It's Spring. Do your thing.
Free-for-all rules apply for this combat, which means if you don't like the main topic, go and riff off another combatant's composition.
Combat Expiration: 12am PST, 4/11/2011
Critique Expiration: 12am PST, 4/13/2011, with a rolling grace period of 24 hours to allow for critique rebuttals.
Bonuses/Penalties: +2 if posted by 6pm PST, 4/8/2011, +1 if posted by 2am PST 4/9/2011, -1 if posted by 6am PST 4/11/2011, -2 if posted by 12pm PST 4/11/2011.
The Rules: http://combatwords.blogspot.com/2010/07/official-rules-for-combatwords-updated.html
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Less Than Half Full
ReplyDelete“To say ‘things could always be worse’ is a fool’s consolation.”
On sun-slick streets the shining cars slide past
stores shuttered since rent went too long unpaid,
tall grass unmown and strewn with litter cast
by careless drunks, beer bottle hand grenades.
But this is spring, the calendar insists
despite the stifling heat, the lack of rain.
Grackles and mockingbirds hold raucous trysts
while flowers suffuse the air with thick pollen.
Even you, jobless for the last two years,
on welfare now to feed your growing sons
who can’t eat on an unemployment check–
you, hair pulled back from your red, sweating neck,
hanging your socks to line dry one by one,
can still smile at a breeze and a cold beer.
You want answers -
ReplyDeletethey are riding on the wings
of a moth just passing through,
You who believe
the dead, returning,
now sits on your thumb.
What reassurance does it bear,
what message from the broken islands
scattered to a thousand directions
On which each stands a mother
clutching in her hands the clothes
of children never to return.
Wails will carry far,
will carry the bones
from the Miyagi Prefecture
To our shores, will wash upon
the sand like drift woods
under a sky without seasons,
Glowing in ghostly lights.
writing about spring?
ReplyDeleteDude, I'm going outside.
I live in Minnesota and this winter was like holding m' breath. Considering my livelihood depends on 40 degrees and above. This winter I could empathize in a general way with the Pagans of old. The climate can affect so many of our plans it seems that forces with personality's are at work. Yep Gods, Demons, faeries, and frigid spirits. The type that even under cover of long underwear and the best winter gear an unemployed mason can buy still make your manhood run for cover . We got those up here in Minnesota. Six months of dreading the walk to your car. Six months of praying the damn diesel truck will start. Six months can make a guy forget what spring and summer is. I Bet your wondering why I live here. Me too. I do know for some foresak'n reason if winter wasn't around I'd miss her. On that note it's time to remember
Dude I,m going outside