Challenge: Write 10 poems this month to celebrate National Poetry Month.
Lightning
You
were the cold air to my warm.
Every time I tried to rise
you crystalized
dropped me down
one terrifying electrical pulse
after another.
I charged and fell to the ground.
The
air outside is electric.
I am drawn, mystified,
bursts of wind on my face
pulling me out, beyond
the trap of my front door.
Hands on the metal fence
eyes wide, heart bursting.
Exhilaration! That scent on the
air…my God! I can feel it!
The
storm approaching, quickly,
violently, with flashes of white
and thunderous cracks
vibrating my spine,
lifting my tiny hairs
tingling, jolting, jarring,
awakening.
Leaves
upturned, showing their whites,
vulnerable, submitting to ozone
and flash of terrifying release,
fingers of God pointing, choosing
ground to fire, fire to tree
tree to Thee.
I
can smell the power,
feel it stirring within me.
Choose me! Choose me!
Please.
Lift me on fiery wing
to Thee, to Thee!
From the safety of the door
behind me, Get back in the house!
You barking at me.
Always barking at me
or growling your menacing growl.
You coward.
Back in the house?
You are the only one safe in there.
Come inside?
Through the kitchen where you
pressed my face to the floor?
Past the stairs where I slept
and wept upon the carpeted corners
reeking of dust and neglect?
Past the bathroom door where
the mirrors know my bruises
and the tear-swelled lids of my eyes
as well as it knows it’s purpose, hanging there.
Like it’s safer in there than out here?
I
know my purpose too, you know.
I intend to rise.
I intend to rise.
I
stand, gripping tight to chain-link
the ground yielding vibration with the
rolling roars, shock waves splintering
connecting, fury unbound
they revolt and celebrate the sky.
(Duplicity is a real bitch.)
Flash!
Again…again!…stir me, shake me
beat me wise,
friction then repose
I
lift, face to the sky
electricity in the air
lifting me higher, higher
leaving you
down
there.
Christina M. Ward 
Leave a Reply