“To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself”.   -Thich Nhat Hanh-

One day, one rhyme- Day 1770

There is a fluffy gremlin that

Follows me all around.

She’s mischievous, with big dark eyes

And zooms over the ground.

Four paws has she, of whitest white

And shows fangs when she smiles,

When she misbehaves, even then

Adorably beguiles.

She can be soft, though she has claws

And sometimes she’s a brat

But I love her and she loves me-

She is my Lily cat.

“I am the Brightest of Black and White” (A Poetry Riot Chain Collaboration)

I bargained with a crossroads devil and gave her my blood and soul for your smile —- then an intern diablo with her funny bone intact set your smile upon my face, oh man that was whack  I shut my eyes to hide from her delight, her light, it was the richest shade of black but I am more, I am our world’s lack of color - and we never go out, never go out, never go out hips flicker, I am candle-fire girl spit fire with my toes and I’m reduced to all my pieces blazing to life in ecstatic voyage into dark and light neither star nor black hole I’m something in between I’m a neutron star, 50 shades of grey, and a penumbras shadow A dichotomy dancing in ethereal light fireflies decimating the darkness, fading starlight caresses my soul A lunar lullaby trickles through the night, and a bell tolls. It takes its toll. Is it a death knell or a peal of delight? Mourning for morning but dancing with gold my substance shimmers across a bridge of light dissolving the empty divide, certain of its brightness I know I have always been somewhat celestial. But I doubted the curve of muscular stars in my chest. Let them burn out; fade away in the eternal night till everything inside of me only speaks of darkness. And because of darkness I will shine and show what the light had blocked before These are all my truths unhidden This is me with shadows tamed And to all the peers on the spectrum The unrivaled has been claimed. 

________

Each participant contributed the lines as follows: “I bargained with a crossroads devil / and gave her my blood and soul for your smile —– @foreveratlas

“then an intern diablo with her funny bone intact / set your smile upon my face, oh man that was whack” — @madeofsaltwater

“I shut my eyes to hide from her delight /her light, it was the richest shade of black” — @inkandpins

“but I am more, I am our world’s lack of color - / and we never go out, never go out, never go out —- @cruxymox

“hips flicker, I am candle-fire girl / spit fire with my toes” — @thegirlwritesthings

“and I’m reduced to all my pieces blazing to life / in ecstatic voyage into dark and light” - @stripedgriffin

“neither star nor black hole/ i’m something in between” — @lilithnoah  

“ I’m a neutron star, 50 shades of grey/ And a penumbras shadow.” — @arlenelperez

“ A dichotomy dancing in ethereal light/fireflies decimating the darkness, fading starlight caresses my soul” — @hazeybluesoul

“ A lunar lullaby trickles through the night,/and a bell tolls. It takes its toll. “ —@mjao7

“Is it a death knell or a peal of delight? Mourning for morning but dancing with gold” — @stillnotwritingtolstoy

“My substance shimmers across a bridge of light / dissolving the empty divide, certain of its brightness” — @lzlabs

“I know I have always been somewhat celestial. But / I doubted the curve of muscular stars in my chest.” — @forestandgalaxy

“Let them burn out; fade away in the eternal night / Till everything inside of me only speaks of darkness.” — @just-poetic-thoughts

“And because of darkness I will shine/ And show what the light had blocked before” — @secretlyanonymouspoems

“These are all my truths unhidden / This is me with shadows tamed” — @september-stardust

“And to all the peers on the spectrum: The unrivaled has been claimed.” — @cosupreme

______________

Thank you to everyone that participated in this. It was a lot of fun to read it as the line came in. I think it turned out splendidly!

Thanks again!

S. 

Poetry Riot Chain Collaboration (10/8- 10/22)

Here is the order of the participants in the Chain Collaboration.

@foreveratlas @madeofsaltwater @inkandpins @cruxymox @thegirlwritesthings @stripedgriffin @epiphanies-mindofapoet @lilithnoah @arlenelperez @hazeybluesoul @mjao7 @stillnotwritingtolstoy @lzlabs @forestandgalaxy @just-poetic-thoughts @secretlyanonymouspoems @septemberstardust @cosupreme

Prompt to keep in mind: “I am the brightest of black and white.” From the song “T” by ‘68.

@foreveratlas will kick off the start of this chain. Beginning tomorrow he will have 24 hours to send his lines (the max is two) to Poetry Riot and to @madeofsaltwater., and so on, until the last person on the list. @cosupreme you will only need to send your lines by ask to Poetry Riot.  I will notify you when the person above you has gotten their lines from the previous participant in an ask. If 24 hours passes and I haven’t gotten lines here at Poetry Riot, I will attempt to contact you and notify the person waiting for your lines that there is a delay. If I can’t get in contact with you in 48 hours, you will lose your turn. 

If you have an issue with meeting the deadline, please let me know ASAP by sending a message to @reinventing-wednesday 

Please make sure your ask feature is turned on, it’s the only way to get and send your lines.

The deadline for this is 10/22. I will post the poem in its entirety once it’s finished.

Thank you to everyone that signed up! I’m excited to see how this turns out!

Our Third Poetry Riot Chain Collaboration  Begins 10/8

There will be no regular prompt beginning on 10/8 through 10/22. Instead we will be running a chain collaboration. We’ve done these with great success in the past, and I love to see how they turn out. Here’s how it will work.

This will run for two weeks. The chain begins on 10/8 and closes midnight EST on 10/22. It may be extended depending on the number of participants

The prompt for this chain is: “I am the brightest of black and white” (from ‘68′s song “T”).

First check out all of our guidelines before signing up. 

