The Lighthouse

The Lighthouse

He perches on the broad

promontory,

broods over the hulking jagged

black masses that wait, thirsty, for the blood

of any over-curious traveler.

He watches with a long-glassy orb,

dull but for the kindled life, relic of days slipped by,

glinting within when the sky pours forth fire.

He glowers over the muddy brawling waves,

stark and deserted, like

one of those ancient deities, sitting moldering on a shelf somewhere,

in someone's dusty library.

Zeus, maybe—but his thunderbolts lie rusty and unused,

and he hunches on his mount of slick, weather-beaten

stone, mulling over tumultuous pasts.

Wondering what became of his adorers,

the ones he steered to safety with resonating roar

echoing in its hearer's heart-cavity;

Wondering why, when Olympus trembled under him,

he knew brokenness.

Gods aren't supposed to break.

Wondering why all drifted away—

but for his neighbor, and he didn't matter.

Forever rolling, wrestling, spewing up encrusting,

bitter libations

that stuck in hard places, roughened the skin

and reeked of fish—

All of any worth gone like a hart into trees.

The incessant laugh and growl of the neighbor's heirs

Echoing, spectrally

insignificant, about deaf ears.

Harsh, choking birds tearing at his laurel crown,

a minor annoyance, only.

He keeps his head up firm and proud,

and muses on the past.

They Told Me To Write (2 versions)

They Told Me To Write

Jessica M.

They told me to write

Poetry,

That maybe the void in me

Would speak into the darkness,

So I slashed my palm and took my pen

Because it has to be done in blood,

They say,

And in rhyme and meter.

And there are these things called feet

But they aren’t feet

Because in poetry, nothing is what it is,

But all symbols and imagery.

It has to come from a dark place,

They say,

And it must be done in one sitting

Crystallized hard and clear and perfect,

And if it doesn’t reflect the sun

And the stars

And your heart

And your pain

And the bleeding of the world,

It doesn’t count.

But I’m just trying to make it rhyme.



They Told Me To Write (Version 2)

They told me to write

Poetry, so that maybe

The void within me

Would speak in darkness.

So I slash my palm and I

Take my pen and I

Write, because it must

Be done in blood, they say, in

Rhyme and rhythm; when

Words aren’t themselves, it’s

Poetry--nothing is what

It is, but it’s all

Symbols, imagery.

It must come from a dark place

They say, and you race

To write with no stops.

Crystallized, hard, clear, perfect,

Poetry reflects,

Perfectly, the sun

And the stars, your heart, your chains,

The world and its pain,

Or it doesn’t count.

My hand bleeds for a long time,

I must start with rhyme.

Which version did you like better?