Raven's Wing Poetry » Angry

What I Would Tell His Family

ravenswingpoetry — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 15:17:35 +0000

I wrote this hay(na)ku chain in stanzas of regular and reverse hay(na)ku for Brian’s Rockin’ Chair Prompt #2A (“tell us what’s really on your mind”). Enjoy.

-Nicole
————————————–
(for Joel)

he
is fifty
two years old
yet you treat
him like he’s
still

a
child still
blind and helpless
unable to see
his own
family

you
cut him
with machete words
dull and rusted
he still
bleeds

no
wonder he
remains a ghost
haunting your presence
in half
tones

because
you only
see the boy
born without eyes
needing your
help

open
yours and
see him clearly
see the man
standing before
you

before
he shuts
his own eyes
and is blind
to you
forever

Written 7/11/08
© 2008 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.

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My Answer

ravenswingpoetry — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:10:44 +0000

This was written for this week’s Three Word Wednesday prompt. This week’s words are: indifferent, pour, and reason. I decided to do free verse this time. WARNING: This is also one of my more bitter and angry poems. If you are not in the mood to read, I suggest you come back another day. If you’re not scared, read on.

-Nicole

—————————————–
If you wonder why I’m indifferent
to your attempts at kindness or love,
then I’ll be glad to give you a reason –

you disconnected.

You went off into your own little world,
leaving me to fend for myself in a house
where I was:

one more burden,
one more mouth to feed,
one more expense, and
one more worry.

I learned to live in the shadows,
and I still retreat there sometimes,
wrapping them like a cloak around me

so that no one will see me,
no one will notice me, and
no one will hurt me.

I can become invisible instantly now,
a fraction of myself reduced down
to just the common denominator of being human –

but I’m afraid that one day I will become so
invisible that I will never reappear in flesh
to rejoin this vibrant, mad world.

I leave
behind these leaves,
these poems,
these raven feathers
to make sure that just in
case I do disappear, that I have left
something worthwhile behind,
something to let the world know that I was here.

Do you think that I can just forget how
I was asked to disappear, how I was broken
apart, melted, and then poured into
the mold of a perfect young girl with:
gleaming white teeth that always lined a smile,
rivers of straight-A only report cards,
and a blank clean slate of innocence
with never a dirty thought or deed?

And then you – you try to pour me
into the mold
of a woman without tragedy, trauma, or drama.

You can’t handle my darkness.
You can’t handle the reminder
of how I am now forever scarred.
You should be thankful that
I wear these scars in my heart and that
I didn’t decide to carve them into my
caramel skin in the language of desperation and pain –
screams of wordless bloody slashes that
the whole world could see.

I scream in poetry, and
I scream in art,
because I was once forbidden
to scream.

You will never understand my screams;

so f*** off
and go find the
fragrant, flower, fairy fantasies
you desire without me.

Written 7/2/08
© 2008 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.

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“Hush” Featured as the Daily Poem on Poetry Friends

ravenswingpoetry — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 16:00:01 +0000

“Hush” was featured today as the Daily Poem on Poetry Friends. To read “Hush”, visit:

http://poetryfriends.blogspot.com/2008/06/poem-by-nicole-nicholson.html

-Nicole

If You Want A Boxer

ravenswingpoetry — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:47:56 +0000

This was written off of the lyric and verse challenge prompt on Poets Who Blog Interactive. The prompt was to write a poem with the first line being any lyric in the Leonard Cohen song, “I’m Your Man”. WARNING: this one is quite bitter and caustic. If you’re not in the mood for this, come back and read another day.

-Nicole

If you want a boxer, then why don’t you
go punch someone else? My skin is not
a leather casing which contains a few
million grains of sand inside! You forgot

that I stand before you as a human,
bruised, battered, sore from all the times you got
angry and I was the first one to stand
in your way. Don’t give me that bloody rot

about how I supposedly made you
lose your religion: believe me, I’ve got
your number now, and I now know that you
have no self-control. I’ve taken a lot

of abuse from you, but no more. Time’s up.
I’m not listening anymore, so shut up.

Written 6/12/08
© 2008 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.

Roller Coaster

ravenswingpoetry — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 22:07:05 +0000

This was written off of a prompt from Simply Snickers, a site with prompts for poets. ~~The catch? You must rhyme in some way.~~ (I thought I had to rhyme, but I guess you don’t. Oh well. Still, I like this poem.)

I chose the Chaucerian roundel, again (easy use of forms is why I intend to master more of them) to do this thing. The prompt was to write a poem using the words “roller” and “coaster” in it. So I took the metaphoric meaning of a roller coaster instead of the literal. Enjoy.

-Nicole

You were a roller-coaster ride
taking my heart up and down
until I thought I’d drown

in a ocean created when I cried
from your cavalierness. I found
that I was easily tossed aside

when you felt unable to decide
to commit or not to be bound
to me – such a sophomoric clown!
You were a roller-coaster ride.

Written 6/8/08
© 2008 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.

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Katie, Bar The Kitchen Door

ravenswingpoetry — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 17:51:20 +0000

This poem is viewable in the June 2008 edition of Word Catalyst Magazine:

“Katie, Bar The Kitchen Door”

-Nicole

Wounds

ravenswingpoetry — Wed, 28 May 2008 20:14:28 +0000

“get lost” by ~Standing-Apart

I participated in the latest challenge on Poets Who Blog, which was to create a poem using a list of ten words (these ten words are highlighted in the poem below. The result was this poem, “Wounds”. Enjoy.

-Nicole
————————————————————————

They say time heals all wounds.
How precious is that healing
As I try to collect in into my heart and
Desperately to try avoid a role reversal -
I don’t want to turn into a monster
Like you.
Clarify for me why I should
Forgive you
Now,
For I still wear volatile wounds from your
Silent disapprovals and caustic cut-downs,
And I still remember how I used to flutter inside
When I saw your hand raised, reared back, and
Ready to hit me again.
I would escape into fantasy – books and daydreams –
To dull the pain,
To make me forget,
And to help hasten the day when my magic number –
Eighteen –
Would come up and I could leave you forever -
And I did.

But now – now you say that
You come in peace?

Get bent.

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Vicious

ravenswingpoetry — Wed, 28 May 2008 13:53:32 +0000

When poets get angry, they write. I suggest you read this and this to understand the following.

-Nicole

—————————————————————-
in the animal kingdom it’s not uncommon
to seen bared teeth and sharpened claws
in the brief pause
before the pack kills a weaker member

it seems that we humans
instead of killing a weaker member
simply dismember
him by voting him out of our pack

then we wipe our consciences clean
with a foul
filthy towel
assuaging ourselves with excuses and lies –

disgusting -

and we have little playground boys and girls
standing spiritually stark naked
stripped of dignity
holding the expired end of a match
after being burned by
vicious fires of hatred

now ain’t this just grand
twenty-first century progress
we are so advanced and sophisticated
that instead of ripping little children to shreds
leaving them with raw wounds that never close
now we can simply vote them out of class

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