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City Lights I’d walked down the street many times in both day time and night time and not noticed them. I’d driven down there many times in both day time and night time and not noticed them. But something seen so often may become unseen without a new perspective, a new dimension. And tonight I climbed higher to see the street from above. A mosaic lay below me, a city of squares. Squares, where there were no squares before. Squares of light projected like an art installation, broken and fragmented making the ordinary into extraordinary. https://www.ekphrastic.net/ekphrastic-writing-challenges/joy-baer-ekphrastic-writing-responses
Seeing All I can see you. I’m not blinded by your fine words or the fancy dress of your masquerade. But even the blind can see through you. In time there’ll be pennies for my eyes but they’re open now and missing nothing. I know you want to hide from me, would have me cover my eyes with my hands or stitch them up to make me sightless as death. But it won’t work. I’ll look between the stitches sneak a peek through my parted fingers. And even the blinded can see through you. Sightlessness comes only with death. Until then we all can see you. https://plumtreetavernhomeless.blogspot.com/2022/07/seeing-all.html
Void There are clouded spaces so dark I can’t see into them. I have always been afraid that monstrous beings may lurk there, waiting. But now that the cloud is lifting, moving away, I am even more afraid, afraid of the light afraid it may reveal the bare boards. https://www.rudderlessmarinerpoetry.com/blogpoetrysubmission/void-by-lynn-white?fbclid=IwAR0v8Z7rdiQ6nV8FIHW-PyORqXnEtU8rnSXZoSnx8Triiw-c8T5Tb5hRK88
In The Rocks It was a small gap in the rocks dry and bare for a time in waiting, waiting for the tide to turn and the sea to wash through to leave it not quite dry; a trickle of salt water left behind, salt tears running down a face, pooling below full of life full of creatures brought back to life. Tears can sometimes do that temporarily. https://arachnepress.com/shop/#!/Tymes-Goe-by-Turnes/p/242801448/category=12178368
Broken The crack became a slash almost splitting her in two. She could have sought help, could have driven to heal it, But after a while she quite liked it. It had become part of her and she felt it became her and who knew what would emerge to wriggle and squeeze though the gap. https://ephemeralelegies.com/2022/07/18/broken-by-lynn-white/comment-page-1/#comment-6051
One Last Time Before the trees begin to fall I’ll take a walk through the woods one last time, hear the leaves glistening and shaking in fear of what is to come some are already fallen lying dying, it’s the season for it after all. I’ll see the light shining lighting on the leaves of grass that push soft spikes of green life in between the fallen see the light shining through the trees one last time. It lights up the white crosses chalked on the trunks as it passes by too many white crosses all ready to mark the graves of the fallen. It’s the season for it after all, always the season for it one more time. https://www.transformativepowerofartjournal.com/
Performance Art He’s the last man standing. Whether comedian or statesman performance is all for the last man standing. Standing in the rubble of the city. Standing on the bodies of the dead heroes, those lions led by donkeys once again. No more laughter, no more tears, the final curtain came down on them. Hollow victory or glorious defeat it’s all the same to them. But the last man still stands, the star of the show temporarily. https://www.transformativepowerofartjournal.com/
When Psychopath Met Showman When a violent psycho with overwhelming power meets a deluded showman with a hero complex it’s looking bleak for those caught in between. Those displaced from their homes, displaced from their lives, those losing their lives. those losing the life they expected to live, More and more of them, a stream without end as the show goes on. https://www.transformativepowerofartjournal.com/
Collateral Damage Once they were cities, noisy alive lived in now only blackened carcasses remain, still standing where all else has fallen. Jagged towers, the bare bones of dreams standing still. Still as the lost dreams stopped in their tracks. Standing still the graveyard of the lost, the lost dreams and dreamers. https://www.transformativepowerofartjournal.com/
A Rose For Gaza Gaza is a garden full of roses. Stone roses. Rock roses. No petals to crush and bruise to release their fragrance. Only dust. Dust and the stench of death. No green space left. No sweet tranquility, peace or quiet. No escape. No garden of Eden here. No gateway to paradise. Rubble and rock roses. So I shall plant a rose for Gaza in my green space, in my tranquil garden. I won’t bruise it, just gently sniff its fragrance and hope that one day fragrant roses will bloom again in the garden of Gaza. What else can I do? https://www.transformativepowerofartjournal.com/
The Sins Of The Fathers We had parked in a quiet Skopje side street and the Germans parked in front were surveying the wreckage of their car. “They don’t like Germans here,” they said. We sympathised. “It’s because of what the Germans did in Yugoslavia in the war,” we replied. “But that wasn’t us!” they said. And of course they were right! The sins of the fathers.. “But not our fathers” they might have responded. And of course they’d be right. Probably. And so it goes, the sins of the fathers. There are no barriers, no boundaries, no constant of time or place so they play out over and over again. https://visiblemagazine.com/the-sins-of-the-fathers/
Daisies Unchained We buried our dreams beneath a wreath of daisies freed from their chains to mark the grave temporarily. Waiting for each daisy death to hide them for ever, unless someone has the key that will release them and make them flower again. https://uglywriters.com/2022/07/11/daisies-unchained/?fbclid=IwAR12eQJ7oeBq6rYv7yD0YWm1QP7bMb8pAPlg8wFbT3zddXzY-LlVGsawUlo
Mad Swirl She always preferred to blend in to the background to lose herself in the mad swirl of colours from other peoples lives. It’s how she became invisible, how she became herself. https://thedrabble.wordpress.com/2022/07/09/mad-swirl/?fbclid=IwAR1RlTRJy2wLbaTApDy0pSCavjOvxlsX90Lbe4fThyBZhssP15K4qrlK5wk
Numbers How many times have we had this conversation? I don’t know. I’m not good with numbers and neither are you. Probably, it’s the same number of times as we’ve promised not to have it again. I’m not very good with promises either. And neither are you. How many times have we made a decision, a final decision, that has convinced us? Probably never, as we’re still having this conversation. I’m not very good at decisions either. And neither are you. Life has become too complex for us and the numbers don’t add up as we’d like them to. We want to stop at two, but there are other numbers in between. So, our numbers keep on adding up to nothing. Nothing except conversations and promises that we don’t want or believe in. And are unable to end. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09XQ8WW2C?geniuslink=true
The Sad Man I take my hat off to him the sad man of the leafy suburbs always smartly dressed dapper old fashioned smart carrying all our problems with all his silent grief on pinstriped shoulders. We all took our hats off to him that sad man, as we played in the streets as we grew older as we changed while he stayed the same still silent still carrying all those problems all that grief that we never understood. https://www.pikerpress.com/article.php?aID=9165
Wishing And Hoping The pool was clear and deep. The children peered over the age to see the coins glistening on the bottom. They wondered what wishes had been made and if any had come true but no one could know. No one would tell them their wish as they waited to watch the coin fall into the cascade down into the wild white spume and then into the clear pool below where it would stay glistening for ever feeling only the force of water. All those secret wishes revealing nothing lying there hoping. http://www.youngravensliteraryreview.org/issue-16.html