Poem – ‘Milk and Sonnets’
A rare attempt at a traditional poem structure and formal rhyme scheme.
Milk and Sonnets
There is sometimes, somewhere inside me,
a creature that likes to writhe and burn.
It’s tough to force it to obey me,
whatever I teach, it just won’t learn.
This life likes to flint its fire,
scratch with hot nails to make it scream.
A strangled beast in a lava mire,
spitting and screaming to be seen.
I have to find the cream to cleanse it,
soothe parched skin with milk and air.
Dampen its burning and then release it,
drag it from its scabby lair.
Hate it or love it, I’m forever its slave,
Only when released will it ever behave.
Test Submission: Poem, ‘Window Pane’
You’re a ghost in the wind,
a skein of silk caught on a nail,
tattered edges fluttering like moth wings,
against a blood stained window pane.
Ribboned hem licks vainly,
like a dragon tongue in a forgotten fairytale,
tasting the glass, candy-cool, impenetrable
suffering your reluctant, red-nailed attack,
sparked by a loathing you love.
Eyes turned up in heartbeat prayer would see you,
hanging by your veins, strangling on that nail,
your desperate heart pumping slow, thick blood,
throwing smeared dice on a wine stained table,
gambling for one more reason to cope.
You’re a ragged cloth, flapping in the breath of unseen lungs,
desperate for the taste of that ever-seen skin,
dying to drown in a puddle that barely covers your toes.
Your diseased claws raking down the glass
with no voice to cry ‘let me in’.
