Elise's Poetry
Amber Moon
Once I walked a forest
That didn’t have a name.
And I looked up to the sky,
But it didn’t seem the same.
For in the inky blackness
Was a big bright orange moon,
And there I stood, quite stupefied
And heard a small crow coo:
“Here you see an Amber Moon
With fourteen-foot-deep craters.
I’m set to fly up to it soon
But you will see me later.”
The small black crow flew down to me
And perched next to my ear:
“Make sure you see it close today
Or stay until next year.”
Girl Trials
Do you think that when they burned
Those witches at the stake,
They didn’t even stop to think
How long the wind would take,
To stop that fire’s evening smoke
Infesting their damned day,
With only burnt-black ashes
Left to mark the women’s way?
Do you think that in that village
A young girl stood and watched
Her mother’s skin melt clean away,
Her beating heart now botched?
Or if that sour, bitter smoke
Sunk fingers in her eyes
And made her shed a somber tear
That saw her sisters die?
I wish I had been at that place
To grab a knife or bucket,
To throw some water on those girls
Or take their noose and cut it.
I wish that guilty smokiness
Was of flowers, clean and fresh,
Instead of smelling for all hours
Like blood and blameless flesh.
Burn an Orange
She walks through the room,
Feet pad in the hall,
Hear how she comes:
Poet of fall.
She grabs a small orange
From a full kitchen bowl,
See, there she goes:
Poet of old.
Turn on the burner,
Turn off the light,
Throw in the orange:
Poet of night.
Take out the orange
Black as burnt tar,
She holds it and eats:
Poet bizarre.
Locked Up
An older bird tweets a song
I hear it in my brain,
The sickly sounds of her chirp,
The sadness of our pain.
The little bird behind my chest
Sings a tired tune,
It’s the one I sing all by myself
Sat in my unlit room.
No matter just how hard I try
My bird cannot go home.
She’s locked up here forever,
Inside my ribs of bone.
Flutter
I am lighter than the laughter
Of my mother’s youngest daughter,
And the girl that is my sister
Dances on the window sill.
She trusts that it will make her fly,
But knows it never will,
But in the instance that it does,
She’ll find some time to kill.
While my sister floats above the clouds,
I’ll become a shuddered breath.
‘Twixt lips and words that ever yearn,
I’m a fawn so far from death.
But on that fawn I am a spot
So white and pure like snow,
And on that spot I’m in a land
Where children never grow.
So if you ever find yourself
On lips or in the clouds,
Be sure of every step you take.
Make sure you touch the ground.