Blazing Solstice: A Poem

With Winter Solstice looming near

And summer a long gone mariner

He finds power in the darkening malcontent

That traps a gaze this autumn

Above an umbrage of blazing ice clouds

Lucifer burns in the frozen star

Grinning as he weaves the death shrouds

For men’s hibernal coffins

Oh for a voyage ever southward

To a kindred hemisphere

Where azurean waves

Reflect the waxing moon

And ice surrounds no heart.

But setting sail is no easy task

In hoary waters

And dimmer skies

Where even the breath

Of mermaids’song

Hangs suspended

Like frozen desires.

For smoldering long

In the soul of man

Lingers the cryogenic star

Waiting for a time

When glaciation reigns

And the Arctic Age returns.

These celestial collisions

Bear fireballs

To illuminate and warm

A mortal sea

Eroding ice floes

That bar the way

For the long journey

Homeward.

(Photos by David Stroup)

About Laurie: The author of Forests Secrets and Finding Joy as well as The Pharaoh’s Cry, Portal Shift, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky of the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, Laurie Woodward is also a screenwriter who co-authored Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies and she was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet, and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at Author Laurie Woodward — Next Chapter ia.net

Velveted Blades: A Poem

Skin of blades

Velveted by day

Sheathed under layers

Of false smiles

And soft words.

But as night falls

Hinge outward

Extending scythes

Of umbrage

Razor-sharp

Piercing embrace.

Disembodied Embrace: A Poem

Disembodied embrace

Of a dream lover.

He who exists beyond the

Corporeal plodding through

The mundane, that muck of life

That seeks to pull us under.

Ethereal, his voice transcends

Skin, scent, and taste

Until we are afloat

In a buoyant fantasy

Soaring in the sublime

About Laurie: The author of Finding Joy as well as The Pharaoh’s Cry, Portal Shift, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky of the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, and Forests Secrets. Laurie Woodward is also a screenwriter who co-authored Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies and she was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet, and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at Author Laurie Woodward — Next Chapter ia.net

Curtain Call: A Poem

You want me to perform on stage

For you alone

An actress reciting lines written long ago

When you first imagined nubile girls

And felt stirrings sensual and strange

You ask for a curtain call

But the first act has not yet begun

Or even been rehearsed

I am outside this theater looking up

At its neon lights.

Wondering whether to step inside

Or run from their harsh glare

To the soft twinkling

Of country summer.

You want my ecstatic dance

To rise like a crescendo before your eyes

My limbs twisting and convulsing in

Tribal rhythms

But the music has yet to play

And I am wrapped in the silence.

You want an aria, a magnum opus

A soprano hitting notes so high

As to shatter hearts.

But I am just a woman.

And can’t even sing on key.

About Laurie: The author of the recently released Finding Joy as well as The Pharaoh’s Cry, Portal Shift, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky of the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, and Forests Secrets. Laurie Woodward is also a screenwriter who co-authored Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies and she was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet, and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at Author Laurie Woodward — Next Chapter ia.ne

Hull’s Feast: A Poem

Vultures circle

The line of metallic insects

Whose crystalline eyes see only

The flashing red thoraxes

Before them.

They wait for dimming lights

To swoop down

Break through lenses

And feast on

Our empty hulls.

Raucous Éclair: A Poem

The mute speak in raucous voices

Spewing chocolate éclairs and ice cream

At satiated audiences.

The blind behold paper movie-set flames

Licking the walls of war-torn villages

Where no one lives.

The deaf attend to the muffled sirens

Of disgruntled men in leisure suits

Who cry “Buy!” and “Sell!” into cellular phones.

I see only darkness through my colored contact lenses

As pop bands play, “My future’s so bright I gotta wear shades.”

I tap my foot, sans rhythm, to the minstrel mime blaring silent recordings on a blank tape.

Voices clamor for the sky.

Tears fall on the shadows of shoulders.

While I orate and conversate.

And emit passionate cliches and sublime euphemisms.

But only the mute hear me,

And they can’t respond.

Writer’s Block Sonnet

Praying for insight to come unto me

I write and then wander from room to room

Sipping yet another cup of strong tea

Suppressing the words from coming too soon

I fear they are lacking the perfect mate

So click goes the brain box, images flow

The hypnotizing rhythm of modern hate

Summons the restraints of my constant foes:

Those remnants of fears that so often lied

Coerce the mind to remain in tethers

Self doubt and pity hold that muzzle tight

My pen awaits only scrambled letters.

A mute, I cry out against ancient wrongs

While gyves bind and muffle this poets song.

Carburetor Ghosts: A Poem

Automotive graveyard

Where carburetor ghosts

On a windswept plateau

Howl through a parking lot of vines.

Did lovers discover youth’s first

Venereal sting on those ancient springs?

Did children gaze out these windows

Eyes wide on falling stars?

Did old men curse at transmissions

That were fixed in first gear?

Each ancient jalopy interned

Within its own mound

Where fallen hoods stand askew

As tombstones

Without inscriptions

Where urn shaped trunks

Cry out for mourners’ offerings

That never come.

In this field of vine and rust

No requiem for the dead was played.

The metal carcasses discarded.

But even today

After years of rot and decay

Every window remains.

No nubilous glass is shattered

In these former chariots

To places both sublime and mundane.

Their diaphanous veils

Reflect the passing of storm clouds

Moon phases and dusk

Giving us a glimpse

Into the crystalline void

Of yesterday.

Veteran’s Day: A History Poem

On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month

Of 1918

An armistice began.

In the war to end all wars

And the world heaved

A collective sigh.

1919

A president speaks.

Commemorating this date with thanksgiving

And prayer

And exercises designed to perpetuate peace

Between nations.

They called it Armistice Day.

Years passed.

1954

A president speaks.

A new name.

Veteran’s Day.

And we came together

With thanksgiving

And prayer

And exercises designed to perpetuate peace

In honor

Of all who served.

Binary Philosophers: A Poem

In the Desert of the Real

We are the creatures

Who lope, crawl, and slither

But here

On the circuit board

We are noesis.

Binary philosophers

Espousing 1 and 0.

We ask the screen:

When we are zero

In the hard drive of our souls

Do we lose mass

And become antimatter?

Or in the vacuity

Of nothingness

Do we escape the desert

And touch the infinite?

(Photo by David Stroup)