing #3

Oxymoronic

as in "cruel kindness"
or the City of Lights that's as dark
as Fallujah is by the Euphrates,
although I am with you tonight.

Tomorrow I return to war games
with NATO; thereafter back to Iraq,
adorned in battle dress fatigues.
Tonight, however, I'm walking dead

who once thought that love was forever
instead of 5 days of Rest & Relax,
growing smaller each passing day.

Even the "j" and the "t" meaning "we"
are cruel in their kindness
whenever I say "J t'adore."

So let us not speak if just for tonight
but moan for me as I enter you
where touch means so much more, my Love,
than you and I can ever say.



When once a scribbler...

Words on a page
invite, assuage
a pain, a hurt, a loss
with freeing turn of phrase.

The invitation is implied;
none but the right
poet need apply,
to mold the phrase and give it flight.

A change of words can carve a soul
like thousand swords.
When poets thus exchange
their inner thoughts,
what once inside now glistens on the page.

 

[Trixareforkids]

Pairing #4

An Emotional Weather report
(time Waits for no one)

Bitter weather, cold and bleak
with no signs of improvement.
Lips that once were kissed
now frost bitten and
it will take more than
a two degree increase
to thaw enough,
for you to crack
even a smile for me.
Blood once hot freezes
and shatters my cold heart.
A blizzard of emotions
covers all and we're
lost in the whiteout
unable even to offer
tidings of comfort or joy.
Time drags its galoshes
as our world ices over.

Light pierces gloomy clouds
under reborn sun’s caress,
again the world revolves
and numbness melts away.
With sensation's return
tears trickle till iceout clears
this winter of discontent
A green bud pushes
through hard ground,
life's new cycle begins
and the forecast brightens.

With apologies to TW



Removed by author request

 

[Trixareforkids]

Pairing #5

Unchanging Terzanelle

Up on Olympus where life is a choice
The gods needn't worry: they walk on air
Whereas man speaks with a transient voice;

Our warble and rush become worn with care.
We're more like rocks after storms run their course--
The gods needn't worry (they walk on air),

But we crumble, pebbles to sand perforce
And we're tossed like dust that scatters the land.
We're more like rocks after storms run their course,

So don't assume Zeus will lend you a hand.
We can't expect mercy from distant gods
And we're tossed like dust that scatters the land.

Futility comes with counting the odds,
Only Eternity lives without change.
We can't expect mercy from distant gods

And details are all we can rearrange.
Up on Olympus where life is a choice,
Only Eternity lives without change,
Whereas man speaks with a transient voice.



Evanescent Haikus

Immutable gods
Walking serenely on air
They needn't worry

Tempest-scattered man
Speaks with a transient voice
Echoes fade quickly

 

[Trixareforkids]

Pairing #6

Vision

This ends on the fight
How can so many
emotions dance
on a pinpoint?

Flames in a mirror
reflect passions' burn
and the light of heat
fired deep in my view.

You behind just means
the glass has a better view
of my rear physiology.


Removed by author

 

[Trixareforkids]

Pairing #7

Untitled

This is the way that love ends: it just ends,
like an expired magazine subscription,
or a fad that has run its course. Bad loves
end abruptly, the way you get fired
from a job you never liked anyway, or
like how that car you were so proud of lost
an engine, an axle, something so expensive
that you just removed the plates and
filed the VIN number off the dashboard
and left it abandoned at the side of the road.

Good loves might seem to end on the death
of one of the lovers, but death does not end love.
Good loves fade, like Italian frescoes,
soaking ever more into the plaster of their
particular church wall, weakening with light,
with age, with time, ultimately. Good loves
simply grow forgetful and a little tired,
in the way you cannot remember classmates
at your high school reunion, even when
you have carefully avoided drinking.

Love can spark again, of course, after
either Bad Love or Good Love. Even
Carthage could have been rebuilt,
had Romans not sown its earth with salt.



Rememories of Love, Past, Present, and Future


Too often wounds of unkind love
sting with fresh-rubbed salt.
Too many tears poison the well;
their bitterness stunts growth
of even the most robust love -
a matter of chemistry over faith.

When kindness finds you,
when good love knocks,
open the door with a smile;
though tears may fall they
have a sweeter source;
there'll be no drowning in remorse.

Time has a way of balancing the scales;
a broken heart can mend, scars
fade. Regeneration's brought about
in most surprising ways, its future cost
supposed though not accounted.
Who knows how mellowed minds will ghost -
rememories of loves lived, lost....

 

[Trixareforkids]

Pairing #8

Beginnings and an Ending

Opposite
my bed
In this hospice
The wall of my room
Is covered
With pictures of
Every
Baby I
Helped bring into
This world.

I no longer
Remember their
Names or those
Of their
Mothers
As I once did
But I know I
Once held them,
Helped them to
Breathe
Even as my
Breath gets more
Elusive and
Harder to catch.


Some Polaroids, Found in a Shoebox
Stuffed Away in the Attic

Sometimes a photograph is all
you have of a certain
memory. There you are, holding
a young woman’s hand before
Niagara Falls, Fenway Park,
some random, empty beach
you can no longer place.
You know, usually, the woman’s name,
but that song she most loved is lost,
along with how her hair smelled
fresh from the shower, whether
she wore perfume or was a flirt,
whether she gave money for causes
benefitting children and dogs.
She is smiling in this picture.
Her teeth are white and even.
You remember how she liked
to run her tongue along your teeth
as you kissed, but not how she liked to move
in bed. Nor can you recall just why
she left, or whether it was you who left.
This is imagery a camera cannot capture,
as this is life, and this is love, and. And.

