MadVerse Prompt:cryptic signals/heretics and martyrs/bloodstained honor

misread signals
we cannot parse the cryptic code
of heretics babbling
discordant love songs
so between honor and betrayal
we are battered
bloodstained and baffled
all martyrs for a thing unseen
on an alter made of hope and tears

MadVerse Prompt: war/darkness descends/broken defenses

peace shattered
falls to the floor
pieces of me clattered
losing this new kind of war
as darkness descends
try to keep up pretenses
and all that portends
but my broken defenses
collapse & I, enraptured,
by enemy captured
succumb to madness
without and within
fighting a battle
I never could win

MadlyWylde Prompt: invasion/resistance

marking off the days
with scars and aches
and wrinkled faces
merely adding to our graces
time's invasion
o'erwhelms us all
our resistance futile
our protestations unheard
so some fight
and some appease
I thumb my nose
and do as I please

year's end

the year plays out its dying days
and I replay its means and ways
a melange of mixed messages
mixed emotions
missed connections
misplaced affections
unwanted devotions
I questions all the whys and hows
as the year gives out its final bows
and I am left with only this
sometimes, what is...just is

christmas rain

I walk the city streets alone
but for the voices in my ears
Waits and Simone and Dylan
measure out each step
lights twinkle around
darkened shop doorways
the rain comes down listlessly
and I add to its treasure
together we wash away the past
in a silent noel

MadVerse Prompt:winter-born kiss

the weather and my sorrow
understood what you did not
and so have dragged on
with summer's promise unfulfilled
and now we both await
a clean cold snow
to blanket the past
and cover memory
releasing us in
a winter-born kiss

a poem for Sara

fuck the unforgivers
the liars and the dicks
fuck the blaming whiners
the unrepentant pricks
fuck the ones who leave you
when you wanted them to stay
fuck the ones that stalk you
when you wish they'd go away
fuck slow walking tourists
the hicks and hipsters too
fuck pretty much everybody
except for me and you

back in the saddle

start over and over and over again
each time a bit diminished
after every ending
certain now it's finished
but begin again - more wary,
less hopeful and less trusting
enthusiasm oft too false
while temperaments adjusting
but if the next is musical
not a lyric will I believe
if love songs pour from every door
having once been so deceived
and if with honeyed word he swears
that his recalcitrance
has nought to do with me,
this time, I'll see more sense
I'll wear my hope but lightly
and hide away my fears
devoid of all my joy
but also shedding no more tears
what are the other options
when you've been left behind
you either get on with your life
or you get on with your dying

after

like an ineffectual toddler
kicking and screaming
she will never get the thing she wants
nor can she retaliate
for that which he withholds,
her punches miss or fall softly
he does not care
and she hurts him not at all

MadVerse Prompt: spirit of the night

the day darkens
but sleep does not come
instead, these unwelcome visitors
these spirits of the night
whisper at the edge of hearing
the worsts and the bests of me
they speak only in hyperbole and lies
and I am too tired
to refute them

WyldeVerse Prompt: paled memory

someday soon
you will be gone from
these paled memories
faded into oblivion
by my relentless sun
as I have already
gone from yours
faded away by hers

instapoem: daybreak's wanderer

MadVerse Prompt: paper angels / tinsel rain / winter's heart

in winter's cold heart
we are displayed
for what we are
paper angels
tissue thin and fragile
and as the world rejoices
i hang desperately
on a dying tree
weeping tinsel rain
and waiting
for the year to turn

left behind

we kissed under a streetlight
on a not quite summer day
in a moment so astounding
not so long ago or far way
from "one for the books" to footnote
any wonder that I've cried
muselicious, beautiful, delicious Red
to "I really, really tried"
and I'm sad and I'm exhausted
and I still don't understand
how enthusiasm waned so fast
how we lost the fun we planned
and I'm happy that you're happy
but wounded is my pride
that you've moved so far beyond me
and I'm certain if I died
you would never even notice
you've made a life anew
and it's like I never mattered
my existence for you through
though it's now been months since ending
I can't take it all in stride
each day think I'm better
but then I just backslide
and I hope she brings you joy
and I hope she brings you peace
and I hope to find the same
or at least, my pain to cease

insomnia haiku

the curious cat stares out the window and thinks she could catch the moon

MadVerse Prompt: banished / (fear / despair / sorrow)

like an epic tale of old
I wear my sorrow as a cloak,
my despair the pack I carry.
my fear the spear with which I fight
the worser demons that track me;
Jealousy, Resentment and Rage.
they are not yet banished,
but weakening
and I fight on.

farsighted

watch from afar
and await the inevitable
knowing there is nothing
you swore to me
you'd never do
that you would not do
for her

MadVerse Prompt: fight/live/love (hard/fearlessly)

I will continue,
I will fight hard ,
I will love fearlessly
for a survivor
lives inside me.
But for the moment
she is tired
and a break
between bouts
is required.
The match not over
but paused.

