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A fronte praecipitium a tergo lupi. (In front of you, a precipice. Behind you, wolves.)

Tuesday, April 7, 2015

A Voice in the Darkness

Today it's Free Verse. I'm doing a poem called 

A Voice in the Darkness.

It's thin wisp of a shadowy note
Fearful beneath the moon's knife edge
Waking me from dreamless chill
Up through layers of Stygian sludge 
It claws
Into the night air 
One pure, lancing sound
Embodying, burgeoning, coalescing
Slicing the night

I am awake
It hangs, that note, 
On raptor's wings 
Caught
Then tilting slightly
It falls from the cusp
Plunging
Wind screaming as its dagger
 Finds its mark
"Mommeeeeeeeee
Can I have a drink of water?"
© 2015 by H. Linn Murphy

For more information on free verse, go here. It's a fab site in general.

Monday, April 6, 2015

Day the Sixth--Deep

Today I'm doing a Poetweet. It has to be complete in 140 characters (including spaces) and need not rhyme. Here's my stab at it:

Deep

The iceberg slid sinuously by,
silvery sculpted ribbons raising 
jagged crags to slice the sky.
Breathless, I watched it slide past. 
Or did it?

© 2015 by H. Linn Murphy



You can find out what a Poetweet is, here. There's even a contest you can enter.

Sunday, April 5, 2015

My Big Brother's Feet

Day the Sixth is a Sunday so I have proffered my poem early. It's a couplet poem.

My Big Brother's Feet

They fit in her hands, with toes so small
So wrinkly and tiny and precious, and all.


Too soon they took wing as babe turned to boy
He ran about learning and serving with joy

He walked to the temple to teach the men there
Wise past his years, He was His Father's heir

Out to the desert, a forty day fast
His feet cracked and bleeding, he weathered the blast

He walked to the seaside, the fishers to meet
Gathering followers street after street

He healed the sick and brought back the dead
He calmed the foul waters, the Good Word to spread

Walking and walking, he traveled the land
Loving His people, and off'ring a hand

He walked upon water, His faith proven sure
And beckoned to Peter to come, not demure

Followed the sower, the reaper, the poor
He healed the leper, the blind and the sore

Mary, who loved Him, brought ointment and care
And she washed them with tears, and dried with her hair

Feet muddy and cracked and bruis-ed for others
Worn out in the service of sisters and brothers

Too soon he was climbing that hill to the gate
To a moonlit garden, a refuge from hate

To pay for our sins, He retreated to pray
And sweat drops of blood on that long-fated day

His steps led to leaders who hated His grace
They whipped Him and argued and spat on His face

Those marvelous feet climbed the Hill of the Skull
Burdened with cross and a thorn crown so cruel

They nailed His feet to the wood of the cross
In ag'ny He bore it, the pain and the loss

His friends took Him down from that dreadful tree
And wrapped Him, entombed Him, so carefully

"Mary," He said, in the garden place
She didn't remember the planes of His face

He went to His Father, His footsteps so sweet
Bringing resurrection to all He would meet

Now we must follow in Jesus' footprints
Back to Our Father and His Peaceful Prince

Those footsteps are big, so demanding to fill
But it's worth it to make it back up the long hill

Back to Our Father, I'll follow Him there
Alive in His footsteps, He and I, we're a pair.
© 2015 by H. Linn Murphy


Saturday, April 4, 2015

Haiku to You- be-doo



Day the Fifth--National Poetry Month--Haiku

Today I'm doing a haiku.

Saguaro Skyscraper

You who scratch the sky
With your spiny arms upraised
Haven to the lost
© 2015 by H. Linn Murphy


 

If you'd like to know more about haiku, check here for an explanation.

Friday, April 3, 2015

It's TRIPLETS!!!

The poetic kind...:oI
Every April I join in the April Poetry month thing, so here goes Day the Third:
PEEP

 Every Easter 'he' brings me Peeps
He stuffs them in by heaps and heaps
I'd rather throw them under Jeeps

Their sug'ry bodies make me bulge
If I but think I might indulge
I'd rather eat a pound of fulge.
 Fudge...:o)
© 2015 by H. Linn Murphy

If you want to know more about triplet poetry, try here.

Thursday, April 2, 2015

Day the Second

It's the Second day of Poetry Month and I'm doing an I Wish But I am Fill-in-the-blank poem:
 I WISH

I wish I could travel the wide, wonderful world
Like a raindrop in the wind.
I dream of seeing the velvety green glades of Ireland and the rocky crags of Switzerland, the crowded streets of India and the caverns of China. 
 I am waiting only for the chance once more to experience it all in delicate filigree and grand detail.
I used to think I only wanted to stay home and take care of my family in that little house in the sun.
But now I know I'd rather take them with me out into the bright vastness and sometimes-empty stretches.
I seem to have itchy feet aching to find untraveled places and eyes longing to see the next incredible beauty, the uncommon cache of wonder, the unnoticed.
But I'm really wondering if it'll ever happen.

© 2015 by H. Linn Murphy

If you'd like to know more about Fill-in-the-blank poems, go here.

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

Tag des Erstes

National Poetry Writing Month kicks off with my first poem:

I am this
Yes, that’s me look and you’ll see
My hair is not green, short, or currently curled.
My eyes work fairly well if I'm wearing my red glasses.

My arms (as in coat of) are: Or, a seme of annulets vert, sable, a swan rising, wings addorsed, a bordure dovetailed, vert.
My hands are still talented, though they look like a dry lake bed--pocked with tanned spots and lines and scars.
My heart longs for love, understanding, and valuation. It belongs to my sweet husband and wonderful children.

I’m lucky to have traveled a little before I stagnated, to have seen comets and eclipses and gypsies and jewels, to have danced a queen, to have played a pirate and sung a survivor. I am lucky to have graduated twice and well. I am lucky to have grown up in the fields and forests, to have held snakes, spiders, llamas and many more. I'm lucky to have climbed in Switzerland, snorkeled in Alaska, waded in Mexico, worshiped in Austria, played in Greece, celebrated in Germany, picked up hitchhikers in Yugoslavia, complained through Czechoslovakia, beached in Denmark, eaten in East Germany, trained through Luxembourg, and canoed in Canada.
I never dreamed I'd be an author, or anything but a ballerina, though here I am with ink on my fingers and wisps of lives in my head.
My friends are as varied as wildflowers. Some smell good, others, don't. But they're all beautiful in some way.
I live in the Earth's oven, waiting to jump out when someone opens the door.
I hope I get to finish. "What?" you ask. "Everything," I say.

I dream of making it to the end well, with my sanity intact, with my clothing washed white of sins and mistakes, with talents to show for it all, and with the love of family and friends trailing in banners floating behind me in the winds of the universe. I dream of kneeling at His feet and offering it all up to Him. I dream of His welcoming arms.
It’s all clear as can be
That’s positively, absolutely me

© 2015 by H. Linn Murphy

If you'd like to learn about more Fill-in-the-blank poetry, go here.