What happened to you? Spouting allegations I recognize you no more You are a strange aberration Like a two headed monster With whom am I dealing An anomaly of a man Who can leave me reeling
Unable to collect myself when you turn on a dime My feelings muddled Being slow is now a crime Confidence has been lost I bounce off your arrogance Spinning and confused I doubt my relevance
I am innocent, yet you raise your eyebrows and shake your head I saw you pull a face thinking I didn’t notice It’s what you do never what I said
I am in the crosshairs Second time this week I looked the wrong way or maybe said something you didn’t want to hear You are bad-tempered and one of us will pay
Always an excuse to justify your mood it’s this or it’s that How convenient! What is obvious as always it will end in a spat
Innocent but guilty I never look for a fight Yet I get to bounce off your personality zig zagging like a pinball until I am dizzy and then I’m trounced
Light filtering through the gauze-like sky Silvery white against the black of trees The water calm on the surface of the lake Mist clearing too slowly in the cool of the breeze
The drilling of an early morning woodpecker In the distance was the only sound Surroundings reflective of what is most times bleak A monochrome life where happiness drowned
Living in grey tones of black mixed with white No clear definition or so it seems Waiting in shadows where the sun never shines No smiling faces Or technicolor dreams
Is it safer here? Where regret Does not call And one just exists Does the barometric pressure Suppress all hope Suffocating wishes In some ironic twist?
Closeted in darkness Innocuous to influences of disappointment Where pain cannot reach Will that light under a bushel Ever burn so bright? Lighting the way To an inevitable breach
And last but not least, now for our final prompt for this year! I’d like you to try your hand at a minimalist poem. What’s that? Well, a poem that is quite short, and that doesn’t really try to tell a story, but to quickly and simply capture an image or emotion. Haiku are probably the most familiar and traditional form of minimalist poetry, but there are plenty of very short poems out there that do not use the haiku form. There’s even an extreme style of minimalism in the form of one-word and other “highly compressed” poems. You don’t have to go that far.
