Poetry Interlude - The Purple Door

The Purple Door

I passed a purple door one day while out for a casual walk

Curiosity got the best of me when it began to talk

It said it was a magical door and welcomed me inside

It bribed me with indispensable knowledge if I would abide

Only a brief moment of my time it would need

Just step across my threshold it began to plead

I thought for just a minute and wondered if I should 

What really did I have to loose, this might turn out quite good

I clambered up the steps with haste and through the portal I passed

Immediately I was whisked away through a narrow shaft

As I tumbled through the darkness, I faintly heard the door slam shut

A queasy feeling erupted in the bottom of my gut

I shuddered knowing that I had possibly sealed my fate 

What an awful mistake I made, I should have opted for a golden gate

I think my soul was taken, had I completely lost my head

Eternity was upon me, filling me with dread

A second chance I dared wish, as a silent scream danced on my lips

A horrible thought flashed through my mind as I came to grips

I should have kept on walking, never going through that purple door

I certainly didn’t anticipate this and regretted it even more

Had destiny played some cruel prank I truly could not tell

But the moment I hit the ground I realized I had tripped and it hurt like hell

Copyright 2014-05-21 SM-TFC

My beastly short story from hell

It was 5:46 am on a Monday morning and it was my scheduled weekly posting to my blog. But this morning something was very different; I had NOTHING! I panicked. 

***************************************************

For months now I had been trying to write my first short story. I would start then it would fizzle out and die a horrible death on my page. Paragraphs had been dismembered in a grisly mass. Sentences appeared to have been sliced in half while single words were strewn together in incoherent heaps. I was riding a merry-go-round and no matter how much imagination I used to pretend I was galloping through the countryside on my trusty steed, I ended up just going around in a circle and ultimately became dizzy.

Everyday my cursor blinked in defiance, not wanting to give up a single paragraph that had bounced around in the crevices of my mind. Each sentence I started abruptly ended in mid thought. Something strange was happening to me, the once easy task of spilling out my thoughts had run dry and in its place a stagnant cesspool began to fester spitting out only incoherent ramblings. I listened to the grandfather clock tick away at my precious seconds. Soon the sound became deafening, nothing would drown out the relentless sound of passing time. As I struggled with beginnings, middles and ends a dark shadow crept into my subconscious while the corrupt oozing goo seeped over my neural pathways. 

I tried to relax, pat my cat, go for a walk, some how I had to rid myself of this evil presence that had slithered into my being and threatened to choke the life out of my creative process. Nothing worked. It persisted, taunting me, leading me to the brink of madness. Night after night characters I had created haunted my dreams. Lifeless eyes burrowed into the depths of my soul, while agonizing wails echoed in my fog. Freeing them would lift the encompassing darkness that invaded those hallowed halls where my spectres roamed. So again I returned to the fresh white page of beginnings. I struggled to regain some sense of control, but it was no use, I was being defeated by a force for which seemed more powerful than I could of ever imagined. 

As the last bit of my confidence faded, I spiraled downward into the abyss of no substance or structure. That dark insistent irritating flicker had drained every ounce of strength from me. That is when I realized that my curser had become the beast and my story had gone to hell.

Poetry Interlude - Nature's Blank Canvas

Nature’s Blank Canvas 

Muted tones of brown, pale green and smokey grey
As spent leaves crunch atop spongy soil along the way

Musky, pungent earthen scents adrift on each tread

Delicate old lace patterns of tenuous stems struggle in dread 

Barren tendrils entwine to rise toward the heavens
A sublime remnant of once what was beckons

Warm slivers of light dance along limbs shining through 
Coaxing the essence of radiant splendour to arise anew

| Copyright May 7, 2014 :SM-TFC

Poetry Interlude - The Storm

The Storm

The playful breeze turned angry, 
until it was slowly churning gentle waters;
The momentum of wind gained force and sent once peaceful hands of water, 
protesting their new disturbance on a violent rage towards protruding jagged rock;
Rolling clouds of darkness shadowed the fiery ball of sun;
Sudden flashes of brilliant white streaked the darkening sky, rumbles echoed in the distance;
Wild energy buzzed, as a mighty explosion sounded, 
opening the heavens to let swollen drops cascade to earth;
As waters grew violent, foam spit from its murky depth;
The nocturnal day was interrupted by the frenzy of illuminated white, piercing claps broke through the blackness, as the uncontrollable wind whipped at the earth, ruling with all its
Fury…

Copyright – 1998 SM :TFC
Poem was published in New American Poetry Anthology – John Campbell, Editor & Publisher