Thread: October Poetry Challenge - Escape

The theme for the October poetry challenge is "Escape". The closing date for this one will be midnight (GMT) November 1st.

All entries should be posted in this thread. Entries may not be edited once they've been posted so please make sure that your poem is exactly as you want it before you submit.

Please do not leave comments in this thread. Save those for the voting thread.

Any discussion at all should take place in the Bards' Bistro.

Tea and Antipathy

Jill shared afternoon tea
_____and antipathy
on the lawn with a very
_____old friend,
_____who kissed –
__________reminisced –

all the time missed
_____the point
as she managed
_____the trend -
_____while she spoke,
not seeing how broken
Jill’s world had become
__________through the years.

Henries and horses –
all the right places
_____to see
_____and be seen
__________with the set.

All the right reasons
_____to flow
_____with the seasons’
__________events
but she still doesn’t get
_____the sound
_____of the cries,
__________in the words
__________that Jill’s spoken
while quietly crumbling
_____under

__________her fears.

Jill left her friend,
who had nothing
_____to lend
_____as she sipped
_____from her glass
__________of champagne;

_____wandering
_____through hosts
of phantoms and ghosts
who don’t even notice
_____her pained,
_____tear streaked face
__________in the crowd,
__________where Jill’s hoping
_____for one
_____living soul
__________to appear.

__________Below,
_____flowed the river,
_____Jill felt a cold shiver,
as she pondered that maybe
__________a door
__________was concealed
__________in the water
_____that lovingly caught her
_____when at last
_____she could stand
__________it no more.

A strange smile lit her face
_____as she leapt
__________into space
__________in the hope
that this doorway would open
the life
_____that she’d watched
__________disappear.

THE PASSAGE

In this cold stream you watch and frown
Don’t turn back, forget them
Can you smell the leaves turning brown?

Listen to the water caress the rocks
Away from the whisky bottles, harsh words
Can you hear the crisp cool liquid upon your socks?

The snow it melts, against the banks of root and moss
Leaving behind it only sadness
Can you smell the wind biting into you, the sense of loss?

You are free of them, and the woods won’t tell
They sleep in sin, their souls in waste
Can you hear your heart, can you feel it swell?

Water glistens, silence listens, and we call to you
Far back the cigarette ash, broken glass, lethargic ache
Breathe in child, enter the way, one and true

The passage beckons you child, come to, come to
You can barely remember now
This is the way, the door, walk through, walk through

Almost there, feel the currents pull, let go, let go
They cant hurt you anymore
We have you now, no cold, just darkness…

I foraged in thatch
in search of a hatch
but rat bitten fingers
could find no latch.

I banged on bars
with a forehead of scars
'til weary guards bathed me
in bubbling tar.

As it hardened
I begged for a pardon
if only to be buried
in the prison's garden.

They honored my wish
now I poison each dish
rotting their insides
with nary a hitch.

Revenge is mine
every time they dine
on fresh produce
picked from the vine.

I'm still imprisoned in a cell
made of cytoplasmic gel
but I'll be free soon enough,
bellies tend to burst
when they swell too much.

Pandemic (part 2 - the Scape)

This glade of small flowers, sweet and bitter herbs that trail from rock to cleft to rock
Amidst stone towers lies, its
Snow-fed pools reflecting sun and sky,
Water more still than the stones themselves, its chill a numbing shock.

Day upon day I dragged my stumbling feet through dust and sand, in blazing heat.
Out they'd brought me from hearth and kin
And drove me forth. Such are the ways of men.
Who can know their minds? Ill they are, and spoiled, and incomplete.

In their wake of filth I'll not bide nor track, but turn forever from this loathed human flock.
So wandered I, and in a blue distance saw mountains heave their mighty backs,
And in time, through peril, storm, and pain, I gained a glade of small flowers, where sweet and bitter herbs trail from rock to cleft to rock.

Edgar

It was many and many a year ago,
That I was loved by thee.
Once swam in the crystal shores of love,
Bare for all angels to see,
With your hand gripped firmly in mine,
You told me stories of our life to be.

Pluto high in the clouds, you warned
Of how forbidden were we,
And I denied the seeds he offered
Wrapped in broken decree,
While you played your tongue of art,
Calling me gently Persephone.

I was young, and you were foolish,
Though you wrote into night.
You spoke stories to the walls,
Bathing in darkness
While I offered you the light,
You waved a hand and broke my chains,
Losing only a part of me.

Bare once again with the angels noting,
You whispered for me to be free.
The broken chains were rusting quickly,
Making dumb my plea,
To once again bathe with him in light,
By that golden crystal sea.

I know now your tears of poison,
Are tears pledged to me,
To my life and the love we grew,
As I your Annabel Lee,
Watch your tongue curl and life grow faint,
Standing by that crystal sea,
By the silent, weeping sea.

