Singing a Broken Song

Depression by Sabine Sauermaul

Music has been torn apart in my mind. 

My mood is dead, 

sacrificed to absent light and noise. 

I pray for numbness 

yet still seek something more, 

a file to smooth 

the rough edges of my life. 

I race forward 

into the holy tangle of shade, 

forever carrying 

the mistakes of yesterday, 

my memories lingering 

alongside the space 

of silent dread.

Finding Comfort

Beach Leisure by Anson Centeno

Comfort lives

In quiet moments,

Stolen time

To just breathe

And linger in memories

Of who I once was.

Revenant

Dead Rose by George Hodan

A revenant force 
Walks my halls, 
His energy charging 
My wistful heart 
In a tattered reverie 
Of what might have been.

Face in the Window

Art Credit: Lost Moments, 2012
by Nick Gentry

A face in the window 
on memory lane, 
phantom perfumes 
on melancholy winds, 
the discarded negatives 
of long ago days,
randomly drifting
in the light of the holy. 
Life goes on, 
always timely, 
always provocative,
as I crawl 
through the remnants
of my human history.
Many moons circle 
and I continue on, 
to see the healing power 
of my soul singing, 
barely above a whisper,  
wishing to stay there forever.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Written for a prompt from dVerse Poets Pub asking us to draw inspiration from the art of Nick Gentry. You can find more information on this talented artist here.

A Rainy Remembrance

Sad Man and Rain by Jiri Hodan

He looks out
In the rainy morning light
And breathes her name,
Turning mist into memory
On his window pane.
He traces the shape of a heart,
So reminiscent of the curve
His fingers followed on her cheek.
He never understood
Her obsession with the rain
And its ability to mask sorrow;
Today he understands far too well.


~~~  This was written for the OctPoWriMo Day 6 prompt of “Remember.”

Polished

image by Jiri Hodan

Time adds shine 

To our memories, 

Enhancing 

The colors,

Softening the hard edges, 

Editing our pain.

~~~ This poem is linked up over at Imaginary Garden with Real Toads for Open Link Monday.

The Map of Memory

Photograph © Margaret Bednar

I ricochet 

Across invisible maps,

Flooded by recollections

Of the curvaceous,

The dangerous,

The warped.

The laces of memory

Spin past me,

Yarns of every color

That call my name

From the bins of the past,

Ensnaring me

In melancholy threads,

Luring me into alcoves

That shimmer

With the uneasy remnants

Of yesterday.

~~~ This was written for a photo prompt from Imaginary Garden with Real Toads featuring the photography of Margaret Bednar.  You can find more of Margaret’s amazing work at her blog Art Happens 365.

Scarring

I don’t remember much about that day,
Just broken movie clips haunting my mind,
The orange glow of the flames in the back seat,
My tumble out the door onto the pavement,
The two women with the kind eyes
Holding me on the tiled counter
Next to the sink pouring water
Over my charred skin.

But the scars, those have stayed with me.
As a child they were all I could see
Looking in my broken mirror,
The grotesque bubbling of my skin
From my chubby fingers
up my arm to my shoulder,
So sure that everyone else saw
The hideous beast lurking
In my mirror just as I did.

Scars, at least the visible kind,
Fade with the passing of time,
And today no one even notices
If they do not already know they are there.

It’s the invisible scars
From voluntary fires
That still persist.


~~~ This poem was written in response to a prompt from Poetry Jam asking us to think about a personal challenge we have faced.  I’m also linking this up over at Poetic Asides for the prompt about memory.

~~~ Note:  The image I used with this poem actually started out as one of my senior pictures, with much editing added.