Here I sit: the lost, the abandoned one
Once again. So many worlds
I have wandered, strange worlds.
Lured by an author, I entered the lives
Of persons I had never met,
While the author wove the tapestry
Which enfolded me
Into another world, another life.
I rode upon the characters’ laughter
With the buoyancy of a blown bubble
Floating upwards toward the sun.
I became the salt that flavored their tears.
I knew the taste of their mornings.
I knew their faces and their voices.
I knew where and why,
Though it was never mentioned,
An unseen chair lay broken.
So familiar was I with their world,
I heard the whispers
The author left unwritten.
In these places, I lived
For all the hours within the words.
Yet abruptly I am abandoned,
Shut out, cut off:
For every story ends.
Unbelieving, almost in shock,
I stare at the scene about me
Seeing what is at once too familiar
Which now I barely recognize.
My eyes search for the vanished images
From a moment before.
The scents surrounding me
Are all wrong,
No longer what they were
Only a moment before.
My ears seek again those unique sounds:
The author’s orchestra of the ordinary
Which was playing across my mind
Only a moment before.
My flesh rebels,
As if it would slough off
The present and the now
As a snake sheds
Its outgrown skin.
Here I sit:
Deep within my castle keep
Built of all the outer senses.
I am the lost,
The abandoned one,
Marooned upon reality
Which, for now, is a place
Not of my time
Not of my life.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Readers who write in response to one of the prompts listed each month in Splintered Glass, may see their work presented here on the last week of that month. Though poems are preferred, short prose work will also be considered for publication.
Guidelines for submission:
SPLINTERS FOR AUGUST 2022
CYCLONE RACER
Time to psych up psych up psych
Up, hrnk clank hrnk clink hrnk clank
Psych up, psych up
Up, hrnk clank hrnk, clink hrnk
Throw your hands up Now!
…S c r
…………..e a
………………….m!
…………………………down
into the valley
swishhhh adicka dicka dicka dicka
Jerk around a turn
cahanka dicka hnk
then
…S c r
…………..e a
………………….m!
swishh adicka dicka dicka dicka
..again
…………..and
……………………again
cahanka dicka hnk cahanka dicka hnk
Up, swishh adicka adicka
Jerk, swish adicka dicka dicka dicka
…S c r
…………..e a
……………………m!
cahanka dicka hnk
shka shka shk shhhshnka
hnkahnk ahnk…
Jerk to a stop.
………………….Let’s go Again!
THE VISION
Water-mirrored cool
Upon the desert sand
Beckons the constant dream:
The undiscovered land
Oasis or mirage?
We cannot help but think
And yet we cannot quench
Our thirst unless we drink
Of that fresh shimmering pool,
The light on desert strand
That lures us on to seek
The undiscovered land
ON A SUMMER DAY IN THE FALKLANDS
Blissful sun-warmth
Blends with distant Arctic breezes
At the cliff edge.
In another season, quiet
Reigns here where pastures slide
Downward to the sea.
But today, all is fussy noise
As cormorants and penguins speak
Walking over each other to claim a nest
All along the cliff edge as far as eye can see
Bird heads bob and bodies wriggle
Each intent on the security of an egg nest.
They pay no attention to the humans here
Except to watch that we stay distant
While the sky wraps all of us in its blue.
AUTHOR NOTES
GLASS RAIN—the poetry of Margaret Roxby
“THE VISION” is included this week for World Never Give Up Day, August 18. The “undiscovered land” is a recurring theme in the author’s work.
REFRACTIONS—a travel memory by Kathleen Roxby
“AN AUGUST DAY IN THE FALKLANDS” describes the author’s visit to the island and her encounter with penguins and cormorants during their nesting cycle. It is included this week for the United Kingdom’s Falklands Day, August 14.
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS—the poetry of Kathleen Roxby
“CYCLONE RACER” is best read aloud and is included this week for National Roller Coasters Day, August 16. The poem was a concrete poem in its original form, with each “scream” displayed in a downward slant, and the word “yes” rising up on the left to “again and” and sliding down from there on the right to the next “again” creating a hill like image. The title comes from the name of a long popular, dual track wooden roller coaster running out over the ocean shoreline of the author’s hometown in an area known as Nu-Pike or just The Pike.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Readers who write in response to one of the prompts listed each month in Splintered Glass, may see their work presented here on the last week of that month. Though poems are preferred, short prose work will also be considered for publication.
Guidelines for submission:
SPLINTERS FOR AUGUST 2022
After the Story Ends
Here I sit: the lost, the abandoned one
Once again. So many worlds
I have wandered, strange worlds.
Lured by an author, I entered the lives
Of persons I had never met,
While the author wove the tapestry
Which enfolded me
Into another world, another life.
I rode upon the characters’ laughter
With the buoyancy of a blown bubble
Floating upwards toward the sun.
I became the salt that flavored their tears.
I knew the taste of their mornings.
I knew their faces and their voices.
I knew where and why,
Though it was never mentioned,
An unseen chair lay broken.
So familiar was I with their world,
I heard the whispers
The author left unwritten.
In these places, I lived
For all the hours within the words.
Yet abruptly I am abandoned,
Shut out, cut off:
For every story ends.
Unbelieving, almost in shock,
I stare at the scene about me
Seeing what is at once too familiar
Which now I barely recognize.
My eyes search for the vanished images
From a moment before.
The scents surrounding me
Are all wrong,
No longer what they were
Only a moment before.
My ears seek again those unique sounds:
The author’s orchestra of the ordinary
Which was playing across my mind
Only a moment before.
My flesh rebels,
As if it would slough off
The present and the now
As a snake sheds
Its outgrown skin.
Here I sit:
Deep within my castle keep
Built of all the outer senses.
I am the lost,
The abandoned one,
Marooned upon reality
Which, for now, is a place
Not of my time
Not of my life.
For NANCY (Our Chance Encounter)
I walked upon the moors today
And breathed the heather-scented air
for we spoke of the rare Brontes
and wild and lonely Haworth
where in Emily’s and Charlotte’s hearts
Heathcliff, Cathy, and brave Jane Eyre
were born into reality.
All that was needed to spirit me
to those far moors
and purple-flowered hills
was our remembering ecstasy
O, yes!
Today I strolled the moors
and lived
with heather-scented air