Untitled IX

So I wrote this poem for a scholarship (open topic)…and I had this brilliant idea for it before I actually wrote it. But then it turned out being this short. And I didn’t actualize my thoughts. But it feels complete. And I like it.

…

I don’t normally write poems

Because it’s not my thing;

I write stories, in traditional prose,

Jagged, invisible outlines on

Bright, ruled sheets.

Thousands of blue pages

Hide in my binder, in my folder.

They seem to say:

“Laura, give us a home.

Tell us where we belong.

Give us our space.”

And so I follow their pleas,

With my trusty pen, or pencil, or marker:

Whatever is available to me,

I use to fulfill their needs.

Hollow Hills

The windows to your soul have lost
Their luster they had once attained
Before cracks varnished the surface
And it slid out.

Listless you stand in puddles delight
With nothing in mind for grating
Or deprecating
In light blight for your eyes remain gone.

Hills have the eyes they stole
From you long ago in a valley unknown
Where grass never seems to grow
But the sidewalk always vanishes.

Chain-link fence captures fleeing
Vagrants and brings them back
To places they do not like
With their grimy, grimy hands.

Places where the hills can reach them
And can trap their souls
With unkempt hands and weathered,
Bedraggled widows sing hymns.

Prayers for you without your windows
Or flaccid creatures with your souls
Go unsung by the elder
Who look onward with their sad, sad eyes.

For the hills really do have eyes,
Kept in jars and boxes
Under their beds and in their closets
Where they collect the morning’s dust.
They watch your partings
And your comings when you think
Escape is your only option
In these vast, hollow hills.

Mad Girl’s Noize

A villanelle I wrote about…five months ago. It’s about Ophelia’s death from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. I never really liked her, anyway.

…

World obscures; lilies dry, brittle and cold.
Living like the rest requires a fee.
Submerging in water becomes so old.

Vast fields of sense bring us into a fold.
Mistrustful, foolish, mad man — can’t you see?
World obscures; lilies dry, brittle and cold.

Kill off our desires and do as we were told.
We must set it aside and let it be.
Submerging in water becomes so old.

But how can you play, act and be so bold?
Listen to my cry; listen to my plea.
World obscures; lilies dry, brittle and cold.

Sit scheming with my sanity you sold.
Oh, brother, father, kin — won’t you help me?
Submerging in water becomes so old.

Watch the rigid congealment of my mold,
And always recall the imminent fee.
World obscures; lilies dry, brittle and cold.
Submerging in water becomes so old.