Played

Photo by L. Kolp

Think. The way we once thread ourselves
to a wish for something more
a silent door
peace within, single men
women, rich or poor
power played, gagged and bound;
damaged, then unwound.


*

Prompt inspirations~
Imaginary Gardens (Sunday mini-challenge): 7-line stanza created by Paul Laurence Dunbar
The Sunday Whirl 80: women, men, power, wish, damaged, way, think, single, thread, bound, within, we

Snapshots of Chaos

Ophelia by Odilion Redon

Hanging on a thin cusp of exhaustion

I stand in the middle of Epcot

waiting for the show’s next act-

my skin baking in the summer sun,

lips drier than a shriveled grape.

I dare not move or else I’ll touch

the other sweaty bodies surrounding me

crammed in tighter than college students

on a wild Spring Break beach.

And suddenly I’m sitting on a sandy towel

waiting for another beer I sent that jerk to find,

the bass beats blaring BA-Bum, BA-Bum

so loud I feel them in my heart-

snapshots of utter chaos I’d rather not relive,

the hopeless years wasted searching for myself

in a frothy mug of oblivion, self-centered fear.

I turn my head to Mickey Mouse and smile-

the crowd and heat a sober treat.

©laurie kolp

Prompt inspirations:

The Sunday Whirl, wordle 63- skin, lips, thin, snapshots, touch, other, act, hanging, gesture, stand, sent, utter

Poetic Bloomings- Get Some Rest, prompt 62

Photo prompt- The Mag 124

Also shared at Real Toads Open Link Monday

It's Just An Illusion

To sketch a draft of illusion,
trace your finger across my chest-
latch on.

Refrain from
lingering
at any one spot.

Feel a current
strike your heart,
a blend of temper and lust-
watch congeal
as a crack of reality sets in.

String along spare phantasm-
the racket you’ve created
is just that.

©laurie kolp

Prompt inspiration: The Sunday Whirl 61 - blend, latch, chest, current, draft, string, crack, spare, temper, refrain, racket, trace, strike

The Receipt

image: River Irwell by R.A.D. Stainforth

Emerging

in small print

answers to your sudden chill.

A river of fear
runs through my mind

this contrast like
rapids
pulling me under. 

Up and down
I bob
struggle for air

as I try to align

emotion and reality

with a dot of hope

a chance to clear the doubt
so we can drift forward once again.

Will you say our love is dead,

grind cobalt nerves

to fleshy slivers

that vibrate, pierce my heart?

Or will you reassure me

with that wink of yours

that hooks me every time?

©laurie kolp

Prompt inspiration: The Sunday Whirl 55~ cobalt, align, hook, vibrate, print, grind, contrast, emerging, chance, clear, dot, wink

Picture prompt: The Mag 116

Spring's Tender Touch

Springtime rain sprinkled on the fresh mown lawn
The puddles oil floating in the sea
As winter’s lackluster melts away
With powers of an alchemist
Throwing acid in the air
To produce this breathtaking picture

Almost overnight youth has sprung
Nature’s acumen like artists
Who hone their crafts
As pastels sweep the grounds
Gauge the depth of beauty within
Supple greenery, steadfast trees-
Joy is spring’s tender touch

©laurie kolp

Prompt inspiration: The Sunday Whirl (wordle 49)- craft, joy, supple, alchemist, gauge, juices, tender, acid, oil, acumen, sprinkled, sweep

Drama Queen

Drama is more than a class Carry takes
in her life of waxed-out dreams,
with school hallways as her stage
inherent acting skills it seems

she drives pressured peers crazy
with hand gestures, facial masks
and an artificial delivery-
Carry follows senseless tasks.

Sources say her previous school
banned her from all lockers,
their loose-fit limit she had pushed
when she chastised boys in Dockers.

And when she tries to do it again
admin picks up on this scheme
spreads her classes from end to end-
no more singing to her petty theme.

@laurie kolp

Prompt inspiration: The Sunday Whirl- singing, sources, previous, carry, limit, hallways, gestures, drama, drives, follows, delivery, hand, inherent

Please visit Flashy Fiction where I have an excerpt for you to insert!

Imagination Catching Wind

The woolly bear caterpillar caught her unaware

in the white kitchen, metal crashed

a scream with the fullness of a stuck pig

resonated through the neighborhood.

When I returned from my daily walk

my coatless daughter waited outside

with a warning that I shouldn’t enter.

