Can I ask this really quickly?
May I redirect your question?
Are you aware that filling questionnaires
is a sign of sure depression?
Why do you go about your days
reading personality tests?
When it would be keen to turn off your screen;
’cause don’t you know yourself the best?
Am I questioning your question?
Or simply being much too shrewd?
Is anxiety your priority?
Will you please stop me if I’m rude?
Can I ask this short and sweet now?
If your results are less than par-
will you lessen on all the questions? ‘Cause
you are just fine the way you are.
When
paintings pour
out of picture frames
and statues
shift their eyes;
when
violin strings
pluck themselves
and andante
notes rise;
when
beauty breathes
upon anything
created or
contrived-
that,
my friends,
is truly when
art comes alive.
“The Examination of a Witch” by Thompkins H. Matteson
Funny, how ironic it is that a fire can start at the
flick of a switch
at the snap of a spark
at the twitch of a twig
And that blaze- how it burns with a lusting flame
how the fire consumes
oh, watch it rage
Odd, how it takes but one pesky rumor
one curdling lie
one itching trick
to instigate a craze
Once born it rips through life like a merciless flame
that swallows up innocents
and spits them out chafed
an anger
a fervor
a blind, spinning plate
that grows in a flash
and dies in a gaze
Funny, how ironic it is that restless school girls
have the power to start
a war of the gods
a fight of the faith
a panic of fools
Funny, how irony has the power to kill
I wrote this abstract free-verse two years ago for an assignment on The Crucible by Arthur Miller. The play is set in 1692, Salem, Massachusetts, and is about the witch hunts (which, according to Miller, were instigated by the carelessness of a few schoolgirls). Much like a fire can start from a measly spark, a panic can erupt with just one lie or trick. Though it’s been a while since I’ve read it, I recommend reading (or even seeing) the play to anyone.
When I was first crowned in ivory
I assumed that knowledge
would come with the jewels
and the servants
and the velvet throne.
The pearl scepter they placed
in my hand
would surely wield power
and turn the tides to justice.
There was no wrong to be done
with a crown atop my head.
When I was first crowned in ivory
it didn’t once cross my mind
that simply smiling and stamping scrolls
in the back of court wasn’t enough
to preserve the peace.
Sitting upon a throne
did not render me all-knowing,
and the scepter I waved
was no more than a sumptuous stick.
There were too many arrogant thoughts to be filled
with a crown atop my head.
Each word is drawn red,
torn from my heart, raw and wet-
I bleed on the page.
Just a short haiku for today. I was inspired to write this when I came across the Ernest Hemingway quote: “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
“The horizon is my
final destination,”
I said
when they asked where I
was planning to go.
“Where the earth crumbles off
in an eternal cliff,
where the sky stretches so thin
that there’s no wind to blow,
where the trees forget to stop growing
and the stars swallow the sea.
I go where time ends,
and also where it begins-
the horizon is where I flee.”
When pressed with the question
about my intentions,
I laughed and replied,
“There is no reason why.
I want to see everything
on my way to nothing,
for before I dive off the end
I must swim through the beginning.”
They deemed me a case
and snickered, “Farewell!”
as I fastened my cloak and commenced
my migration.
But I do not care; I won’t see them again,
for the horizon is my
final destination.
Alone. I batter blades in a sea of
mimics, all raging the same roar,
all singing the same steel.
Alone.
“I fight for my family’s freedom,”
three hundred cry.
“I bleed for the blessing of the divines,”
six hundred more squall.
“I perish for power,”
they all moan.
I stand with my sword swinging at my side,
silent, without anything to fight for,
to bleed for,
to die for.
Alone.
Old books-
those I like the best.
Mildewy pages
yellowed by years,
bound in leather and
bandaged with peeling tape.
But it’s not just
the timeworn scent
that clings to the pages
or the feeling of imprinted letters
running over my fingertips
that makes me love them;
it’s the questioning,
the curiosity,
the wondering
about who could’ve held
this book before, who could’ve cherished its
chapters and reached for
it on rainy nights.
I don’t just care about
what happened to the protagonist
in the next volume;
I care about what happened
to the person who long ago
inked on the title page: To Lizzy- with love, Margaret, Christmas 1909. I wonder what became of them,
who they were and what they did,
and why they loved the book.
Old books
carry more than words
and classic tales
and forgotten histories-
they carry memories,
people.
Their readers gave them life,
and still, ten or twenty or
two hundred years later,
they mold to my fingers
like an old friend,
like they’ve done this before.
I like them the best-
old books.
Little known fact about me- I collect old books. My oldest book is a 130 year old history of Julius Ceasar, and I have first editions of Edgar Allan Poe, Amy Lowell, Mark Twain, and even a second edition Emma by Jane Austen (as well as many more). I hunt for them in flea markets, thrift shops, silent auctions, and once, I found a number of first editions in a sale at a library that was closing down. Like the above poem says, I don’t just like to read them (though some of them are so old that it’s hard to open them without the binding falling apart)- I like to imagine who once read them. A few of my books even have dedications and names written in them, the oldest being a man’s name and contact info scrawled in beautiful calligraphy on the title page- from 1850.
Really, I could go on and on about my love for old books, but I think today’s poem explains it enough.
I used to have a beating heart that was warm and alive and coursing with blood. I used to hear it every day; I found solace in its rhythmic thud.
But then one day the pulsing stayed, and I tore it out in dread, now my heart lies in the corner of the room, colorless and drained and bled.
My heart’s abandoned, me, I know, and I walk my life a shell. I haven’t touched it since I died, so it’s acquired a sour smell.
I used to have a beating heart that I kept warm and snug and safe in my chest. Now I wait to hear it start; and wake from its bloodless rest.
I’m not really sure where I thought this poem was going. It started off kind of positive, and I had every intention of making it ‘pleasant’…but then it kind of sunk into a sea of doom and gloom. Plus today is kind of an off writing day for me.
Stellular Scribe 
