Pick Your Poison (Poem)

Fate wrangled 'round this steering wheel
A-bridging concrete with the grooves
Grinding sad mishaps with the steel
Looking evasive, looking for moves

Punished, rejected - it's all a blur
A flashing eulogy of light
Like a swizzle with a whir
Concocted for wings in the night

Stop! Yield! Connect scattered dots!
A sequence will surely follow
Only sutures to seal these clots
Back where the sanguine does wallow

A key was turned, a path devised
A death toll amassing scores
Cold tombstones are being incised
While morgue vaults slide open their doors

©Expressions by Christine 2010

Night Cats (Poem)

After sunset folds
Her pink blankets
And places them
In neat piles
On the horizon
One thousand black cats
Creep with stealth
And silence
Across the landscape-
Wrapping Earth
With a gray-pawed
Mantle of mist
That curls up to sleep
On folded blankets

(c)Expressions by Christine 2000

Paper Was His Canvas (Poem)

His hand moved
Across the page
Holding the pencil steady
As scribbled serifs and flourishes
Caught the silvery glint
From the two small lamps overhead

As if snatching words
From traveling dreams
He circled and corralled them
With his gaze
From the edge of the table
Through the lines
Creating passageways
By which a reader was transported
Ever drawing out protagonists
And moods
And tragic endings


Paper
Was his canvas.

© Expressions by Christine 11/17/10

Native Soil (Poem)

Following a Sandman’s soul
I searched for steps
Footprints to direct me from here
To there

Along shorelines
Tidal waters washing
Some impressions away
Exposing others
Tempting me, coaxing me
Forward.

Imagining where they would lead
Perhaps to higher stations
Spiraling stairways
To beacons of light
Making lives my duty
To guide them home
From stormy seas.

Or maybe these paths
Would lead
To a seaside grass hut
Humble
Love woven
Through floors and walls.

When at once
I spied discernable keeps
Fallen on the strand
I approached this lowly abode
What once was meant for
Kings and Queens
Opulence eroded

Alas!
All I wanted was a home.

© Expressions by Christine 11/8/10

Photo-Graphic (Poem)

By definition
I write.

Sometimes that’s all I write about-
My passion with a lens
Defining visual words
And tableaus by photographs
Singling things out
Placing them
In pleasing frames
Giving them a voice
Because white whispers
Azure speaks
And magenta shouts

© Expressions by Christine 11/2/10

Death Throes by Jack (Poem)

“Knucklebones”,
He laughed
Amid tossed Hexes and voodoo
As Death dragged on by its Achilles
Kicking and screaming
Refusing to surrender
Inside these pale and peeling walls

Every crooked midnight
Trading melancholia for soothsayers
Soothe-wanters
Soothe-takers

Wretched wits for cobwebs
Donned like forlorn hairnets
Never giving a day longer
But steeling so many away

A haunted spectrum
Between the grays
And the shades
Woeful souls
Dancing on whispering curtains
Playing the game.

© Expressions by Christine 10/27/10

The Burden (Poem)

Your eyes sparkled
And I watched
For reactions
Between and back and forth

As your giddy hands
Presented her
With the crystal vase
Stuffed with Godiva chocolates
Tied up
In cellophane and pretty scarlet-colored ribbons

And “Oh, after I eat all these
Yummy chocolates,
I can put the gorgeous vase
On my mantle”
Wide lipsticked smile – Wide lipsticked smile
Laughter – Laughter
More smiles

Right next to all the other
High-priced fakery
I assume.

When you turned for my gift
Your eyes went sparkle-less
And yes, I am not the excitable type-
Plain paper removed
My obvious thrift store purchase
Feeling like
A burden
That I don’t know what to do with

I weakly smile
As fake as the high-priced fakery
On the mantle
And squeak out a thank you

Not excitable
And not exactly stupid either.

And we all turn
To get on with our happy lives.

© Expressions by Christine 10/22/10