Sinead

Sinead’s eyes opened slowly to wince at bleak day;
those dreams of bright blue soon eroded to grey;
he’d called it love-making; she felt she’d been raped,
a lifetime ago Sinead might have escaped.
Hopes were made brittle by winter’s cruel blast,
another would shatter with each day that passed;
try as Sinead might to remember the spring,
it only brought home all those changes in him.
Amidst colours of autumn the die had been cast;
What she thought was forever she saw could not last.
Sinead hid the bruises, concealed all the signs
of the beatings he’d dealt her so many times;
her pillow might stifle the sound of her crying
but didn’t shut out all his cheating and lying.
A nervous policeman stepped into her Hell;
said she ought to sit down for he’d bad news to tell;
his words sought to comfort , though he couldn’t see
why she smiled with relief, at last she was free.

In this room he felt full,
as if he swallowed the moon
and churned it into milk.
Inside
it felt slushy and warm.
He was expanded, overflowing,
triggered.

A little milklet
fell from his eye
and landed on her cheek.
He tapped it away with his tongue,
then pulled a long hair from her lashes.
She’s plump, he thought,
as he squeezed a vice around her edges.
He soared in her screams
while cooing,
There, there, dear, no pain, no gain.

The color red became her. Red ribbons
tied in her hair, around her toe and throat.
Pretty, but not perfect like your teeth, he thought.
If only you would smile,
you might express like candy;
finger food;
A happy taste of peppermint.
He took a bite.
The finger was spicy.

He ran quickly for his jar,
to capture her shrills,
her prayers,
to preserve the flavor.
He struck a match and lit her photograph on fire,
catching the sparking embers inside.
Forever his. Always.
His milklets flowed.

In the mirror he watched himself,
his pale round eyes,
a trembling chin receding far back
to his core,
his large head stuffed full of brains.
A fine reflection, he thought. An artist’s tender soul.

He missed the moment when her essence rose
brighter than sunlight,
as bright as her smile,
and as healing as a warm bath.

Two paths meet at the subway station
as she escapes desolation,
he approaches her amorously
offering her a new life, glamorously.

Succumbing to Mack's sultry advance
Annie welcomed this novel chance,
following him down his dark path
slightly clad, a new role was cast.

He led her to his suave soiree
with it's clandestine cabaret,
engaged in the revelry
Annie ventured Mack's brevity.

Amid the thunderous rumble
Mack fervently hustled
Annie to his nest of show girls
who turn a trick, twist and twirl.

This is how it is really done
in the name of fun, sometimes a gun,
prostitution.... with no escape,
Think about it all. This is rape!

KIMY

the dance floor
as we illuminate on top of it there is a debate
waiting for you to come closer to me
dear beautiful KIMY
luscious caramel curls
dreamt and lusted by earls
piercing eyes that embodies demise
to suffice? i cannot
worthy? i am not

skin as smooth as infants bottom
with beating bosoms paired by lowered bell bottoms
as i succumb under the hunt, i am haunted
as your hips commanded

bounded by the sins of my KIMS and by what it means
dancing on the floor, so much i adore is lust final hour
bumping and grinding
as morrow shine divine comes forth the hour of nine
and soon it will be time

but do let me walk back
let me talk the fact
the way you looked during the night
making me wanna take flight
let me, let might but i intend to leave the fright

you have sealed me and i will never be free
as you hold the key no amount of my wits could flee
oh dear you, oh dear me
eternally now bounded, so grounded
let me wake up, this is f*cked up
but its your win KIM
a sweet epitome of my lusty sin

as we walk the dark mile
wound me deeply and i still give you my smile

Bruising the paper, just like he bruises your skin.
Writing and Erasing, again, again.
Repeating.
Repeating.
You write so fast.
Stuck in your own mind, you escape at last.
Whiskey bottles around, the spinning won’t stop.
Tears and Blood stain the carpet as they drop.
Doors are locked.
Window Pains shut.
Light comes in from the window.
Blinding, your mind. Inspecting the cuts.
Maybe they will help you Escape.
Somebody will notice.
Ask what is wrong.
What is wrong?
All is forgiven.
You don’t want to escape.
So you kiss him.
He kisses you back.
You are delicate.
He pushes to hard.
Alcohol lingers with each breath.
Sucking out your soul.
You want to escape.
But love is your weight.
So you will stay.
Until he leaves.
Until he leaves.

The Physics of Despair

Walk with me
I’ve never been here on the rooftops
Straddling the ceilings of those who never made it to point B…
Do our muscles dream?
Mine want to become the wind,
To escape the encroach of dead ends

Run with me
Atop this concrete canopy,
Regret is smoke chasing our breath
How we stretch to grasp that one sliver
Of clarity
Before the ground finds us again

Fly with me!
I have rubber wings
Should be harder to melt, right?
So I thought until blindness seized my legs
And I wished to the end that moonlight
Had never kissed my heels

This challenge is now closed.

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