Thread: Christmas/New Year Challenge - "Time"

The theme for the Christmas/ New Year challenge, suggested by toddm, is "Time"

Remember that you may approach the subject in whatever way you wish, though of course site rules apply. If you are unsure of the challenge rules please read the 'stickies' at the top of the board, it is disheartening to disqualify people for things like a trivial edit, but the rules will be applied.

Because of the holiday, you have a little longer to post entries. This challenge will close on the 8th Jamuary 2012.

Please make sure that your work is properly formatted before pressing the submit button. Work edited after posting may be excluded from the challenge. Do not post comments in this thread. Any discussions should be posted in the Bards' Bistro.

Twelve tempting scenes
of tourist traps
tossed in the trash.
Diagonal slashes did their duty
marking moments marching by,
leaving forlorn confetti
in their wake.

Snapshots of places I'll never visit
(no funds nor time
to seek the sublime)
and angry red lines
to remind me of minutes wasted.

A quick click on rewind reveals:
.
The kids sprouting some
from stuffing their faces
with fuel pumped by hands
that thrice daily set places.
The attics of their minds
relinquishing empty spaces
to parcels packaged
by my ever wagging tongue.

A wounded soldier
waging wellness wars,
vanquishing invisible invaders
to keep comrades erect.
Scribbles in a notebook
shared on a dare
coaxing some smiles
or a tear here and there.
Slumped shoulders squaring
to serve as lampposts
for those drunk
with despair.

I dump grounds from morning coffee
on what amounts to only paper,
thinking of trees sacrificed
just to be wasted...

oh so very unlike
those moments of mine.

Humming, I hang
the pizzeria's gift to the loyal -
displaying yet another sight
I'll never take in -
and with a granite hand
make the first scarlet slash
as a few bits of welcome confetti
fall at my feet.

A fickle mistress,
she brings no warmth
to your bed-
but clouds the minds
and vision of all.

You cannot woo her.
She has no heart to feel
nor hands to hold;
though you
are in her palm.

Her lips are not pursed
for kissing-
they whistle down the hawk,
to snatch away your moments,
like vermin from the field.

Though she will pass,
unnoticed by many,
all are left to wonder;

where did she go?

I walk as I came

I walk as I came;
my shadow changing shades,
shapes
in differing lights
along the same streets.

The dance, predictable,
like a pretty drug -
didn't last long,
unlike the real one
ripped on.

While no one knew me
- a familiar alien -
just I remembered faintly.

And as I had broken
nights before,
this night
I broke once more.

So I walk as I came;
my shadow changing shades,
shapes
in differing lights
along the same streets.

Gates of Time


Inside the gates of time
there stood a lady
spinning rhymes of gold;
clutching, in her hand, a rood
while reaching out
for tales untold.

Upon the twisted mound of fate
the lady hummed a dark lament;
she called an ill wind to abate,
then sewed the seeds of merriment
into the halo of the night.

They rooted,
springing from the earth,
a symphony of joy and light,
absurd and wondrous,
sweet new birth.

Shoots sprang up,
then budded there;
blooms of verse began to flower,
to make a garland for her hair,
the lady speaking words of power.

A bard reached out
to hail the muse
in whispered praises of her worth,
as from his pen
her words were loosed
in tales of tragedy
and mirth.

Inside the gates of time
there stood a lady
spinning rhymes of gold
clutching, in her hand, a rood
while reaching out
for tales untold.

Perennial

Stars fell
into the palm of your hand,
while you laughed and sipped red wine,
as I struggled hard
to understand answers -
that I couldn’t find
a question to satisfy.

You languished, laughing
into long nights - glass held loose
in your fingers -
I was scorched
by the searing sight of a burning dream
that lingers and can’t ever gratify.

I longed to hear a tune,
to make me dance - lift me
to my feet to move
and dash thoughts to the distance,
where there was naught to prove,
while stars fell from the sky.

You touched my body –
like some divine healer
from my haunted reason,
capturing my heart and maddened mind -
to bring me into your own season;
where springtime leaves don’t die,

or ever pass through summer
into autumn - never lie to crumble
in a winter frost.

