It started with dry leaves
pirouetting around
the yard on the back
of a skittish breeze,
the magnolia rubbing
against the fence
as if scratching an itch,
a few raindrops teasing
a thirst. Then,
distant thunder.
The sound seemed to cue
a tightening in the core,
an instinctive brace against
what was to come. Soon,
a sudden flash…
followed by a loud crack
and a shudder sent rolling
through the guts of every
living thing.
Wind clawed at seams,
unpicking the afternoon
to fling leaf, branch
and limb into tumbling air,
cartwheeling chairs across
the lawn. Hailstones tore
the fragile into bite size bits,
beheading blooms before
suddenly stopping
and crusting the ground
in a white shroud
of innocence.
It was over. An unusual quiet
let soft sounds soothe
the air - trickling water,
the tap of weighted leaves
shedding raindrops,
murmurings of ice melt.
I felt an easing
as if an anger within me
had been released
leaving only a sigh.
Categories:
unpicking, rain, storm, summer,
Form: Free verse
I've lived in it all my life -
the self's grand fiction -
refuge for the child, youths
rebel fortress and a walled
cloister to house
the holy relics gathered
on the pilgrimages
of my mind. I have built it
line by line with words
baked into bricks.
Rooms follow years
down passageways of books,
dusty manuscripts and dreams
hung in stations along
age blackened walls.
In high towers, windows
open to a universe
with a terrifying silence
at its core.
I hear reality's hard fist
knocking at the door,
a presence breathing
its corrosive damp into mortar,
unpicking me
brick by brick. And yet,
a sense of peace in surrendering
what was never really there,
dissolving into what is
Categories:
unpicking, allusion, poetry, self,
Form: Free verse
Still drowsy with sleep
an autumn morning stretches itself
out along Williamstown beach
and settles with barely a breeze
to break the water's mirrored glaze.
You sit and take in the warm air,
the easy flow, the prayers murmured
over glistening rocks by a rising tide.
There's no desire to be elsewhere
but already the slow unpicking starts.
First a stray thought slips by
then doubles back to take your focus.
It paces like a hungry gull testing the edges
of your space, probing for a hole.
Then another wheels around
and flares its wings to land nearby,
then another. Soon you are surrounded.
They stand and watch until you drop
a fear, then they pounce in a frenzy.
Each morning you come back
as if drawn by an inner need,
each morning they wait knowing
you're good for a feed.
Categories:
unpicking, beach, morning,
Form: Free verse