Experience

The north wind blew me here,

A trickster,

Leaving me stranded in the tempest of my mind.

Whispered breezily of "experience." 

An elder apparition in a red shawl once warned me away from her home,

Now she guards the the bridge so I cannot leave.

Her hair falls in long braids,

And her face is marked with wisdom. 

"Experience." She seems to say with her gaze.

The tempest rages on.

I have made the wolves my friends,

But they are not tame.

Sometimes I feel as savage.

Sometimes I feel nothing at all. 

Sometimes I feel the harsh hand of experience. 

I watch the village burn away in my mind.

I close my hands around the burning embers.

The bridge has sunk.

The woman in red becomes the red earth,

And I become the north wind,

Rushing and wisping away,

Until I realize.

I am the tempest.

And I can't escape experience. 

Imperfect Love

Counting down the days 'til a broken heart,

I am broken.

I wish you could fix me, 

But all the shards in your hands

Can't be bound by love.

Only time heals

And a beg your patience,

My heart bleeds and my mind blanks

And there is only numbness.

Love me and I will love you,

This messy, difficult, imperfect, beautiful

Love. 

Inspired

I thought at first
I had the words but I lacked the experience;
Now I have the experience,
But can't find the words.

I am reminded of more inspiring times,
Of literary figures
Who rose like the sun,
Illuminating my journey.

Many of them have now faded away,
Drifted out of sight
Perhaps extinguished
With the suddeness
Of a candle being snuffed by a draft.

I hold the last lantern,
Straining my eyes in the gloom,
Dragging my feet in slow loops,
Like pencil lead
Rewriting the chapters of my life.

Scandal

This poem is a creation using 15 words from a random word generator. 

Have you heard the scandal?

I had the appointment from hell!

I tread lightly into my boss's office

Wearing my red anorak with the fur lining.

It was my birthday, 

And overall I would have preferred

A fix of hot cocoa

To that talk.

Popping my head around the corner,

My boss started in on me 

About the commercial,

And how my stray innovation

Was earning me a place in the doghouse.

Needless to say it was the meeting of the century! 

Dragonless

You used to amuse me,

To muse me,

My audience

My critic

My patron.

I'd dream of dragons

Soaring free

In cloudless skies,

But now it's grey.

And you are gone,

My inspiration fades away.

I dally through a silent night

And sleep away a lonely day.

My muse is gone,

My thoughts have dulled,

My pen is stashed away.

Smoke Screen

My world burns,
Literally and metaphorically.

Toxic smoke covers the landscape.
The wind wafts the scent,
Of one of God's greatest campfires.

Climate change is real,
But is this a product of it,
Or is it part of the natural order of things...
Weather that ebbs and flows?
Nature is not as predictable as we like to believe.
Men and women like to dominate nature,
But in the end the Earth will outlive us all!

You can deny climate change,
Species will die,
Until the Earth cannot sustain us.
And we will be just the latest of the mass extinctions;
We'll go the way of the dinosaurs,
But Earth will survive us
(And cockroaches).

We live unsustainably,
Pursuing a culture of mass consumption,
Poisoning ourselves slowly.
Is it too late to reverse this devastation?
World leaders pretending not to see it,
Denying science,
Silencing dissent.

Our world burns.

And Mother Nature will be cooking s'mores
Long after we are gone,
Telling ghost stories about humanity,
Cautionary tales whispered in the fossil record,
Left for future species to find.

Pepsi

In my dreams

Monks laugh

And drink Pepsi 

Under tarps in markets

Where the air is thick and warm

Wafting scents of spices and fish

Coking sausages

And pungent durian

Eyes adjust from glaring sun

To shadowy passages

Between stalls

In my dreams

I weave my way 

Through colourful crowds

In loose clothing

Past jungles of ferns and orchids

And crates of fresh yellow mangoes

Spiky rambutans

Plump dragon fruit

Chasing a woman on a mission

For fried potatoes and plantains

The monks in burnt orange

Have nowhere to go

Content drinking syrupy liquid

Relaxing in the afternoon heat

Present and aware