Photograph by Ira Joel Haber
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For the second week in a row, the winner of the poetry space poem and photo challenge is Andy Scotson with Just the Once. This is very well deserved as Andy has entered poems most week’s for the challenge. And now two wins. Congratulations Andy!! In close second place was Sarah Blayney with The Catch. Again well done. Thanks to everyone who entered.
Poem 1
The Marriage of a Secret Sea Maiden
The lace waves, gasps for breath,
I read the weight of each step
as she wades from me,
water congregating at my feet.
The air rushes her hair, her hips
sway like a good day at sea.
The current catches her lips
drags them towards I do.
A torrent of rain turns her back.
Her ring holding hand
brings the flood,
a storm,
My heart capsizes,
the water rises,
I slip under
her gaze.
I hear the mermaids call,
our hands always made music
out at sea. The blue
opened it’s doors for us.
It should have been me
tending that sail
thought to pure, to white
for the touch of my black hands.
Stephanie Arsoska
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Poem 2
Riddle me thee and now riddle me thrice
I was a person not so very nice
Bereft of mother my father spoiled me
My fiancé Compeyson set to flee
I warped Estella to hurt men-kind whole
Wrecking their essence, shattering their souls
My heart worn away like a lost stranger
Ice in veins of inverted dowager
Broken ornate pottery yet still proud
I’m consoled by this faded wedding shroud
Alas dear Estella, alas poor Pip
This brittle heart still has a conscience pricked
Forgive wicked ways, damage I have done
Bless my sweet daughter and my gentle son
Kevin Eagles
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Poem 3
Twenty Five Years Ago I Said I Do
Click-click, click-clack the loom went
To make a fabric that made my dress
All the preparation involved just to say I do
My make-up, hair, garter and flowers
Perfection, was walking on air.
All the parents, aunts, cousins and friends
Came to watch the woven cloth and to hear I do.
Looking back, the time that’s gone,
Now in the loft it could remain
Old, new, borrowed or blue.
Johana Boal
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Poem 4
The Catch
She didn’t expect to feel the way she did.
Bereft and Left.
She thought that life would be much kinder.
Softer than Soft.
Instead the coldness came harshly, suddenly.
Frozen and Brazen.
It was the shock of the unexpected leaving.
Horror and Stupor.
At the altar, too – not an ideal time.
Gulping back tears.
The realization that he’d not arrived.
Alison Blayney
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Poem 5
Just The Once
And I run calloused hand
through weightless silk
still smell slight
aroma of last nights smoke.
See through tresses
I see my nails
bitten and sore
through your glorious transparency.
a crime scene
a memory
combined in fabric
tears roll free.
as I picture
the occupant
the fire
the wedding.
Andy Scotson
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Poem 6
Sadder than Death
The folds of your skin
stretch and cling
to a life you
are so tired of.
The echo of your faded smile
and the laughter lines
gone in torment and sadness.
Your breath hangs on a thread,
aching to drop
through the net of
a life too weary to care.
I fold you hands in mine,
lay my skin next to yours.
Sadder than death,
I am surrounded by the darkness
of a future without you.
Angie Butler
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Poem 7
Prom Queen
Pink Taffeta –
though you only noticed blue. Her mouth
like the Summer’s night we fell for;
eyes naked as the full moon
in whose light she danced and in whose
shadows, I closed mine.
Left hanging in the virginal womb
of adolescent infatuation,
waves of woven silk
crash through dreams. Discarded
debt and crumpled pride
will, in tomorrow’s eyes, be
ironed-out and re-attached
to the unforgiving lining
of this delicately blushing
gown.
Hannah Teasdale