Admonishing her Miss Muffet-ness

and with shoulders back and standing tall

I marched right in just like a penguin,

her shadow followed on my tail

wind the remnants of despair
this fake eyebrow remnant
disguised.

Part of an image by Sarolta Ban

@laurie kolp

Prompt inspirations:

The Sunday Whirl

(coatless, white, metal, shadow, kitchen,

returned, prefers, unaware, admonish,

fullness, daughter, woolly)
&
 The Mag

The Prowler

Footsteps like staccato notes dart across
the patio covered in shards of terra cotta,
broken remnants of a petulant attitude
pushed to the limit, metallic fuses
sparked in rebellion when things aren't
going his way. Every scar on his lithe body
but a latch leading to internal exile
where dubious resentment boils, billows to
surging points of no return; and now he
cowers back to his home in the woods, tail
between his legs until the next time.

@laurie kolp

Prompt inspiration: The Sunday Whirl (staccato, dart, billows, ruins, metallic, exile, fuses, petulant, dubious, rebellion, latch, scar)

Also linked to IGWRT's Open Link Monday

Chilling Out

Red Spot II, Wallisy Kandinsky

This frozen field, my mind, plays tricks on me
it goes from chilled to hot in seconds flat
shocks thoughts electrifying to my feet
and on the earth a flame of anguish sparks.

All because of silly things, a misplaced shoe
or perhaps forgotten homework, dirty tracks
across the rug, those crazy dogs
(oh, I love them so).

Then all at once I feel serenity
it startles like an unexpected touch
a cloak of permeable karma flows through me
like magic all the heat is gone
I’m chilled again, born into God’s realm of joy.

@laurie kolp

Prompt inspiration:
*The Sunday Whirl (anguish, field, permeable, shocks, flame, fresh, startles, earth, born, feet, serenity, frozen)
Picture inspiration:
*The Mag

Snippets of the Truth

The Peabody sisters had a knack for story-telling

a charm in whispering words that crush the human spirit

scatter ashen children with shards of gore and horror

droning on about dark urges roiling from the depths of hell

virgin maidens whose lips scald all who come too near

chasing sanity with magic spells a basic instinct --

for their stories told were but snippets of the truth.

@laurie kolp

Prompt inspiration: The Sunday Whirl (ashen, knack, scald, sisters, crush, instinct, story, scatter, urges, shards, charm, whispering)

Also linked to IGWRT's Open Link Monday... anyone's welcome!

Reels of Real Horror, Imagined

I’ll let this poem write itself while

I sit still and contemplate

no… worry, really, about you

and your friend’s crazy notion

to sleep outside in freezing

temperatures the depth of my morbidity

starting to surface in this horror picture

show between my ears and suddenly you are

lying dormant, frozen to death in your sleep and I’m

kneeling at your side sobbing uncontrollably

unaware of the spectacle I’m making, which

in all honesty comes from the hot pink tent

pitched in your friend’s front yard

~gasp~

the next reel shows a maniac kidnapping

you as you try in vain to scream

but your friend’s already dead so this man

takes you away like Elizabeth Smart and I am

there trying to save you but he says,

“Shut up broad!” and throws me in the icy pool out back

~shiver~

now a texting soccer mom is driving

home in her Cadillac SRX after a crisp

night of debauchery, jumps the curb, runs into

the yard and I CAN’T STAND THIS ANYMORE

so I make a resolution to have faith and let it go

after all, “They’ll be inside the house within the hour

anyway,” says hubby and I hope he’s right because

I’m not ready to sign on the dotted line

step back from mollycoddling and let you

learn the hard way.

@laurie kolp

Prompt inspiration: The Sunday Whirl (vain, dotted, dormant, reel, kneeling, surface, still, spectacle, depth, resolution, contemplate, broad, crisp)

The Man (Blind) and My Demise

With hair like straw of wheat thatched upon a roof
and eyes as gray as stones beneath the earth

the man appeared in lightning’s fluttering flash
at the wooden gate where I stood, for what
forgotten on this night of blackened mist.

I watched his weathered hands grope the fencepost
with troubled breathing and bubbling spit

thousands of reasons rushed through my mind
on why I should turn and bolt
but
I
stayed.

The blind man with a raspy voice
asked if he could come inside awhile
sit and warm up at my cozy hearth

a fact I wondered how he knew, too late
I realized as my head bounced on rooted
ground, a dormant fear I had I felt rebuild
and I knew he was back
to
finish
me… sigh.

