Now it is dark January and the crows are singing.
A river runs through my heart,
where thoughts drown too soon.
My mind plucks old green hats,
out of the frosted air.
the hats belong to dead leprechauns,
doppelgangers lost at sea, trying to get here,
to be me.
Sometimes the sky is too brilliant,
it hurts old wounds.
Today the sky is a grey gun,
and as hard as gallstones.
January tramples over snowmen
scatters then into phantom blizzards
or stickmen, holy thorns of dark brier
crowning their twig-pointed heads.
Soon this freeze-framed pantomime,
will be known as February.
The birds will die and recover,
and so shall I.
Categories:
stickmen, poetry,
Form: Free verse
I can still feel my finger slide across the chilled glass panes of our kitchen window.
The simmering warmth of my grandmother’s stew against the freeze of a cold winter’s morning, gave birth to a fun filled coating of "dew".
I can hear her melodious chide as I continued drawing stickmen in the steam against her wishes. Such was a typical morning of my youth.
The "bouquet" of Ajax cleanser would descend as I watched an old Shirley Temple movie, redeeming the shrill notes of the scrub brush in the tub, a sure sign that it was Saturday. Though the dwindling mound of laundry announced that we’d soon be off to market,
I still hoped for a reprieve.
Alas, no time for Mighty Mouse!
Categories:
stickmen, childhood, memory, morning, nostalgia,
Form: Free verse
Watch the rodents and regulars
Sifting through the spiritless so-so
Of their sake.
Rushing for a room
In the established B&B,
Avocados and aperitifs
Swelling their bellies and slowing their minds.
Always wary of all their wares,
Reapers of replication.
The competition of the committee
For no tribute, nor travesty, just toll.
Watch the stickmen and society
Parade through the pith paths
Of their poetry.
Dawdling for the day
In the extraordinary ordinary,
Tates and Tatt
Warming their bellies and fizzing their minds.
No wares or too many to care,
Makers of mavericks,
Challengers of the committee,
For just tribute, or travesty, no toll.
© 2016 Margo Cami [www.margocami.com]
Categories:
stickmen, art, imagination,
Form: Free verse
The children were asked to paint
What they remember of summerbreak
In other parts of the world
They would have painted beaches, bicycles
And smiling stickmen in front of ice cream parlours
But these stickmen were expressionless,
Lying face down, shaded red
In the background, the red and gold tongues
Of renegade flames licked the sky
Black with the soot of burning buildings, their homes.
Categories:
stickmen, sad, war,
Form: Free verse