I close my eyes
to feel its softness
like a cool cloth
pressing gently
upon the orbital ridge around my eyes,
the weight
at once present and absent
from lid's creases.
If I open my mouth
it will invade every crevice
available to it,
a potent reminder of its press,
a heft upon
the slim cord of air
trapped between my teeth
as i float
up to the surface.
Jun 5, 2014
Jun 5, 2014 at 3:19 PM UTC
I move through days
Of limned frost
Of silent rain
Piecing moments of coherence
Through the whispered voice
And a sharpened pencil
Making my sense
By leaving my mark
Each poem
A little-used corner
Of life—
Mine, or another’s—
And as I do so,
I see myself
on the periphery,
a veil between us.
Perhaps it must be so
for the whispered voice
to come in advance of life’s to-do list
and for me to incline my head enough to hear it.
Sep 2, 2013
Sep 2, 2013 at 5:44 PM UTC
In the mornings now
I walk through the garden of my tears
Harboring secret thoughts
Of your return
As I wipe dust off
The fragmented flowers
Residing there.
During those times
Oft sighted
The smallest wren sits
Atop a silvered rose
Warbling tunefully in my ear
Reminding me of songs left unsung.
Aug 20, 2013
Aug 20, 2013 at 2:54 PM UTC
We sit
Each of us
Stories untold
Lodged in the extraneous items
We deem important enough
To carry with us
--a computer
--a book
--knitting
--the newspaper, splayed
Its pages having already absorbed
Those stories deemed important enough to tell, by someone
And like cattle
We lo and eye each other
Carefully and quickly
Sweeping past
Before contact
So that
Our stories
Leaking out of our eyes
Will remain unnoticed
Feb 14, 2013
Feb 14, 2013 at 3:24 PM UTC
crimson thoughts
turn themselves inside out
like clothes in the wash
i think about
the long days alone
do i wash these thoughts
like colors together
on delicate
i fear the rip and tear
of loneliness’s unremitting two step
a dance of color
of red
and i ask myself
how did crimson take hold
as the angels dance
and i bob
turned inside out
Jan 16, 2013
Jan 16, 2013 at 6:01 PM UTC
I have a penchant for sweetness
Sliding between tongue and gum
The cool kind
Not too intrusive
Carrying the fruit of some berry or another
Which slips toward me slowly
In celluloid dreams of my childhood
In sepia tints
Dotted with the bright reds of summer fruit
Dripping down chin
With the faded blue of skies
Forgotten
In the clean slide of Kodachrome
The fading sepia
Fails to show the whiteness of my toddler hair
Or the shining black curls
Of my father’s head
As he holds me in his lap
And I turn adoring eyes in his direction
Smearing a bright red dot
On his snappy new shirt I suspect
The tint softens the memories
And sets them.
Love, a bloom
Of red promises.
Jan 1, 2013
Jan 1, 2013 at 10:11 PM UTC
I keep my disappointment in a jar beneath my tongue
and I let it roll around there sometimes
just to see what it tastes like.
Sometimes when I am feeling alone
I take it out,
check its color,
its veneer--
--bright blue lapis.
Today it slides easily
from one side to another
and a coolness seeps out--
cucumber and mint.
It isn't what I expect of disappointment really.
I had thought a bitter flavor,
or spicy,
so I could feel my anger.
Today as it slips and rolls
in its coolness
I wonder if anger will come
or will its coolness soothe~
Mar 28, 2012
Mar 28, 2012 at 5:25 PM UTC
I cry for you in those moments
when I feel your despair (my lost child),
in those moments
when fear overtakes,
overruns,
overrides
thinking--
when memories burst
through dams and walls
carefully constructed.
(I have had years of practice)
Panicked,
on fire--
flee
the death that waits
in the darkened corner
of your reptilian smile.
(You did this to me—to her)
And the pity,
the real pity--
You don’t know--
Can’t understand---
That I
(and she)
will pay forever
for your sin.
I cry for me.
copyright/all rights reserved AudreyHowitt 2012
Mar 12, 2012
Mar 12, 2012 at 9:10 PM UTC
A bit of rope
hoists dry wood,
an ark to sail through the seasons.
Dry plank kissed with snow,
you sit quietly awaiting the spring
when children will find you
and laughter abounds.
Until then, sit in the silver silence
of dusted snow,
wind caressing your gnarled wood
as you watch over wood pile beneath you.
Dizzying, the canopy of leaves sways above
as toes touch sky
leaving the ground
far below.
Sun glints off leaves
and filters the new breath of spring’s promise
as grubs burrow deeply
confessing dark secrets to succulent earth.
Wood warms to the syrup of summer sun
twisting through shady pine
the still air weighty in
somnolent afternoon.
Pine needles blanket the scuff
where small feet have
leapt from earth,
trading fear for the promise of freedom .
Cold air bites and nips
as it pulls leaves desultorily
to ground around you.
Days shorten.
Wind sharpens.
Few attempt flight now.
A bit of rope
hoists dry wood,
an ark to sail through the seasons.
Feb 29, 2012
Feb 29, 2012 at 9:41 PM UTC
Day cools into evening.
Its long tendrils wrap into shadow
as Day lets go its hold,
submissively.
Withdraws its heat--
Moon awaits her journey yet.
And in this in-between time,
this time I love best,
with its sense of sinking down
toward ground,
of gradual slowing,
I wrap up the remains of my day
and turn on my favorite reading light,
pull open my notebook
and let pencil fly as it must--
until soul has returned to body
and the moon rises.
Feb 27, 2012
Feb 27, 2012 at 10:07 PM UTC