Secondly, send an email to: wednesdayshambles@gmail.com stating you would like to participate in the chain. Please include your URL so I know who to contact on here. Once I’ve received your email, you’ll get a response within 24 hours with your place in line. I will let you know who you’ll be expecting lines from, and who to send your completed lines to. PLEASE MAKE SURE YOUR ASK FEATURE IS TURNED ON. If your ask feature is not turned on, I will attempt to contact you. If I cannot get in contact with you over the span of 24 hours, you will lose your turn. The deadline for signing up is Midnight EST on October 7th.

Once you have your lines written, you will send them to poetry riot in the form of an ask, and to the next person in line as an ask. The maximum number of lines that you can write is two.

You have 24 hours to complete your lines. Exceptions can be made if things come up. If you have an issue please send a message to @reinventing-wednesday. Please do not send your lines via messenger or post them to your own blog. I want all of the lines to come out at the same time, it’s a chain poem, after all. 

At the end of the prompt I will compile all of the lines into one poem, and tag the people who have participated. I expect to have the completed poem posted on 10/23. 

I’m really excited about doing this again. It will be great fun to see how it turns out. Let me know if you have any questions!

S. 

Six people have signed up so far. The deadline to sign up is October 7th, don’t miss out!

Impossible (4)

She rested her head in her mother’s lap. She was safe. She was back home. On the island. She kissed the webbed fingers resting against her cheek.      All she had left to remind her of him were the meaningless marks on his clipboard.       Order the Tank.       Invoice the aquarium.       Collect the mermaid.       Mermaid? She looked at her arm. The mark on her skin was the same.       He had kept his word, she had belonged to him. She was on his clipboard. But not any more. She flicked it away with her tail. She watched it drift out of the cave, taking with it the memory of betrayal.

Impossible (3)

She moved her arm. Slowly. Carefully. Her fingers were free, the net loose against her shoulders, her back. She looked at the man. He was looking at his clipboard. He knew what he was going to do.       But she didn’t. It was all so different to her own world where knowing what to do just happened. Until he came into her life. Then he’d had to go, her heart breaking when the great boat had come to pick him up. She had wanted to go with him. But he had told her to hide on the other side of the island. If anyone else saw her, they would look for her family who didn’t want to be regulated. He had drawn his mark on her arm so she would always belong to him.      ‘But it’ll come off,’ she had cried.        He had assured her that it wouldn’t and promised to send for her.        And he had. The little boat had been squat and stinking of oil, the tanker that hit it shedding its load to foul the sea. It had all happened so fast. Fighting to survive, she had been drawn to the beach where he waited.        The tanker split, dense black smoke rising to meet the clouds. A wave high as a tree rushed towards the beach. He screamed. Dropped his clipboard. She snatched it in the second before the wave took her.

Impossible (2)

No, this wasn’t supposed to happen!       She had left the safety of the island, knowing that he would be waiting for her when she reached the mainland. That he would protect her until she could speak as he did, with no accent to give her away.         On the island, the hours she had spent curled in his arms had been the happiest of her life. Protected by the volcano’s steaming breath that shrouded the rocks and its craggy sides, she had listened to his stories about a world she could only image. Planes, trains, cities. People. People with clipboards.        Clipboards were important. He had said that they regulated life so that people knew what they were going to do before they did it.       So what was on his clipboard?

Impossible

Impossible colours, chasing across the surface of the oil slick, a rainbow as deadly as the eyes watching from the shoreline.

The girl swam slowly, her arms weighted by the poisoned water. Why was she struggling to breathe? Why keep moving forward when exhaustion offered the solace of sleep?

Water gave way to sand, the whisper of rippling waves receding. Her oil-streaked body flinched in the sudden unbearable heat. She opened her eyes, her eyelashes sticky with sand and salt, her voice raised in a cry of distress. All she could see was a great golden orb. She rolled over slowly, looked up again through her fingers.

Around the blazing sun white shapes wheeled across a sky as dark as the depths of the ocean. Her gaze lowered. Trees bulked like rocks beyond the sand dunes.  And the figure walking towards her, his lips curving in a familiar smile, his shirt and trousers covered with a dusting of fine sand. In one hand he held a clipboard. In the other…

‘No,’ she screamed as he threw the net, her hair catching in hempen strands as she struggled to free herself.

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

�N-�W��c

Windchimes

Driving the knife through flesh and bone to its hilt, she twisted the blade to drag it out of the woman. Black rivulets oozed from the wound, sliding down marbled skin, brown eyes liquefying in oily tears. Lips, shrivelled to greying husks, drew back from teeth bared in fury, hair falling from the head to reveal the skull. The open hand clawed, groping blindly at her.            She jumped down, shale crunching under her boots, and staggered back. Shining coils circled the woman’s body, a scaly head weaving close to the skull, fanged jaws widening to devour the dissolving flesh.                 The altar stone shuddered, grinding in its bed, the grey mass splitting with a thunderous roar. The monolith rocked, gathering momentum. It reached its meridian and poised. Its sonorous death throes ceased. It crashed, shaking the ground, splintering across the broken slab at its base, the serpent absorbed in a plume of dust and debris

Poem 608

When a bug lands upon my arm It transforms me I become an abstract world Until the struggle Amidst my forest of pale blades Reminds me I am laced with salt And must return my little conquistador

a deep love

a poet’s love

a dangerous love

m

Broken hips don’t scare me

The docs all speak in unison

“You’ll never exercise the same way again”

But my stubborn ways ignore their talks

And I venture out and take long walks

Perhaps I’m an underdog with it all to lose

Yet my journey towards strength has become my muse

Peaking over valleys, hills, and dust

Not allowing my hips to rust

Pain greets me, it comes and says, “hello”

But the hurt is an old friend I already know

So it scares me no more I wave and say, “hi”

Completing my journey, 

This is more than exercise