There is no roar
like the roar of a roar
if you could trap it
confine it
release it at will
let it out
when you need to
then call it back
your roar
is a good pet
and what good companions
are for
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dVerse prompt on the word roar
Poetry
Beginning
The last time I saw Eduardo was at Hoxie’s funeral. It was a sad affair as he was a young man gone too soon. Eduardo had once cried as he told me his testimony. Not Hoxie’s testimony but his own. Hoxie’s I never heard. Now we were sitting together at a funeral and he doesn’t speak. He had left the church about a year ago.
Hoxie, however, died in the church. Not hypothetically, but literally, died in the church. He was teaching Sunday school and collapsed on the floor. Nobody knew CPR. I was backsliding that day or else I would have been there. I heard later that there was nothing anyone could do, not even prayer— it was an aneurism.
There was a lot of guilt mixed in with sorrow that perhaps had I been there that I could have saved Hoxie’s life. I had never saved anyone except a Red Cross CPR mannequin. Good enough to blow into the fake lungs and press down the chest to keep the nonexistent blood flowing. I thought at the time that had I been there, had I been in line physically and spiritually that Hoxie would have lived! The church people told me there was nothing anyone could have done. I was beginning to believe them.
have faith in small things
a snowflake falling on tongue
can quench more than thirst
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dVerse prompt on beginnings — this is the start of a story I am telling.
Glow
A setting sun
makes faces glow
it reflects
on the passing day
sparkles sand
makes sea shine
lingers on the surface
of earth
makes it golden or pink
before it disappears
leaves colors
temporarily
dangling on clouds
brilliant
in its display
worthy of audience
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dVerse prompt to write a quadrille using the word glow
Photo on the beach Pine Cliffs in the Algarve, Portugal
The Ear of Dionysius
The Ear of Dionysius
echoes through history
of plots to kill the tyrant
voices that echoed
against the chamber
deep in its prison walls
hard to stop the madness
echoing beyond throat
of the oppressed
when democracy ended
Across centuries and waters
(now leaving Sicily)
the history of Albania unfolds
fifty years of dictatorship
when clergy and poets died
political opponents
enemies of the state
under surveillance wherever they go
executed or imprisoned
hear their echo
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dVerse prompt on the word echo. Legend of the cave of Dionysius being a prison and the voices of the imprisoned were heard plotting because of the remarkable echoing of this cave. In October, I stood in the darkness of this cave and practiced my echo voice, then a tour bus group came in and started to sing. I know there is more to this poem than I have here -how history echoes into the future.
Beyond the Arroyo
I have heard a cow grunt before giving birth. Sometime for days, I have heard a cow bellow when their calf is taken away. Many times I have heard the moo when the feed truck comes but never did I imagine that I would hear a cow scream. It happened last summer when fierce rains gathered and swelled the dry gulch with fast, moving water, getting deeper and deeper. I could hear it sounding from over the ridge. “A cow is screaming across the arroyo,” I said to myself.
I drove to the ridge top and there was the tragedy unfolding; the cow bring swept away by the new-formed current, its footing gone and moving downstream on its flank side, no hoofs on the ground. No matter how much effort was observed, it could not right itself. I watched until I couldn’t see it.
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dVerse prompt flash fiction using the quote by James Harrison
Two Worlds
I
I am the boundaries that divide
placed by politics
a mockery of continents
ill-placed border crossings
blockades
walls
no-flight zones
international waters
can be changed
by exploration
treaty or war
II
One day I split continents
still eruptions and quakes
know no boundaries
with my heights and my depth
salty waters
fresh streams
flowing over me
I create weather and air
take care
of me
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dVerse prompt to write an apostrophe
Wild Horses
There are still wild horses
in Nevada and Wyoming
mustangs from Spanish bloodlines
their hoofs strong
never shod
herd following a stallion
who is leader and protector
a spirit
hard to be broken
easy to break it off
young ones
brought into the pen
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dVerse prompt on spirit. The wild horses roam on BLM land and the herds are managed by the BLM. To control the population, every year some are caught and brought to holding areas where they are tamed of their wild spirit and sold at auction.
