Five stalwart soldiers face the battlefront.

Then one by one they fall until only one remains,

The true soldier, not a replica like the four who fell before.

 

The last soldier, now alone, finally knows

His heart, his mind. He stands

To face the opposition, look them in the eye

That they, too, will know he is not afraid

To stand before them all alone:

 

They who prize winning above all,

Who break rules they agreed upon

As right and fair,

They who value winning

More than kindness

More that friendship.

 

The last of the five stalwart soldiers

Gathers up his fallen replica comrades,

Turns and walks away.

The fallen four will rest upon a shelf

To remind the fifth of what was learned.

 

One stalwart soldier stands tall

At the battlefront, alone but unafraid.

He can do nothing less.

He knows his heart, his mind.

He will look the enemy in the eye

That the other will know

To be kind is not to be weak,

To be a friend is not to lose.

 

One stalwart soldier stands

At the battlefront, alone.

 

 

 

I crawl into the warmth

Of my cocoon,

Pulling the bed covers tight

To seal in the heat.

 

Slowly the tension sifts

From each tendon

Each muscle

Until there is only peace.

 

As the body’s stillness

Drifts upward

Seeping into my mind,

Slowly I let go

Of tomorrow’s worry

Yesterday’s sorrow

 

Releasing both

Into the indifferent air

Surrounding my cocoon.

The molecules of that space

Waft all my agitation

To some distant universe.

 

I slip into the sleep

Which mends the broken pieces,

Smoothes the balm of hope

Over hot lesions

Building someone new

To wake from a cocooned silence.

 

To my mother I read

My poemed cries

In a sudden release

Till she woke

Startled by a dream

Where a woman with unknown face

Wore her daughter’s name.

Denial is a natural for the anapest.

The tongue and mind in a one-two sprint

To the sudden, slam-burst of sound:

     i did Not!

Blast and echo

Is the pattern

Of an accusation

Meant to turn the ear

From an anapest defense

To the dactyl of offense:

     HE did it!

In two quick steps

The unshakably stubborn

Will push you out the door

With their anapestic vigor:

     i will Not!

But the whiner will whimper

With the torture of iambs

elongated horribly, terribly,

     i C  A A A  N’T,

     i D  O O O  N’T.

The liar, ‘not ME’

And the doubter, “not HIM”

Will also favor the short iamb.

To stun and numb

Belligerence delivers the dare

With a one-two trochee punch:

TRY me.

MAKE me.

But for the truly outraged

under unfair accusation,

the choice will forever be

the shock wave of the anapest:

     i am NOT!

 

#PoeticMeter #Poetry

Tonight, as my dreams escape

the fragile net of words

My soul’s song is unheard

for I do not know the words

Yet it is a night for words

rich hummed with sound

It is a night for poetry—

but I have none

 

#Poetry #ShortPoem #Writer’sBlock