The Beast (Day 405)

The beast is stirring. Do you hear her? 

Roaring like war in the middle distance?

Ouroboros consuming her own tail, we 

saw her curled and assumed she dreamed, 

spanning the globe with her iron grip, 

squeezing ever tighter as she slept, 

mistook her eternal cycle for a promise, 

assumed the promises she made she kept,

missed seeing the signs of life simply suspended.

The beast is waking. Do you hear her? 

Hissing and steaming from on high, 

Pele’s rapturous rest was interrupted, and 

with a great volcanic sigh she stretched and rose, 

forked tail unfurling slowly, blotting out the sun,

casting an insidious shadow we didn’t know 

would burn rather than freeze, would bring us 

to our knees, not to our senses, after all.

The beast is rearing. Do you hear her? 

Readying for battle on a field of fire we 

refused to quench, a nightmare no one believed 

would form again. Friends grow chill and soon 

their hatred blossoms into enmity. Enemies’ poison 

grows more deadly still. And we, the unprepared, 

freeze in her gaze’s glare, we helpless prey, 

assuredly the fierce predator’s intended kill.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Fantasy Dimentions

One Shakes (Day 243)

one shakes off 

the droplets of pewter sky and

the dog-damp air settling in cracks and

the iridescent fairy dust of adolescent longing

because now 

powder puff snowbanks have given way

to faded crevasses   shade-flooded and 

rimmed with quicksilver

how is one to live 

when golden lines of poison goose-step 

down boulevards of half-remembered dreams?

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: Public Domain

What You Saw (Day 218)

What you saw

through the glass

that night

eyes blazing

with bitter fear

What you heard 

that growl

white knuckles

hair flying howling 

with rage pacing 

and prowling like 

a caged tiger

What you saw

tore you apart

and engulfed you

engulfed your heart

but it could not 

will never 

take it 

away 

from us

(c) 2017 by Hannah Six

Image: StockSnap

Blue Fish Fly (Day 206)

Blue fish fly and catfish 

cry, on fence-posts 

beneath an apricot moon.

It’s June, and the world 

is beautiful—in bloom, 

our world is beautiful—

rising from peace, 

like a distant choir, listen 

when the wind shrugs 

her shoulders, the notes 

draped like lace on the trees. 

It’s Monday, the world is 

welcoming us, arms open, 

with a grandmother’s love, 

and maybe the worst is over, 

or almost, and maybe 

you know all the answers, 

things are already better, 

and maybe it’s not so 

frightening, watching 

the shining blue fish fly, and 

hearing the thoughtful catfish 

cry out their poems, 

high on their fence-posts 

beneath the apricot moon.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: Kolisberg via Wikimedia

Up Late (Day 203)

Last night, we stayed up

late, my companions and I,

lulled into insomnia by

some stark-raving guy. 

Drawn like moths to 

the flickering blue screens

we held, lights on, tethered 

to the world by a handful of

characters, all chattering

away, every line rippling

with anxiety. Journalists,

artists, hucksters and me,

a smattering of fear-mongers 

among us, a meeting 

of minds like and unlike. 

Nonsensical rantings had 

scared us, but by midnight, 

it took effort to care. And that

saturation is the strange stuff 

of nightmares, the creep of 

ambivalence more dangerous

than words.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: by 809499, via Pixabay

Singing Alouette (Day 196)

singing Alouette   unaware 

of the threat behind the rolling words 

which   one day   she’ll wish she could 

forget   when the plucking of the little bird 

disturbs her brave heart   disrupts her 

tender soul   a bower of deep green 

dreams   hidden high among the pears  

seated on a V   longing for admittance 

to a world she does not know   for questions

proving what her answers show

pushing back a darkness she knows well  

a slippery pet  claws at her family tree

reckless   overwhelmed   she takes a stand

determined not to let her feelings show

she plants her feet   a warrior   sword at hand     

and stares down her fire-breathing foe

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six