Treasures

This week's prompt from Velvet Verbosity was the word treasures. The challenge is to write exactly 100 words on this topic, in any form you like. I thought of all the word brought to my mind, and wrote this poem which catalogues my own personal hierarchy of treasures. Perhaps some of you will have the perspective to understand.

Treasures
Stacked banknotes,
Stock certificates,
Bonds.
Paper reminders,
Promises easily broken.
Elusive, illusory wealth.

Finely-wrought gold,
Diamonds blazing purest fire,
Carven jewels,
Rubies, emeralds, sapphires.
Ivory graved in darkest ink.
Oddly stamped coins,
Heaps of silver,
Mounds of gold.
Ancient statues,
Clay vessels
Shaped by artisans long dead.
Bits of rare jade.
Solid, enticing.
Treasure.

Words,
Scribed, printed
Engrossed.
Meaning traced
On paper or parchment,
Bound, captured,
Shelved, available.
Storehouse beyond measure
Brimming,
Wisdom, imagination, thought.
Priceless heritage.

Curled shapes,
Furry flanks,
Whiskered muzzles,
Wide bright eyes
Glowing mischief, love.
Velvet paws,
Purring breaths,
Living cats.
More precious than everything.

Elusive Ultimate

This week's prompt from Velvet Verbosity is the word ultimate. The challenge is to write exactly 100 words on this topic, in any form you like. I always enjoy seeing the very different responses each word provokes in different writers.

Elusive Ultimate
How often
We seek the ultimate.
How often
We proclaim it found.

Yet -
Is life long enough
To sift centuries of wonders,
Comparing, discarding, selecting?

Does any have insight enough,
To speak another’s mind?

At twenty,
Dreaming ultimate dreams,
Daring to hope
Fragile promise durable.
At forty,
So often weighted by
Doubled experience,
Dreams crumble, tumbling
Into nightmare,
Leaving only ultimate loss -
Which, too, may pass.

Future thoughts
Forever beyond view,
Chasms greater and stranger
Hide others’ minds unguessed, unread.

The ultimate -
Indefinable,
Unreachable,
Ultimately elusive.

Thus preserving,
Always,
More to seek,
Heights to strive for;
Ultimate fountain
Of hope.

Protection

This week's prompt from Velvet Verbosity is the word protection. The challenge is to write excactly 100 words on this topic, in any form you like. I find this challenge is a lot of fun, and different words draw very different responses from me. In this case, for those who don't understand the poem, I'm illustrating it, below, with a photograph of the place I had in mind, Fort Warren, on Georges Island out in Boston Harbour.

Protection
Sturdy walls of stone
Withstanding cannon’s recoil,
Shouldering dense green thickets,
Yet marked by something slight
As passing moments.

Amidst great guns firing,
Roaring deadly defiance,
Massive blocks of granite
Stood unshaken.
Beneath spreading roots
In thick soil awaiting hostile reply,
Roofs bear up unsagging.
Unyielding fortress,
Silent now,
Worn.
Not expected cataclysms of war,
Only time’s unceasing footfalls
Conquered island bastion.

Once blocking enemy ships
Astride harbour approaches.
Turning aside even thoughts
Of attack.
Now ignored, overflown
By aircraft, time’s little joke
On designers, builders.

Vital protection,
Outdated, abandoned;
Monument
To simpler years.
What bulwark can repel
Passing time?

Against

This week's 100 word challenge at Velvet Verbosity features the word Against. Well, I'm against using the same format for every effort, so here's a poem for your (doubtful) pleasure.

Against
I cry out -
Against
Death and loss.

Against
Entropy.

Against the inexorable current of
Time.

Against
Cruelty and its craving:
Suffering.

Against
Lies luring us astray -
Politics;
Every party, every candidate -
Posturing,
Hypocrisy,
Good intentions soured, presented as fresh,
Cures worse than diseases,
Distortions of truth
Winning votes,
Betrayal of all
Who trust promises.

Against
Conformity,
Thoughtless obedience -
Slayers of creativity;
Hatred and intolerance,
Harsh enforcers;
Standardization,
Enemy of infinite variety.

Against
Greed,
Lust;
Which cultivate
Indifference to all
But their satisfaction;
Exploitation,
Pollution,
Destruction,
Bitter fruits of indifference.

Against
Rigid law,
Rules, regulations,
Injustice.

Against
War in any form.

Indelible Memory

Rapt in words,
Yet the dreadful blast
Of one world’s ending
Smashing midnight quiet,
Tore my mind away.
Icy voice foretelling the worst,
Swiftly thrust aside, denied.

Even sirens in the night,
Unexpected snarling saws
Slicing through sleep,
In daylight a tree
Torn free, toppled to earth.
All reminders of the night’s fright,
None heeded.

Eleven simple words, so few
To bear the weight of fateful news.
Innocence,
Hope,
Friendship.
Gone.
All gone, in an instant.

There was a crash. The driver died. It was Michael ------.

Once read, such words cannot be unsaid.
Stories, rumours fly, settle on my soul,
Smothering drifts of numbness.
In my mind I see
The shattered tree, tangled golden dreams,
Puzzled eyes staring holes in pale face,
Lying on the hard ground. Alone.

Stark light of tragedy
Illuminates dire decision,
Reveals two choices but one fate;
Shadows of guilt darken the rest.
Truth’s point remains; you needed to talk.
I left you, alone.
Was my hand steering your life that night?

Years drowned in infinite tears,
Life forever altered in eleven words.
Every year, the indelible memory
Is still clear.
The awful sound.
Sudden fear.
Words impossibly true.

There was a crash. The driver died. It was Michael ------.


This poem was edited on the 19th of May; several lines were changed to better reflect reality.

Curse

Sirens in the night, a sudden catch of fright that all is not right;
I almost know but I make it go and I've forgotten by the morning light.
Just another day, or at least it seems that way, for dread is fading fast.
I see the shattered tree without a memory of sirens in the night and fright that didn't last.
Then I read your name - things are not the same - once I realise
'There was a crash. The driver died.' I cannot hide the tears in my eyes.

Six years from then I hear them again in their anguished plight;
Sirens in the night, and a sudden catch of fright that all is not right.
I try to make it go but this time I know and I cry inside;
Their lives are spared, but now I'm scared, and I die inside
Each time I hear my private sound of fear - sirens in the night -
And shudderingly wait for another twitch of fate to let me know all is not right.

Auto Wreck

A sound in the night,
A hard noise to frighten the darkness.
Shattered pieces lying on the hard ground -
Broken, dying, alone with the crowd around.
They didn't know him, they didn't care,
They said he shouldn't have gone so fast -
They stood around and watched him die.
They went away.
(They shook their heads over "some crazy kid" before they slept.)