The magic of playing with words is that they can creep up on you when you least expect them to. Sometimes raw pieces of poetry or prose congregate here and I am tasked with making them make as much sense as possible.
These are such freeverse pieces :)
The Battlefield
There is a field of dead men
Between here and where the land meets the sea
With harpies making merry in a distance
And lifeless bodies scattered across the earth
Silently crying out into the air
With vengeance
For the bloodiest swords
For the victorious cold-blooded warriors
Raiding the nearby taverns to glorify
Their unprecedented fall.
The battleground stretches far
Far beyond the mountains of the tribal gods
And the fertile grasslands
Far past the land of the cursed night runners
Dwelling to the farther side of the angry winds
Echoing from barren valleys
As the forefathers of the youthful remains
Spread across the combat zone
Curse the hands
That spilt the blood of their kin.
There is a secret garden on the left side of my chest that I try to grow good things on. For months, I have neglected it and its springs yet I still invite strangers to take relaxing strolls while drinking from my sacred shrines.
It is interesting how poetry has always stuck around. It brews from the core of my bruised person and has gradually revealed itself as a healing path. It has retained the soft parts of my aura and effortlessly come to be a balm for my hard unlovable parts.
The Unforgettable Lover
Her skin reflected in my hungry eyes
Forcing my hand to reach out
To the other side of my tossed bed
Where the morning sun
Seemed to have risen
And her caramel was calling out
To my trembling chocolate fingers
To dive into the enigma that she was.
I remember
Talking to the moon
While the stars buried behind her eyes
Erupted to the tune
Of my lustful confessions
When nightfall dragged in her seductive
Bewitching dark hour
And I could feel my invisible desires
Leaving their usual dungeons.
The trails of her warmth
Is painted on my back
With a set of manicured talons
That spoke to my romantic fool
In familiar hushed rhythms
That mended my sporadic mood
Then freed my enslaved lover
Before softly luring her to sleep.
Poetry is how I share my pain and prose is how my scribe talks. Neither can exist without the other. Poetry has been my gills when I am drowning as prose lets me fly as high as my emotions let me.
wambuku w.