MadVerse Prompt: twisted chemistry/self-destruction

postmodern Jeckyll
postmortem Hyde
I metamorphasize
self-despise, self-destruct
my chemistry twisted
now I am half of me

instapoem: the city dreams

MadVerse Prompt: last best & only /(chance/hope/deal)

Foolishly, I went all in
and these, these will be
the only cards you deal to me,
a last chance to redeem myself,
my best hope: a sullen Jack
or smiling Queen
and me, the tear-stained Joker
who should never
have sat down.

WyldeVerse Prompt: raw freedom

freedom forced upon her
as upon a newborn
ejected from the womb
and she screamed
in the open air
the winds raw upon her
exposed skin

MadVerse Prompt: delusion / hallucination / figment

my hallucination
as dusty lips
parched for meaning
kiss the empty air
a figment of aspiration
the delusion of passion
evaporates your ghost
with the summer sun
and desiccates me

lament

always an almost
never quite right
ever a maybe
i give up the fight
embrace the alone
whilst rejecting the lonely
accepting the now
forgetting "if only"
take up new hobbies
let go the past
comfort myself, some things
aren't meant to last



Now with music! On YouTube.

MadVerse Prompt: insubstantial / ephemeral / ethereal

their time ephemeral ended
his insubstantial heart had wavered
so her spirit now untethered
floats ethereal to dissipate
like smoke through thoughts

days end

MadVerse Prompt: verdigris / patina / glaze / surface

the saltwater waterfalls fall
on surface shimmering
glaze from copper eyes
someday will dry
and leave behind
the verdigris patina
oxidized, grown wise 
painting perception
evermore in hues
of greens and blues

the bigots' battle cry

it makes me sick to think on
all the things that have gone wrong
the world is full of assholes
singing the same song
"it wasn't me, it's not our fault"
and then they lay the blame
on the doorstep of the innocents
and loudly they declaim
"live in fear and hate that guy
for things he didn't do,
but someone did who looked like him
and next he'll come for you"
they blame color, race, religion
forget our shared humanity
unless the terror looks like them
then blame insanity
they focus on the symptoms
and ignore the deeper cause
a lack of empathy
will never give them pause
and yet the only recourse
against the intolerant
is more kindness and compassion
just as oberdurate
steadfast in your goodness be
believe in better days
created by the thoughtful
in a million tiny ways
be the change you want to see
put hatred on the shelf
choose to act from love not fear
be your better self

love's stagehand

clear the debris
reset the stage
and if I'm lucky
before I go
receive a kind nod
as I disappear
into the dark
dressed in black
invisible
to watch
from the wings
quiet
as the play
goes on
without me

MadVerse: raw / refined / resonant / resilient

I clothe myself,
refined
in velvet memory
and find
it still fits.
a chocolate dress -
a raw teen's dream
of bohemian couture
and in it, resonant,
my younger self:
resilient and rebellious.
she is good
to wear again.

MadVerse Prompt: complicated / compulsive / complex

Impulsively I climbed
into this puzzlebox/
compulsively tried to suss
our complicated, convoluted
complexities/
broke something
and now am stuck,
like a bad mime,
in a prison
no one else can see

square one

pack up the past
and put it away
to the back of storage
for a far off day
it wasn't quite useless
but it won't help you now
so let go the ache
unfurrow your brow
remove all the pictures
from off of your phone
delete all the texts
leave memory alone
keep busy, keep moving
until you forget
let go of the hope
that he'll someday regret
back to square one
clean off the slate
a new day begins
it's never too late

Reversed

And if you were me
How would you be
Would you believe you
Or would you review
Everything to see
That you weren't crazy
See if any was true
Before it was through
If you knew what you knew

Yes, that's what I'd do too

MadVerse Prompt:splintered night / smoldering remains

supernova

splintering the night

with a kiss

and I burn

and melt

in your fire

until all that's left

of me;

smoldering remains

instapoem: the rush

repeats

the irony writ large
on miniature pages.
you became her
and made of me, you.
the tale a circle;
ever the same,
ever anew.

again

there is nothing clever
or funny to say -
another shooter, more deaths...
just another day

MadVerse Prompt:north winds

a chill wind
blows through her
freezes her grieving heart
leaving her locked
in the ice of a sea
of frozen tears
until the spring thaw

MadVerse Prompt: origami flesh

fold into myself
confounding contortions
w/ origami flesh
to hide me
in creases
& show the world
a new form