No Time for Cynics


Should we, the unbelievers,
tread upon the virgin snow
of children’s Christmas joy?
Who are we to dim the light
that shines within the eyes
of innocents?

Are we so right who only
stand and sneer at twinkling
lights and Christmas carols
sung in no key known to man;
to puncture the balloon of love
which fills a small girl’s heart
when overwhelmed by bliss
she squeals aloud at footsteps
in that morning’s snow?

Should we not, for pleasure’s sake,
open up our weary souls and,
encompassing the rapture felt
by others, immerse ourselves
in celebration nonetheless?
And, by doing so, would we not
enrich our lives as well as those
of others as we pass?

Convertible

And now I am past
where streetlamps end,
where soft amber blooms
of curtained sills go fading,
where the wheels raise road-
dust ghosts from the gravel,
and their moan and their rattle
stalk the blackberry thorns,
bleed silver in the ditch weeds,
tangle in thistled, chalkwhite
silences. It is here in the starfall,
in the nightchant dark, I become
again another self, and sing
in the wisp and the flit it,
in the slow drift and haunt of it,
even after static makes the songs
hiss and itch like crinoline
close against hidden skin. I am
A child again, and from the front,
mother's voice ringing clear
and charmed as fargone bells,
father's tones running sound
and deep as streams that wander
lost in pitch-dark grottoes. Quiet,
now, and I am small again in the fire-
fly night: quiet and small in the wheel-
sung rush of time gathering 'round
me in the mothdust wind, quiet and small
and folding like petal into sleep
through all the small words,
all their nothing-words,
that will hang so dim, so distant,
soon: as far and faint as constellations,
posing:

Is it ever enough?
Is it ever enough just to remember?

Yesterday I loved you
in the heart-sweltering heat
of vehement passions
and luscious flower-drifts
engulfed by the sweeping stream!

Today I love you
more than the immensity of this planet
soaring through the endless vacuum,
fired on all sides by silent stars
pulsing from their safe distances!

Tomorrow I will love you
when time whispers delicately
through eggshells brittle underfoot,
when the years loom large behind
as a spector of what could have been!

Time to be happy, to play in the sun
to laugh, to skip
to run, to have fun

Time for love, a kiss in the park
to flirt, hold hands
to dance after dark

Time to have children, to raise them up
to teach, to learn
to fill each young cup

Time to ponder, to think what might be
to point the way
to where we can't see

Time to reflect, on years gone by
on hopes and dreams
to smile and to sigh

Man, Santa Claus Ain't No Blood

Blue against the snow
Could cause frostbite more quiclky
Don't you want your gifts?

Skipping To The End

Tickety Tockety
Jason the Clockwatcher
Has eight more hours until
He can go play.


Temporal oddities
Unsynchronology
Mentally done but just
Starting the day.

The Time of New Year

Tick-tock, tick-tock,
I look at my clock.
The time slips by,
And I wonder why,
Why I wait here.

Houses are still glowing,
TV screens still showing,
Little ones awake,
Eating treats and cake.

Tick-tock, tick-tock,
I take the clock.
Snow slowly falls,
Outside my halls,
Before the New Year.

I know what's in store,
For it's happened before.
And I hear them count down,
As it reaches the ground,
The great sparkling sphere.

Tick-tock, tick-tock,
I throw down my clock.
We promise to change,
It all stays the same,
At the world I sneer.

Their time ticks by,
And so they do cry,
But it is the change they fear.

Well Spent

Each choice has a price--
currencies of decision
measure importance.
How you choose to spend your time;
a reflection of value.

The First Day of Light

Gleaming so far away
yet seemingly not at all...
the date, December 24, the
day when light began to shine.

All the months, and all the days,
pale away, just pale away...
For misery has been here for
a year, its dark ethers taking one and all.
But something new has come on
this new day.... a new word, a new meaning

Hope

seconds tick, and it grows
ever brighter.
And we wait, for we know now
that dawn has come to a damned world.
A line of a babe, the source of light,
and crying coming far away...

December 24, this was the day
light returned.
and for tomorrow we wait,
for day has yet to break...