Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you.
2017 - Spring - Unintended Consequences & Jagged Edges Entry
Jagged Edges Sounds - 1. Dissonants
The Maker
He labors in his workshop all the day,
a craftsman best acquainted with his tools
to bend and fashion wood as it were clay,
or wiser men made over into fools.
So he regarded me, unfinished steel,
to make of me as inspiration chose,
regardless of the hurt I'd surely feel
when laid upon the saw, for so it goes.
Recoil against the whirling, screaming blade
which severs neatly, delicate and plain;
those in the maker's hand cannot evade
the bite of metal, cutting unto pain.
It's little consolation to my heart
the one I love will tear my soul apart.
Trash
Prelude
Old attic discards
wait patiently by the road,
writing histories.
Fugue
Items
sit on the curb,
get scavenged and reclaimed; Look more
in time, most find new uses and carefully at
warm homes; what people throw away
one such and you may discover untold
watches traffic pass slowly by, treasure;
growing ever surer even
of the fire or the most unlikely looking box
landfill. can contain enchantments
to captivate
the heart.
House Fire
It started in my workroom, so they say,
and spread to that tight closet where I keep
my adolescent scrapbooks tucked away,
where treasured recollections make me weep.
The conflagration ran beneath the floor,
consuming rooms grown comfortable with age,
destroying every wall and fastened door
which kept me safely locked within my cage.
Now as you sift the ashes that remain,
perhaps you'll find a snapshot of my youth,
recalling I had all the world to gain
if only I had realized the truth.
The crumbling chimney, gaunt beneath the sky
must warn you of the fires by which we die.
Trees
Cottonwoods give in,
bowing to water and wind,
laying down to sleep;
Poplars will resist,
waving limbs in youthful rage,
till one of them snaps;
Swamp Maples rip
in fibrous, twisted tangles,
exposing sinews;
Firs tip drunkenly,
feet lifted high in the air,
showing their secrets;
Oaks drop arms and legs,
or else break in half outright,
revealing the heart.
Overtime
Four bills
carelessly dropped
on the shabby table,
visible from where he lies prone
beneath;
these are
timepieces of his existence,
clocks which measure his hours,
but cannot weigh
his pain.
- 13
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you.
2017 - Spring - Unintended Consequences & Jagged Edges Entry
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