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.
Thirty Daze in April - 2. April 8 through April 14
April 8
The words I tell myself when I’m alone
no man of worth or merit would endure
for he would hardly suffer to inure
himself to phrases cutting to the bone.
Such things I utter when I’m on my own
remind me that I’ll never be secure
for I must keep my hot self hatred pure
nor any sort of punishment postpone.
Remonstrance, reason, none will I receive,
for in my denigration must I dwell;
yet there is one who hastens to relieve
me from the torment of my private hell
and patiently assists me to unweave
my wicked and unholy inner spell.
April 9
How far does a blank page extend,
delineate its borders, please;
my curiosity appease
to find where its horizons end.
Its void leaves me quite ill at ease
for who would mar this surface white,
a snowscape like a prairie bright
unbroken by the hills and trees?
Though literate and erudite,
the words to tame this empty space
refuse my tongue and pen to grace
and composition expedite.
One cannot with a measure trace
how far afield I must explore
to find the edge of evermore
where paper joins with cyberspace,
and foolscap which was heretofore
delimited so I could spend
my hours at verse and fiction penned
has awed my muse to silence sore.
April 10
Green herons linger
on the stream’s low shingled bank
hunting for crickets
A rainbow trout leaps
where river, rock and air meet,
heedless of his splash
Kingfishers chatter
from cottonwood overhangs
outwaiting minnows
Silver bright moonlight
shimmers on rippled waters
waltzing with the stars
April 11
Now whisper, stream,
your secrets kept locked deep in earth;
no longer dream
of warming days and songbird’s mirth,
forgetting sere autumnal dearth.
Speak of new birth,
of sparkling brook from soil and stone
poured into firth
or underground in caves unknown
to bathe blind fish where naught has shone.
Do not disown
the murmured spells of summer’s eve
which you intone
to mesmerize poor hearts that grieve
or those who pine for make believe.
Quick water, weave
deep magic made of starlight’s gleam;
my fears relieve,
and raise me in my love’s esteem,
make me the music of his theme.
April 12
Broad oceans,
Homeric Odysseys,
bold pirate chases and pitched battles,
all have I lived as I sailed the soapy seas;
I stood steel-eyed on the plastic deck
and went down with the ship
in the bath.
April 13
I celebrate the you and me,
those differences that set us free
to form ourselves without a mold
into the men we’re meant to be.
Now some run hot, and others cold,
some dress in vivid colors bold,
but there are those whose pride is mild
though no less strong, so I am told.
Ring out the bells in accents wild,
in variation stand beguiled,
rejoice in short, or fat or tall,
to every man be reconciled.
Let’s revel in the free-for-all
and dance, if you should feel the call,
for we were made exquisitely
and not as dull convention’s thrall.
April 14
Measurement
does you little justice,
and I doubt you would be very pleased
if at this moment I pulled out my protractor,
still less slide rule and calipers to
love the geometry
of your smile.
- 4
- 7
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.
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