The Chocolate Chip Country

On the dragon breeding game, Flight Rising, there are "parentless" eggs that you can find. A group of us hatched a bunch of random eggs and then tried to make Valentine's dragons out of them. Below is my dragon, her familiar, and the submission I included with her.



Forever

Ice-skin
With stained wings;
Wolf-breath
With third eyes;
Hunt sharers,
Claw print and ghost mark
Step as one.

Endless ice.
Chains of black water.
Bright eye frozen
Open,
Warm,
Sun-touched.

Fierce ice hunter
Dons the sun
And seeks its mate.
Ghost-eyes guards her
And knows not why.

Forever.

Someone nominated this poem for a Rhysling award in the short poem category. I just finished replying to the notification.

Thank you, mysterious nominator! Seeing that email Thursday morning made my day.

One of the side effects of writing so many sonnets has been a more active muse,willing to take on other subjects. Even in sestina form.

Data Entry

Sitting and typing, flying across keys,
Listing little things; Name, Spouse, Occupation;
Filling blanks to create an entry.
The turn of digits in intricate dance,
Pouring data into screen after screen
Every bit correct, to the last number.

Some claim this job makes the heart number;
Doors in the soul close with keys
Lost in that pallid, glowing screen
That stands at the center of the occupation,
Stealing us from the eternal dance
Til we can't even mourn its careless entry.

And the heartless work of making entry
Erodes us by inches. So, we number
The hours and minutes until we can dance
To the artful whims of some tables and keys
Flickering with life as the sole occupation
Of musicians listed on a miniature screen.

What kind of filter can we use to screen
Heartlessness and tedium from its entry
Into the grind of our daily occupation,
When all of our work is reduced to number
And letter and the clatter of keys
Where only our fingers are allowed to dance?

There is more than data in the dance
Between my work on one side of the screen
And the person in whose trust these keys
Are held that allow me intimate entry.
Each field described by name or number
Demands of me a respectful occupation.

While I work at this distant occupation
I join with that soul in digital dance,
Reminded to carefully audit each number
For the tiniest mistake within this screen
Can allow misfortune terrible entry.
I am the guardian of these keys.

No mindless occupation serves this screen,
But the dance of love. So, every entry
I count each number and watch my keys.

I'm still writing sonnets to the remaining prompts from so long ago!

Prompted by ariestess

To the ancients, the sea was a dangerous place
Full of great monsters; the kraken, the whale.
As he bent to the struggle with oar and sail,
A sailor often begged Poseidon for grace.
How pleasant it was to see a familiar face!
The playful seal that chased away fear,
Clowning about where the shore was near,
And crowning each rock with a sprawling brace.

But the sailor that smiled at sight of a seal
Oft changed his mind when he returned home.
For the wife he thought of with each empty night
Had been charmed away by the same playful zeal
And kisses that tasted of the ocean's foam.
O selkie, you stole our sailor's delight!

Prompted by haikujaguar's words for this week.

And That's Why He's the Captain

We'd sailed three weeks from port
In the Erubescent Tart
When the ghost ship ran us down
With murder in its heart.

The bony galleon drew abaft
And we all drew our swords,
When the water began to darkle,
And ice grew on the cords.

Now our main calling is fortune.
We're a seedy lot, it's true,
But if you risk enchanted seas,
A charm might see you through.

Old Three Eyes has a hobby;
Whenever we get to shore,
He seeks a braird of moly
To grow within the store.

So while we hacked the bloated dogs
And cursed the wintry air,
Old Three Eyes quit the embattled deck
And plucked his garden bare.

He exploded from the hold below
And released his fearsome howl,
Hurtling blossoms like grenades
With every daunting growl.

We burned the vessel with its crew.
For proof, we kept the sail.
No wight will touch our lovely tart
And live to tell the tale.

He crawls to me, wobbly even with hands and knees;
I lean down and hold out my hands.
First one hand is grasped, then two.
He pushes down against them, and rises to his knees.
Now the hard part. I lift my hands a little;
He pushes again and struggles, makes it to his feet.
Hands gripping mine tight, I watch him grin and sway.

Dance with me, my child.
Someday, you will grasp some other woman's hands,
And you will hold each other up,
Hold each other tight,
But today, you dance with me.

For that_guy_zach ages ago..

Constantinople

We built this city
On eternity's blueprint;
An edifice of forever,
A monument to God,

But we live in time.
Time ate the stones;
It drank our health;
It stole our strength.

The city was of the world;
The world laid it low.
We wept at what was wrought.

All worldly things pass away.
We who mourned mere moonlight
Will inherit the sun.

Two more poems from my last feast of poetry prompt below!

For anher

Something always goes wrong on the first day of school.
The rest of the year is fine, as a rule,
but something goes wrong on that first day of school.

But it has to happen, or the year is cursed.
If all goes well, then that's the worst-

It may be something large and hairy,
It may be something small and scary,
It always happens, so be wary.

Something must go wrong, so here I am
With a match in the kitchen, and grease in the pan.


For wyld_dandelyon

The Chocolate Chip Country

Oh won't you come with me
To the chocolate chip country?
There the marshmallow fluff birds fly
Across a hardcrack sky.

The children chase the gumdrop lights
of lightning bugs on summer nights,
And cinnamon dusts the butterfly wings
That're caught in nets of licorice strings.

Oh won't you come with me
To the chocolate chip country?
There the candyfloss flowers grow
Planted in smiles and bows.

Where every bend of a rainbow will
Yield seven flavors when distilled,
And sugar swans swim around and round
Where the taffy top cattails are found.

Oh won't you come with me
To the chocolate chip country?
There the caramel kitty-cats yawn
Snoozing in spearmint lawn.

Chocolate Chip Country turned out to be a song, so I'm making an offer. If all of you can get ten people to come read and comment who haven't commented before, I will hunt down some recording software and sing it for you. They don't have to comment on this post- I have comment notification on, so they might prefer other poetry posts or my world-building musings.

It would figure that he's the origin of the phrase.

Danegeld

IT IS always a temptation to an armed and agile nation,
To call upon a neighbour and to say:
"We invaded you last night - we are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away."

And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
And the people who ask it explain
That you’ve only to pay ’em the Dane-geld
And then you’ll get rid of the Dane!

It is always a temptation to a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say:
"Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away."

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we’ve proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.

It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray,
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say:

"We never pay any one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost,
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that plays it is lost!"

-Rudyard Kipling

I had only 6 requests, so here are all six haiku:

Washington D.C.
Spring brings us a festival
Sakura April

I want to be strong,
swift as wind, fierce in love, brave-
You, my exemplar

The impossible
Is my own invention, so
I can draw Muchness!

A distant bonfire
Casts its sparks across our sky.
What did you wish for?

In this bright blue vault,
Lines of distance with no nests.
But I still found you.

I see blood spatters,
Tumbled chairs, fading eye light.
My work here is done.

Go Here to see the comments and prompts.

This was a quick, fun exercise! Thank you, all who requested a poem. :)