METRONOME
The Arctic winds blew
The bitter cold slew
High in the sky
The birds of prey flew
The Heavens reached down
Wings, white as whey
We gathered around
The metronome played
We walked in the clouds
We died where we lay
Still begging for bread
Hands frozen, we prayed
The pendulum swung
The traitors, hung, swayed
We gathered around
The metronome played
Before the sun rose
We crawled and we cleaved
The flesh under snows
We ate, so we breathed
The sirens, slow wailed
The traitors, shot, brayed
We gathered around
The metronome played
872 days of cold, hunger & death was the siege of Leningrad. When the radio was not playing patriotic music to boost the morale of the citizens, it broadcast the beat of a metronome ... The faster the beat, the more imminent an attack.
Hot sun, blazing down
Skeeters from slew chew me up.
Musty Florida.
Software that’s deployed incomplete,
we are expected to go with the flow.
Agile is supposed to put people first?
I’m looking at a slew of burnt out staff.
Expectations without the proper tools,
I’m not really a fan of looking like a fool.
I am here to file a corporate complaint,
right now before it’s too late.
The patrons who choose our business
notice the consistent inconsistencies.
Drops, outages, and all flavors of ‘Fail’
are not supposed to be commonplace.
Piling on more the experts won’t survive,
nothing will be left of a fine tuned skillset.
Quality or quantity? An ancient argument.
There is a line I fear we have crossed.
I am here to file a corporate complaint,
right now before it’s too late.
Junk-bait replaced an aspirational brand.
Is that what we are destined to say?
Well I’ll be damned if I let master class die.
Trash is trending and we have a reputation.
Flexible doesn’t mean sacrifice soundness.
I don’t ever want to hear ‘Remember when..’
I am here to file a corporate complaint,
right now before it’s too late.
White upon fog upon snow upon dreams,
dreams upon snow upon fog upon white.
Dreams come, as if the minutiae of day
are merely a prelude to night vision.
It is kin to the sun but it is not the sun,
its light is not golden and it does not warm.
His left hand is under my head,
his right hand does embrace me.
Deb'rah slew the heart of her enemy
as the prophecy foretold.
Snapping Turtle swims
through green Mississippi slew
and raids my stringer.
To the Tiny Ants I Slaughter Every Day
I've been at war with you for some time now.
Your initial assault was impressive, I'll give you that.
Slew you by thousands,
Black swarms down the shower drain.
Now it's down to scouting parties
Up through the sinks every morning.
I drown you, crush you without thought;
Little red smears easily wiped away.
Does your Queen wonder why
Her Probes never return?
Are they, in their last moments
Aware of their immolation?
Are our own cells,
Myriads every second,
Aware of theirs?
Miracles are happening inside those doomed cells
The ants have brains,
Actually the largest by body mass,
Miniscule though they be.
While Out There
In the formless Nothing of Space
There await The Asteroid, The Great Solar Flare
The Giant Gamma Ray Burst
The Wandering Black Hole
To quash the tiny Probes,
To rid the Gods
Of the tiny, tiresome ants.
When I was a girl,
Every once in a while,
I’d receive in the mail,
Because that was the style,
A letter to copy
And send to a name
At the top of a list,
Which in that letter came.
When you copied the note,
You’d add your own address
To the list, while deleting
The top one. Success
Came when after some days
You’d receive quite a slew
Of the letters, from strangers,
Delivered to you.
If you followed the rules,
You would have some good luck.
If you didn’t, without it,
I guess you’d be stuck.
The letters back then
Needed stamps and were mailed
And the fun part was knowing
That you had prevailed.
Now my granddaughter sent me
A chain in a text:
“Sent to 15 new people
Or what happens next
Will be lots of bad luck
For 3 years if you don’t.
If you do, you will get
A new phone.” (No, I won’t.)
“You will also be getting
The pet of your dreams.
Everybody will love you!”
I guess that’s how it seems
To the youth of today,
But with this kind of chain,
As I wrote to my granddaughter,
I will refrain.
If this finds you millions of light years out,
you'll see a comet race toward our earth.
Know our planet nearly died from that clout,
but experienced glorious rebirth.
By and by, a civilization grew -
one of beauty and scientific truth,
but the knowledge with which we were bestowed
(e equals mc squared, indeed was true)
slew our Shakespeare's and Mozart's world in youth.
Don't let your bombs or CO2 explode.
'twas the night before Christmas
and with finances dead
no black number lasted -
turned Rudolph-nose red
my wallet, 'twas empty
my plastic quite maxed
my bank account zero
my credit - gone, axed!
my back like my money
was spent and inflamed
the gift-wrapping mess
put a landfill to shame
the stockings were jammed
with a slew of odd junk
tho' I don't recall WHAT
(being just short of drunk)
I'd hung them with care
'bove the fireplace, but ...
they all smelled like smoke
with the flue frozen shut
my goodwill was doomed
for the shape it was in
and my patience had left
with the last of the gin
but bless all the guests
they slept like the dead
(our sugarplums spiked
with pure Panama Red)
perhaps I could sleep now
sans nightmares and fear
left dreaming the madness ...
of Christmas ... NEXT year.