 

[Trixareforkids]

Pairing #9

Removed by author request

Phoenix

That first step was always the hardest,
standing back up among
all the remnants,
ashes,
debris and loose ends that had managed
to hang on even after that
final spark had kicked
everything
off

It had washed over him once
more and he breathed in the warm,
smoky air as it enveloped him,
like a womb of flame,
and rendered him back down
to his original state of
seeming innocence.

 

[Trixareforkids]

Pairing #10

Untitled

it began with a glance
as it almost inevitably does
beneath the summers heat
the
tink,

tink,
tink,
of moths and mosquitoes
on out door lights

where the humidity has everything
steamy and wet,
furtive glances
the way a room filled with people
ceases to exist

where one dance leads to another
laughter and tears
over shared thoughts and dreams
communication that transcends
where the new
makes you smile
and flutter
whenever a message
or there is time to unwind
comes
and you share it
together


On a Winter's Night

A glance...

the summer's heat embraced,
whispered sweet nothings

a drop of sweat slid down
high brow and
sculpted jaw

your smile lit my fire
fanned the flames

your neck stretched high
under my fingertips
your sigh


those embers never died
and on a winter's night
the blankets drawn around us
tight
we share our secrets still

 

[Trixareforkids]

Pairing #11

Ever After

I never thought I'd turn
the page to read The End
or watch the whole book tumble
from my useless hands after
we agreed that 30
is a healthy sum of years.
No fears; we skated over 10
and then and
then the ice grew thin.

One of us fell in.

I keep your spirit
in my heart, wear your leavings
round my neck, a charm,
an amulet but what's the point?
I've already been harmed.

This path is long and slow,
a starless stumble toward the dawn,
and yes the woods are dark and deep
and promises that I must keep
for us are all that move me on.


plot tensions in the book of love

slow beginnings
sometimes stalled
but in your charming arms no need to
fear or feel appalled
shared goal
a target for our aim
and though the bow be heavy
string hard to pull
there hangs no question in the air of
if

our when shall fall in place
on its own terms
to fight against the flow can only
skew the arrow's flight
for now we wait
improve our grip
ignore the tension in four arms
and sweat that falls into our eyes
to sting and cause those silly tears

for love has grown
across the years
across the blues, the highs, the writes
and when the time and tide are right
no more delays
no more lone nights
our clocks in sync
our hearts alight
we'll turn the page...
we'll turn the page

 

[Trixareforkids]

Pairing #12

Changing Chemistry

No longer believing in Santa Claus,
I prayed to God that I would get
a Super Deluxe Wacky Lab
Chemistry Set for Christmas,
"bacteria and fungi included,
some household items are required,"

so I ate my carrots and peas,
and made my bed every day,
and I knew I would get a Super Deluxe
Wacky Lab Chemistry Set,
if not at Christmas, my birthday then,
but it cost too much Mother said,

although one Christmas in junior high
I found a microscope under the tree,
and night after night when I couldn't sleep
I wondered how one million spermatazoa

could swim like Mr. White said they did
when I thought about Jane Postanek
from freshman year biology
or Miss December up in the attic.



Swapping Sciences

Everyone has that one thing
they really really wanted for
Christmas
and didn't get

Mine was a chem lab,
The Super Deluxe Wacky Lab Chemistry Set,
to be precise,
('cause precision is everything
to Science)

Although, already aged out on Santa,
I never asked him but went over
his head with prayers and a whole
six months of best behavior,
maybe longer,
doing what I was told,
not bugging my little sister,
washing up and going to bed on time,
such a change that I had
to come clean and tell my
Mom what was up.

"Very nice, dear, but that's an awfully
expensive thing," she said.

I just nodded and buckled down all
the more, figuring if Christmas wasn't
going to work, there was always
my birthday

Which came and went

And, before I knew it, the very thought
of The Super Deluxe Wacky Lab Chemistry Set
had also disappeared, and when Science finally
returned in the form of an actual working
microscope under the tree one year,
I had moved from wanting to mix things
to figuring out how and why they worked,

Why all the mysteries Mr White talked about
seemed so much more interesting when I
moved them from our textbooks to school
yearbooks and various inherited
dirty magazines.

 

[Trixareforkids]

Pairing #13

Untitled

days adrift in impermanent blurs
the echo of hollowed out craniums
as we pickled our brains in acid
brined them in tequila and music
you feel the music
lost in the madness of spring

it brings aching loss in the
profoundest of beauty
where I mourn too late
about what love is
of losses and fate

it's all a load of nothing
why do my eyes still
mist when I think of what was
how it will never be again,
innocence
bah that was long gone
before we chanced upon our
dance of lust,
and barely legal angst

requiem for a dream
where you swallowed me up
took me somewhere better
and now it's all just
a bitter tea
steeped in clover and acid.

I'll drink one more shot to that


Vernal blurt

The blossoms fell. I knew they must,
the blood-red stain of life along the the pink
curvaceous tenderness, it was
the picture of impermanence.
My nostrils search for echoes.
Finding none, I sit and mourn too soon.
How could I know
so very very late
about the oozing nectaries to come,
the parting petals,
the fragrant mad concupiscence of spring?