Skip to main content

Need

 Sharing with this week's The Sunday Muse #184. Come celebrate Halloween with verse and The Muse. 


I don't think the lantern needed the day; I needed the night:
Lit and close and dark and smelling of faraway fires.
I needed the smoky flicker that darkened the late-season field
I needed the thin linen dress someone else's jacket hides;
I needed the nested shadow; not blue, clear sight.

It's already a spooky weekend: one window wedged itself just open enough for the breeze to moan beneath, James heard a drone last night (according to him, circling and circling the neighborhood without lights), and our sometimes neighbors have started to set up their backyard for whatever festivities they're planning for Halloween weekend. So...tomorrow (Halloween) will be a good day to read through the books picked up at the local author Spooktacular hosted by a used bookstore not far from here and to say a few final prayers before NaNo begins. Also, celebrating another zine draft ready for editing (sometime after November)!!

-- Chrissa



Comments

  1. Gillena CoxOctober 31, 2021 at 2:29 AM

    Best Wishes with your zine project.
    We have had locust sightings in San Fernando here in Trinidad. Not a happy event to add to pandemic days

    Happy Sunday

    much❤love

    ReplyDelete
  2. hedgewitchOctober 31, 2021 at 6:58 AM

    This is a very powerful mood piece for being so short, Chrissa. Your last line especially is vivid and full of an almost ominous feeling of insight, when we see into our own shadows and it frightens us. All of this builds that picture of need in your title flawlessly; each line pulls its own weight and makes the poem work. Happy All Hallows to you and yours--this poem suits it to a tee.

    ReplyDelete
  3. HelenOctober 31, 2021 at 9:49 AM

    I am going to be spooked if / when drones begin circling our neighborhood ... a great write for the Day of All Things Spooky.

    ReplyDelete
  4. ms_liliOctober 31, 2021 at 11:52 AM

    Just right never lasts for long anyway. The shadows keep things interesting for sure.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Carrie Van HornOctober 31, 2021 at 11:57 AM

    I love the thoughts and feelings this gorgeous poem evokes. A breathtaking poem my friend!! I look forward to seeing your new zine!!

    ReplyDelete
  6. FireblossomOctober 31, 2021 at 2:05 PM

    Let us know how the books are!

    ReplyDelete
  7. JimOctober 31, 2021 at 4:47 PM

    Our spooks are coming now. It is the KitKat day at the Jim's.
    I know your really needed the night lit to "smell(ing) of faraway fires".
    ..

    ReplyDelete
  8. Sherry Blue SkyOctober 31, 2021 at 6:26 PM

    I love that last line best. Really wonderful. Hope the fireworks next door dont scare your dogs.........congrats on having something ready for editing!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Myrna R.November 1, 2021 at 8:31 AM

    Lovely Halloween thoughts here, though I read it after the fact. But enjoyed it so much.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Marion HortonNovember 1, 2021 at 9:15 AM

    You weave great atmosphere and vulnerability here - I love it.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Susie ClevengerNovember 1, 2021 at 12:49 PM

    Love the mood... There is a need for shadows at times. Beautiful writing.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Other MaryNovember 2, 2021 at 7:08 AM

    Yes, sometimes we need the darkness. Love this.

    ReplyDelete
  13. purplepeninportland.comNovember 3, 2021 at 6:22 PM

    From the first line on this poem radiates beauty.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Turn Away

  Sharing with The Sunday Muse , for #193. Turn away, like the moon, listening... Listening to the planet that rumbles with a hundred million slaps. All the feet, all the rockets, all the  pistons in the cars on the asphalt over the chasm where the veins run deep, blue in sunlight, black at night. Running over the chasm.  Once or twice they ran to you. Once or twice they ran by. Greetings and salutations. The sky is an entertaining shade of concrete yellow as the rain promised earlier in the week makes good on its arrival. It's a disturbing bright sallow sky, the kind of sky that puts you in mind of old movies and degraded film stock and the pops and crackles incidental to the main story.  Several years ago I made a resolution to journal more and last year I came across a video that suggested I actually re-read those journals, at least those of the previous year, at the beginning of each new year. Technically, I have kept the journal resolution, making daily notes in...
15 comments
Read more

Treacle Season

  Sharing with The Sunday Muse #190 ,  hosted this week by Carrie. Keaton was great in that show—the one with wings— Where he was constantly a [man]child on a ledge  dreaming an angel who became a superhero.   She was a sarcastic (fake?) angel—it was the 80s— But always good, on time, her lessons easy, Easy as it would have been for him to fall.   The metaphor so obvious...but I didn't get it. Nor the easy and obvious good. (/s)   I watch the TV movie every other December Remembering believing in easy And crushing on this character, that city...   Angels should be sweet, sarcastic figures, knowing (like nurses and social workers) we prefer Sleeping on the ledge, reckless to call for "heroes." To clear up any confusion:  there is no Michael Keaton movie we watch every holiday season. Although, if there were...I'd probably watch it.  -- Chrissa
16 comments
Read more

The Soul and The Spine

  Sharing with The Sunday Muse #195 . Come and share! When it blew out the candle, It began to speak, voice low,  eyes dimmer than flame. Jenn believed, once upon a childhood (she's still there... but it's waning), it inhaled fire. Spines, tonight. Gears ladder bones and metal and plastic, all that lived, rungs to heaven. Heaven is a level of space where you can't breathe  so they used to send the dead. When the flame goes, it takes our memories with it. But not bot files. Maybe it believes  she'll sleep easier if bots go breathless, too. It continues murmuring and she pretends she's hearing a confession in a box Like the song her mother plays when the dark stretches  between signals We can handle shocks. She can handle the dark, the small  not-flame of its eyes. It's finally winter!! Which means bitmapped frost on the roofs, cold mornings, and a table full of succulents that are pretty much glaring at me because the kitchen window isn't the same as full su...
14 comments
Read more