Writing

Writing Prompt, February 4, 2021, In 100 Words: Thoughts on Love

Traitor's Love

By Anonymous

Love was war, treasonous secrets

whispered in second twilight.

Love was an English surgeon's hands,

fugitive knife drawing life from certain loss

of two.

Love was a rare, rested while, passing

looks and jokes like liquor vials.

Love was fire in a black queen's eyes,

ire of ages, heart far hardened to cave

under shackles and staves.

Love was a pair of footprints down the aisle,

two slow dancers approaching immortality.

Love is the wick which licks

vivid over a scholar's desk,

littered in fishy scrolls.

Shadows whistling,

cold fingertips kiss,

leaving mere wispy mysteries.

No matter, love is history.

Euphoric Roads by Anonymous

Blood-red muscles of the heart

twitch, gaining the momentum of

a running start until their toes lift

from the ground of sinewy artery

and soar, up and out of the driver’s

window, tangling with sound waves

of throbbing music as the wind whisks

them into the dusk.

Fingers tap, quick and inconsistent, while

the arm straightens and the neck falls back,

eyes flutter closed, lips turned up, and the

brain dances inside the skull. Its signals

are rhythmic, bursting with light energy

that makes the tapping and grinning

so easy while it wonders what could possibly

be better than this.

Fifty Seven Words on Love

by Liv Bailey

the earth’s crust is made up of mostly igneous rocks

cooled into granite from hot peridot magma

the moon tugs hard on the tides and, tonight,

venus rises two degrees above the horizon

deer travel at dawn, and bed down in the tall grass

and we are warm under all these makeshift stars

Flattened

by Erik Borda

Summits and dips, peaks and valleys,

the horizon winks, my feet alight.

I beat each step, an echo rallies

loyal creatures of the night:

a pleasant start, for perfect stars.

Truly, my compass came broken,

untethered from its righteous thread,

the face, a gray and helpless token,

its needle, teeters gently dead:

I make a poor astronomer.

Yet soles lie flat, as visions track

the skies, impatiences in vain,

unfurling fabric of richest black

atop the Earthen plane:

we’re but low stones in a vast bowl.

Not a one of us has seen a star born,

naught but the bed and the seas they adorned

fore they left us their firmament.

All free things play on the face of their reign,

hot with live hope that Auriga should deign

to prod time forth an increment.

Save for the wicked, who walk in disguise,

who nourish deceit with star-darkened eyes,

for them, waits a just punishment.

Cry not for the cruel, tonight we are blessed,

soft beacons of light heed Earthly requests

to smooth hearts worn with detriment.

Perhaps, the stars made themselves for our needs,

Cassiopeia, bravely she leads

our lost ships to her embankment.

Or perhaps, just perhaps, they're a pretty accident.

There’s a wistfulness I take,

when I look Ganymede in the face,

that starshine glows forever

but devotees fade.

That as I look yonder, past suffering untold,

the tides will yawn long,

the stars will burn cold.

That justice grows fat on the harvest moon's plenty,

a friend to a few, a foe to many,

that fairness became a toy to adopt,

a necklace, a compass, a gold pocket watch.

That for want of a filament,

I'm made your embarrassment.

With every tenet I decline,

the horizon becomes a finish line,

at last, the final stretch I see.

So rest easy, my intimate,

my discarded, loyal instrument,

I care not who we’re meant to be.

Perforated

by Erik Borda

I woke up with new pangs today:

a cave in my right palm,

another gap to complement

my three-hole-punched arms.

Across my chest, across my back,

through stomach, lungs, and heart,

each pit collides, fully intent

on carving me apart.

While hollowed through, I am intact,

my vigor will remain.

Observe, the fibers of a life

hurdle from vein to vein.

Veiled hands caress me as I lay,

skin’s tenderness excites,

by chisel, corkscrew, subtle knife,

they sculpt me in the night.

Now see how the North Wind will receive me,

with outstretched arms of blithest vice.

Ambling forward, smiling warm,

he slips between my meshwork form,

leaving only winter bites,

my blood is turned to ice.

Half blinded to the genesis

of chasms interposed,

in shame to peer into the depths,

I’m scared to see them closed.

I’ll fall to fragments in light hands,

I’ll splinter at a touch.

One perforation-burdened breath

is already too much.

On matchwood stilts my body stands

before the bonfire glare.

Facing danger, bashfully bold,

as feeble bones prepare.

But callous to all hesitance,

these fingertips combust,

I’m brittle, ruptured, hollow, old,

in seconds I am dust.

Come morning, sunlight trickling through my face,

I realize the world has stilled.

Pins of grass, skin interrupts,

give way as hyacinths erupt,

windless skies watch brush, unthrilled,

a moment, I am filled.

Stone

by Claudia Coolidge

Six inch stilettos own the room

Red lips pursed as she lifts

herself out of the cab

Screeching tires turn as horns blare

two blocks down

Her eyes, vibrant green and sea-like, pull

And enchant innocent men

The watering hole plunges

into silence as she saunters through the door

No man can look away

her fire engine red claws grasp the counter

And she perches on a stool.

Legs elegantly crossed

Fingers swirl an olive around her glass

She is all they dream of: Virgin Mary,

Aphrodite, and Marilyn Monroe

all in one.

One brave man takes the leap

“Hello beautiful”

Eyes rooted to her glass

her heart sinks.

“Can I buy you a drink?”

“Please leave me alone” she begs,

But he claims it’s only one drink

What harm could be done from one drink?

Stormy ocean eyes meet the stranger

Followed by a Big Bang of realization

His legs freeze, his feet glued,

Cement crawls up his skin.

Hazel eyes trapped

on the squirming snakes

that slither from her head.

His glass falls, shatters

to the floor as fingers now ice frozen

no longer curl around its stem.

All eyes envelop her, begging

for answers

Instead her vibrant eyes well, wet with salty tears

as her hair slithers and slides,

hissing and snapping.

Rushing to the backdoor,

She flees.

Ashamed she even attempted to be

Normal

For Medusa was cursed,

because a man said yes

and she said no

August, A Mayfly

by Lilia Sawhney

They swoop in in sizeable shadows,

That smother the sun

of summer

On a day so perfect, it hurts your heart to have the sun

Obscured by an

opaque overcast

Then: nimbostratus’

Divebomb down,

Thick in the air: fog, on a damp, dreary, tepid day

The fog of the tedious, trying blobs

Tear in the tempyst of

Summer fighting back.

The life August lives,

In the shadows, only a

Stooge to September

September will live in her altostratus home,

Abominable to all

that experience her action

She circulates her flies,

named after the wrong month

To prompt preparation of what's to come.

Chary to venture outside,

For you will metamorphosize into just another charnel house

In the cemetery of August.

A few hours of flitting and flying

Only to choose a final resting place

Without any fretfulness

Their still-sticky limbs

Stay stuck like superglue to an unsuspecting

Post or window, fighting against the wind

Still alive, in their infamous memory.

Jumping Rope

By: Evianna Merriam

Thwap Thwap

Like a bullet

Fast as can be

It hangs in the air

Like there’s no gravity

Hypnotizing repetition

Thin beaded rope

Ten ladies waiting

A turn is their hope

New Cinderella

Tries her luck

One misstep

And her foot is struck

Then she's out

Before upstairs

Watching watching

All the girls compare

One hop two hops

Three hops four

Yellow dress Alice

Loses her score

Little steps over

Make no mistakes

Suddenly trips up

Rope’s in her wake

As tiny miss perfect

Jumps more and more

The weary rope swingers

Begin to bore

Till the end of recess

She goes with no quit

Back to lunch

As her pigtails flick