( photographic art taken from public domain files copyright-free at FreePik / Flickr )
6.Konosuba: Is It Wrong for King David to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?.
My life is a psalm filled with poetic justice.
For all the giants I slew,
I still see myself in king Saul .
Consulting the dead on the self fulfilling prophecy of my falling on my sword.
Zombies accompany my harp with shrieks of Dolores O'Riordan,
As I seek to meditate on how life is a never ending war.
A short lived conquest over temptation,
A pyrrhic victory that claimed my sons.
All I'm left with are the lessons from proverbs,
The fear of God put in me, left from the boldness of youth.
Not any wiser, just sneakier.
Age bends spine when I just want to walk upright in Notre dame.
To stand up for love not having ever stood it up,
But I don't see how that is possible now.
I have gambled it away to earn myself this hatred.
I don't know where to start fixing the broken trust,
But if nothing else, believe I loved you.
If not, believe i loved you and a lot(...they really meant nothing,babe).
Holding a boom box on your front yard,
I bring the arc(k) home, dancing a fool outside you window.
Once upon a Witch full thought
Deceit and hate on her mind
An Evil Wicked Witch living in Witchcraft Manor planning to terror on everyone
Turning human into Evil toads for the Witches bidding
The Wicked Witch had been terrorizing all the citizens in Fernwick Center
Citizens who were humble and thankful
Happy people in family togetherness and love
The Evil Witches wanted to change good into bad
Determined to reign and turn people into her slaves
Punishment detail came to people that didn’t behave
Into the hot pot cook
Serving to her liking and taste
Scare rang through the air in shook
Casting all kinds of incantations causing fear
Darkness that came even though it was day
Total atmosphere change that the Wicked Witch could control
Spell here and there
Eventually everywhere
Promises
Designated to follow through
Nothing new
Attempt to pursue
One day, the Wicked Witch herself will be thrown into a pot being the stew and concluding with a slew.
True!—you would deem me mad, and so may be;
My ailment sharpened all, and made them keen.
Above the world, I heard a harmony
No mortal ear has heard, or ever seen.
This sound was not of pulse, or drum, or clock,
But of a heart so pure, it sang with grace;
It was a song of love, a holy lock
Upon a soul that found its rightful place.
And so I craved to tear the sound away,
To silence notes that shamed my hollow core.
I smiled, and slew him at the break of day,
And hid the song beneath my chamber floor;
But now I hear it, singing through the wood,
That dulcet-heart, forever understood.
Like all my siblings, I dropped from my mother's crown, oh, about twenty years ago now
Fortunately, though a tough nut to crack, I eventually poked my green head up out of the ground
Turns out that I'm a tree, an Eastern Black Walnut to be exact, or Juglans nigra to be super exact
Now, nearly thirty feet tall, I can feel I've slowed down in growth some, normal for us black walnuts
If I keep my roots, and that pesky walnut caterpillar doesn't find me, I should double my height
My leaves are busy factories turning sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide into life sustaining oxygen
You humans love the pungent taste of my healthy fruit and use it in a slew of your culinary delights
They tell me studies show that the antioxidants I host are beneficial for human medicinal purposes
That chocolate wood I lumber around is top notch for constructing beautiful, long lasting furniture
So whatever our destiny may be, dresser, medicine, or tree, us black walnuts will always stand tall
I was the offspring of two farm kids who fell in love.
They both were up at four a.m. to do their chores.
Five o’clock would have seemed like a gift in their childhoods.
So, they gave me that gift of “sleeping in” until five.
I did not have eggs to gather, a cow to milk or feed to spread.
But I did have a slew of chores, and this was not a request.
There were three of us kids, we still get up at five.
I text my sister at 5:05 and she asks, “What took you so long?”
Five a.m. is our regular wake up time.
We could get more things finished before school than a teacher.
hoeing, weeding, raking….
in the dark? We had a streetlight, didn’t we?
One time I said to my sister “why do we have to be busy every second?”
She laughed.
We were farm kid’s kids, she reminded me.
I texted her at 5:01 today and she texted back “been up since four”.
An ominous water tower
Stands tall in Starin Park
Barricaded by a spiked fence
Iron clads the stained-glass windows
A steel door bolted shut
What secrets lie within its walls?
On the night of a blood moon
Witches shrouded in crimson robes
Conducted a satanic ritual
To call forth a demon from hell.
The ceremony was a success, but at a cost.
Hellborn claws slew the High Witch.
The remaining members stood firm.
Combined their strength to subdue the creature.
Calling forth the spirits of nature,
The witches configured a tower
To confine the bloodthirsty beast
So none shall meet an unfortunate end.
They say on a full moon night,
You can hear otherworldly growls
Echoing throughout the tower
Rattling the bravest of souls
Who'd dare to venture forth
To the Witches Tower.
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