feather to fire. fire to blood. blood to bone.

poetree's writing challenge this week is for a haiku on summer. As last week's winner I'm not eligible to enter, and this is not a haiku, but the prompt inspired me anyway.

summer, you are the season of length:
long days, long shadows, long-loved memories
torn away from us by winter's strength,
frozen: you stir them with evening's breeze,
warm, sweetly scented with crème de menthe,
a perfect companion to heart's ease.
watching shooting stars, i count the tenth,
forget old wishes by small degrees.

the child razes the city at sunrise

The air around her heats, as mine turns colder.
Her form is silver-crowned, smoke-wreathed and tanned,
And caged in monstrous ribs of iron to hold her
Against escape, against the tide unplanned
Of old memories, dulled though growing bolder;
Raging against that sole instilled command:
You are not flesh but blade, not child but soldier.
Show mercy not to them. Stay not your hand.
I see the buildings spark, then start to smoulder,
And there lay down my honour and my brand.
It would not matter less if she was older;
Still she was one too young to understand.


armour of war

In darkened dreams I am that behemoth
That rose up from the shadows, shrieking, shuddering,
Like living flesh, yet forged of iron and wrath,
Hunched over, blackened, homeless-man-like huddling.
A tortured beast, yet tortured more its guide,
Her frame contorted into its resemblance;
From pain or fear, which, I cannot decide,
And dare not dredge up from my past remembrance.
I am controlled, yet commander am I,
At once the vehicle and the cold entrapment
That circles her warm brow and chokes thereby
Her memories of this cruel scheme's enactment.
I feel her strength resurge against my grasp;
I pray release, yet find my grip redoubling;
Though sickened by this violence, her pained gasp,
I countenance she's plagued by thoughts less troubling.
With shock I waken, memories of steel
And acrid vapours crushing in their gravity;
Still less to bear than knowledge time can't heal,
That outside dreams, I sanctioned this depravity.


Two poems: the first is my submission to poetree's contest, though in honesty I prefer the second. I concede, however, that it might be a little too personal (and for many readers, abstract) to fit the theme. In many ways, they're companion pieces, hence my posting them together.