Spatter

He holds everything over her head

controls with word or phrase—

  and her light disappears

     bit

         by

             bit.

She no longer thinks,

no longer cares; only aware

of the sadness, the loss

     the ultimate cost

…and it always comes down

     to the cost… in the end.

Doesn’t it?

Why fight for control?

Why struggle till nothing is left

  but impressions and cast-off

   of who she might have been?

Ginny Brannan 2014

Not the usual but where the pen went today. 

Spring Clean-Up

There’s something about the feel

of damp earth between my fingers—

the smell of newly turned soil,

rich… dark…awaiting first touch.

There’s joy in that first sighting

of  earthworms—exposed…scrambling...

anxiously returning to their hiding places—

that speaks to the continuity of life

after the long and barren winter.

There’s an escape that calls on the wind

blowing on this overcast day

perfumed with the promise of rain.

I continue my annual ritual—

raking…weeding…mulching…

finding peace in the solitude;

contentment in the silence—

lost inside season’s change.

© Ginny Brannan 2014

A Sonnet in 'C' Minor

How deep the well that holds our futures past,

its formidable lining cast in stone—

posessing seeds of memories unsown;

and consummated love that wouldn’t last.

There's only few who’ve seen our souls unmasked,

before the vines of life were overgrown;

and more unique when one still stands alone,

despite how often roles have been recast.

Yet in this spinning Möbius of time,

reflections in the broken shards of youth

will often circle back to certain truth

well hidden in the caches of our prime…

The time now ripe for these words I could never say:

“The rightness eclipsed each mistake made along the way.” 

© Ginny Brannan 2014

After the Rain

Image by author

I step into the waning light

engulfed in scent of rain-soaked earth

as daylight edges into night.

The peepers chirp with rare delight

from nearby pond in mud immersed,

as I step into waning light.

Now hear lone mockingbird recite,

calling out his six-note verse

while day transposes into night.

I feel at one with all, in spite;

renewed in seasonal rebirth—

when I step into waning light.

Remaining rainclouds take to flight,

I watch them scatter and disperse

as daylight edges into night.

Just for a moment sun shines bright,

then slips horizon-line, submersed;

as I step into waning light

and daylight merges with the night.

© Ginny Brannan 2014

Glimmer

Photo by Kelsey Hannah

The veil recedes as in a dream…

in shadowed corners once concealed

now by soft rays of light, revealed.

They skip and soar within the stream,

exposed uncloaked—these faerie folk

dance with delight upon the beam.

In sunlight now, their world unsealed;

till veil recaptures to the dream.

© Ginny Brannan 2014

 Written for Magpie Tales #214  

Image provided by Tess Kincaid, she provides the image, we the story!

Five a.m. on an April Morning

I stare across this mid-night sea

and ponder in that stillness found

the vastness of this vernal plain;

appearing first as ebony

and yet I know it isn’t so…

A hundred billion stars abound—

celestial embers in the dark

whose gasses burned out long ago,

and still they manage to astound.

Left humbled by their reverie,

as if by watching they’ll impart

the knowledge of the centuries…

Yet could we grasp enlightenment

from moment genesis embarked?

More learned men may share insight,

I myself embrace the night

© Ginny Brannan 2014

Sharing at d'Verse Open Link Night April 2014

Daft Poetic Fools

Some call us daft, poetic fools;

Monets who use their words to paint—

inspired by some inner voice

known to stretch and bend the rules

in search of perfect turn of phrase.

We don’t abide much with restraint—

we walk to different drummer’s beat;

Plath and Poe and Frost and Keats…

we read their poems to reacquaint,

then hold our own course once again.

Sometimes the words call in our sleep;

we wake and run to fast transpose

our thoughts, lest they should slip away...

left often feeling incomplete

with need to find that perfect line.

How different then, this path we chose…

exposing all our truths and scars,

yet something from the depths takes hold—

an inner voice held in repose,

an entity that lives inside—

  we must conclude now, insofar,

      this choice to write was never ours…

© Ginny Brannan 2014

Image by author