Candles (A Response to the Connecticut School Shooting)

Grief has stolen the words
from my throat: and I want to burn
candles in their places. Little white tapers
to take the place of every word purloined
from my voice box, white candles
to stand as silent sentries for every
morpheme that refuses to march up
my tongue and out of my lips. Those words instead
want to pull my tongue backwards and
curl up inside its rug for warmth and
safety. They want to duck behind my
stained and crooked molars, out of sight
from the open air and the wind that passes
in and out of my mouth.
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Free-Falling

I. I’m not sure all these people understand

You see bodies like broken dolls free-falling
onto the clean and deserted pavement.
Blood slides out of tiny crevice and huge chasm wounds
and joins the shells of flesh as they collapse and land
onto the asphalt. You swear that you can see
breath exiting as the bodies hit the ground – but the breath
always climbs upward, leaving its old ribcages behind.
Now, there is nothing left but smoke and desolate silence as
crumpled bodies and crumpled trucks lay empty
underneath the orchid, scarlet, and maize colored dawn.

Suddenly there is only blackness –
you fall from dreams into waking –
and land with a sudden jolt –

and there is only you, your trembling limbs,
your quivering nerves running scared up and down
the length of your body,
and the half-lit cloak of night that kept you company
while you slept. You sit up, shirtless and sweat-drenched,
the survivor of yet another head-on collision
between you and nightmare.

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Ashes

Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath, courtesy of Wikipedia

NEW! You can listen to this poem on Podbean.

This was written for Read Write Poem Prompt #106: Repeat After Me.. Sylvia Plath was my inspiration for this poem, in which I chose to use one of Rethabile’s suggestions for this prompt, repeating an idea. Mine is almost a refrain I think, or variations on a theme. I hope you enjoy the read.

-Nicole

————————————————-
It’s easy,
a burning half-morning light,
so faint that candles cannot even
make love with it lest they disturb the
shadow of amber that it drops onto the wall. And the
pen – there’s a certain rhythm to the
scribble and the scratch, the
hip-hop beat in ancient form
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“Somewhere” Published in Special Edition of Poetry Super Highway Weekly

Tuesday, April 21 is Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), and Poetry Super Highway published a special issue this week to commemorate this. My poem, “Somewhere”, appears in this issue of PSH Weekly. You can read “Somewhere” at: http://poetrysuperhighway.com/ppa/ppa603b.html#fp10

I also read this poem on the April 19th edition of Poetry Super Highway Live. To hear the poem and to listen to April’s edition of the show, please visit:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/psh/2009/04/19/April-2009-Worlide-Open-Reading

Stumble It!

Stumble It!

The Sun Has Spilled Upon His Face

This was written for Read Write Poem Prompt #66: Re-Imagine Your Life. I took a little license with this, so the poem isn’t about me. I took a little inspiration from R.E.M.’s “Country Feedback” (in fact, I think this poem could be an answer to this song). Enjoy.

-Nicole
————————————-
the sun has spilled upon his face
light makes enemies of darkened thoughts
evil musings
cruel and wanton
wanting to seize him and kill him
turn him into death itself
walking, walking in endless night
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Five Haiku for Grief

This chained haiku, though written a little late (due to a wicked case of writer’s block the last couple of weeks) was written for Read Write Word Prompt #7. Enjoy.

-Nicole

——————————————————–

signatures of death:
mirrors turn their reflective
faces to the walls

roses become allies
crimson, lie as sentinels
upon your still chest

blood under your skin
withdrawn into silence – I
speak in tongues of grief

while you wear mists of
the eternal, ancient lake,
I am wearing black

memories yield to
alchemy – reassemble,
and they become you

Written 1/13/09
© 2009 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.

Stumble It!

Stumble It!

Marketplace

This stream-of-consciousness piece was written for two prompts: One Single Impression prompt #37: Paradox and this week’s Totally Optional Prompt (Marketplace). Enjoy.

-Nicole

——————————–

Heartbreak feels good.
So good it hurts deep down to your spine,
deep down to your soul.
You want that ache over and over again;
it’s your drug,
and you need your fix.
You need the pain to survive;
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