@laurie kolp

The Sunday Whirl (thatched, hearth, fluttering, breathing, flash, gate, stones, grope, rebuild, thousands, bubbling, forgotten)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

aros, Day 7

Fog is a heavy cloak
of consternation
blinding
all perception
polluting
sanity
until
the son's light
lifts it.

Born, Within You

Be not afraid

for He will bring you peace
a heart filled with love and joy
within yourself an eternal manger

where He dwells

at times, appears as an angel
in the people you meet
a decree for life
pondered
tidings of goodness

haven’t you heard?

Be still, without haste
He whispers to you and me

rejoice.

Be not afraid-
where He dwells
haven't you heard?
Rejoice!

@laurie kolp

**Merry Christmas/ Happy Holidays to all of you!

Prompt inspiration: The Sunday Whirl (heart, decree, afraid, heard, manger, shepherds, tidings, pondered, joy, angel, peace, haste)

Fort Me

~ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom~

It’s rapid fire, my heartbeat
sending rare pulsations to my fingertips
a grip I lose within this burning spasm
tumbling down the stairs a broken doll.

These shards of icy glass blowing
feel like prickly penetration poking
a downpour on my clammy skin

or bark from the sequoia rasped upon
defiled and released upon, this staunch enigma
spacious as it seems and weightless
yet confined within earthly walls reaching
to the sky, these elements I’ve built around Fort Me.

~ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom~

@laurie kolp

Prompt inspiration: The Sunday Whirl (rapid, glass, spacious, pulsations, weightless, elements, tumbling, grip, enigma, spasm, rare, released)

Also posted @ Imaginary Garden with Real Toads Open Link Monday 12-12-11

The Missile

Lunch, George Tooker, 1964, Columbus Museum of Art

In December they gather at the mission
genuflect and take a seat on pine needles
and bark, a meeting of sorts among the
villagers. The women bake goodies and
pies crusted with subtle ingredients
that include vanilla and pecans, so divine
they melt in your mouth and leave you
wanting for more. This particular night
two amorous preteens sit in the dark
corner kissing and laughing without an
inkling of the developing uproar. A man
laden with problems too heavy to carry alone-
unemployment and addiction, loss of family
and home- reaches insanity’s precipice,
grabs the first thing he can find and hurls
it across the room like a shot put. The
trivet flies by the lovers and shatters
around them. They stand up faster than
popping corn and run to their parents
thinking they’re in trouble and ashamed
while the man scatters in the woods.

@laurie kolp

Prompt inspiration:
Magpie Tales (photo)
The Sunday Whirl (A wordle~ amorous, subtle, inkling, laden, genuflect, vanilla, mission, bark, crusted, precipice, December, trivet)

Fleeting Moments (Puente form)

a planet in the night sky
a spark in crackling fires
an ice cube clinking crystal
a whiff of sweets the nose acquires

~pay attention to the little things ~

a stranger trapped in silence
an adult drowned in alcohol
a mindless one oblivious
a smolder brewing in the hall

@laurie kolp

Prompt inspiration: The Sunday Whirl (diamond, mindless, spark, fires, ice, smolder, oblivious, sky, silence, planet, trapped, drowned, fleeting)

*Click here to learn more about the Puente form

What Mama Left Out

Mama had told her about the birds and the bees
long before boys rendered her motionless, made
her heart swivel, like August of last year at the
country club when Lifeguard Sean rapidly pulled

that poor kid to safety and she saw the ripples
in his golden six-pack abs, the strength in his
Popeye arms. All rationale lost balance to her
fluttering heart, made her giggly and embarrassed
when he was cleaning the pool. She wore a coral

bikini, tried to point her finger and invite him
over to her lounge chair, but he never took notice
to her eloquent sentiments because he was too busy
flirting with Fred. Mama hadn’t mentioned that.

@laurie kolp

Prompt inspiration: The Sunday Whirl (bees, balance, cleaning, coral, finger, eloquent, motionless, safety, rapidly, point, strength, swivel)

Every Time

a fearful face
cobbled
in a myriad of shadows
cleaved
within hell’s concrete mind
pulsating
blatant signs--
guilt, grief, regret, gloom

every time she remembers

running circles
high-speed
on a hamster wheel
caged
dark memories--
a church, a promise, a gun: BOOM! BOOM!
adventure lost to fear alone

every time she remembers

@laurie kolp

Poetry inspiration: The Sunday Whirl (adventure, fearful, signs, face, cobbled, myriad, lost, alone, concrete, remember, church, circle)