today's poem

Wrote a terrible poem in fulfillment of my own assignment. The assignment was: write a poem that scares you. The students did a wonderful job. Teaching at the prison has been another wonderful experience this semester. Wish I could find my muse again.


silence

in a hammock between two metaphorical trees,
air rushes from pine needle to pine cone
whistling in cool bursts through hairs of my ears,
and i watch fear tremble in my fingertips.

they will not abate. when i shut my eyes
visions of emptiness plague memory
and hopes. i cannot resurrect the calm
words interlocking to form nets
that might catch a mighty fall.

ropes twist together and whine as they rub
fiber to string. my entrails squirm
with guilt i have eaten, with hatred i have
hoarded, with fermentation i boil.
the hammock swings gently stirring
the cauldron of life’s potion, now inescapable.

cocoon wraps me; choices of my present
hangs like chimpanzees: each arm a rope
connecting poison to antidote, both ever
possible. i hear the wind whisper a message:

silence

yet chatter coalesces in fingers, intestines
in the whites of my eyes, red creeps like rodents
i am taken over
i was i am no longer