ROSHOMON

A belief breaks trust when the accuser accuses.

A misunderstanding of misinformation,

A darkened doorway where once there was light.

The piercing rapier,

The targeted flesh,

Unfathomable plunge into righteous indignity

And the rage is exhumed.

A formidable thrust that enters without conscience,

To fulfill the rush that justice be done,

Shattered faith and scattered hope .

 

Misinformation obliterated a treasured trove,

In a tale of Roshomon.

by, Ellyn Stern

THE MAGICIAN

A perfectly timed strike,

A magician’s cape,

Look over there!

Magic? Deception?

Distraction!

Clever? Never!

Manipulator? Disintegrator!

Alone in dissonance

The ego rules the eye,

Near sighted, short-sighted, no sighted.

Caviar and bombs,

A dinner fit for a swindler,

While the games are played,

A puppet dances, looking for ratings.

No intent, no objective, no strategy.

It’s only a moment, a whim,

A sleight of hand.

Beware the magician!

By, Ellyn Stern

POEM

A song of the heart without music,

A lyrical mesh of sound and rhythms and images

Bound to a burning flame

Pounding ‘gainst my brain,

Pulsing, pressing,

Scoring the privacy of

Mind entanglements,

My predicaments.

Clarity of thought in a haiku,

Hidden in a metaphor,

Concealed in a blanket of painted pictures

Sans paint, sans sound, sans utterance,

But for the word, which is total,

A fait accompli of the soul.

GLADIATORS

Words that pierce the sticking place,

Slinging, slaying, slashing, sickles,

Closing in to win the gold.

Temptng, taunting, teasing, tasting.

Political gladiators,

Each so righteously defined.

Idealism meets pragmatism.

A dream of possibilities,

A vision, a logician.

Mold into one,

For both define

The castles we’d build

Thru dreams and realism!

What a plight

To choose what’s right

When winner takes all.

Sides divided must be united.

CONSUMPTION

I ate death whole today,

in a ravenous void of gluttony and consumption.

Terrified, I ate death to soothe the ravaged  beast.

Swallowing, chewing in mastication madness,

inhaling thoughtlessly without mind,

Feeding the belly of the beast til I cried no more.

Sated, swollen and numb, I vow now to do this never more.

Tomorrow, I begin anew, eating only that which is life.

Tomorrow will my lips touch only  that which grows .

Tomorrow will I walk aware

Eating that which is alive,

Embracing life to live.

CATACOMBS

Combing through hundred year old catacombs,

A find…a wooden sarcophagus, a book of pine,

The ruins of those near death and those passed.

On papered pages walked the ghosts,

Children,

Unwillingly admitted.

Penned as if yesterday,

Hundreds of pages:

Their names,

Their admissions,

Their discharges;

Plunged into a world

Of dissonance and detachment,

The end of innocence,

The beginning of abandonment.

Fingers scanning… then,

Discovery… ancestry gold!

Yellowed columns, worn the test of time,

Then the find, the reveal…

Three wisps of life, barely begun,

Orphaned forever.

 

A mother’s death,

Five sparrows thrown to the wind,

Three cast from the nest by

Their Papa.

He kissed the baby goodbye,

But not the sister.

After ten snow driven mornings,

He gave up the boy.

Thirty days of shame, fear and depression;

Papa turned on the gas stove,

And breathed deeply, to sleep forever.

 

Artfully penned in the pages was

Samuel, the Papa, the protector, the admitter.

The admitted: Mollie, Rose and Isidore,

Forever orphaned,

Broken, fragile puzzle pieces,

Who married, gave birth and tried to put the puzzle together.

 

Ghosts of the past

Herein lie the names.

A DAY IN THE NIGHT

Night pulls at the light beckoning me,

A slave to this maddening monotony

Of wakefulness ‘midst my slumber.

Never questioning, I rouse

To political passions and news,

Anxieties of what ifs and what shoulds,

Reprimands of days past and hauntings of

Conscience and spirit.

Stuck in a lightning rod of

Clocks ticking and time passing,

An ever alertness and surge of adrenalin

Would have me run a 10K

And finish all that is yet to be done.

But purposefulness knows purpose

And time recalls the time,

So I rest in restlessness

And sleep without sleep

And end with mine numbing solitaire,

Alone in

Solitude,

Silence

Santuary

…..sleep.

NATIONAL POETRY MONTH

I am thrilled to be doing National Poetry Month, where my goal will be to write a poem every day for 30 days.  It is with great excitement that I begin this journey as well as beginning a place where my words are stored and they have their own compartment to reside in.  Thus begins my blog.  I do hope you enjoy what I share.

TRESPASSER

How to heal a hopeless soul that steps in the path of darkness?

A moment too soon, a moment later ,and therein lie the difference.

A reckless turn of wild abandon and random thoughts,

irrational hourglass of fragility.

Who are you lost soul that stepped onto the tracks

And starred death in the face not a moment too soon?

Someone’s child, someone’s friend,

A sister, a brother, a wife, a lover?

Faceless, blazing breast towards death sans fear,

A cry, and caution wrestles, warning heed,

Lightning startles senses, as flight determines destiny;

A change of heart steps in none too quickly,.

Arresting mortal coil.

I know you not, though I know desperation and hunger,

Loneliness, fear and unquenched love.

If we could speak, I’d tell you this,

Wherever you are, my faceless friend

You’re not alone,  at times, we all feel that way too.