The Poet's Breath

i met you in the sun

you wrote your poetry
on clouds
blue on white
a daisy, your pen

until grey streaks pushed
your kind aside
deeper and deeper
into the edges
pulling petals apart
a litany to tiny ends

the wilt of a berry
on your breast
rebirth          it's red
this new ink
the leaves your pages

poetry, your breath.


copyright/all rights reserved Audrey Howitt 2016


posted for poets united

Breathing Lessons

The dead must breathe sometimes,
inhale their memories,

let them sink quietly
into revenants,
scrub them clean,
until like bone,
they shimmer in the dark.


copyright/all rights reserved Audrey Howitt 2016

Process Note: This piece has been hanging around in this short form for a while now. I am not sure it is a poem yet, but every time I try to expand it into something longer, I fail. So for now, I will share it with you as it is and see if it morphs into something else later.

Posted for Poets United Pantry

Blunted

i am stuck in sadness
its teeth
sharper than i recall

its fear
an ooze
that seeps

liquids never run--
they fade
leaving stains
brown
and red in the sun


copyright/all rights reserved Audrey Howitt 2016

Poets United


We are waiting for xrays for my 14 year old dog tomorrow.  She is in pain and not putting any weight on her back left leg.  I am fearful and sad.

Symbiosis

i am the ordinary
the middle
--aged
--class

feeling tenterhooks
in the small of my back

lodge in the place
where love used to roost

arthritis builds its condo spread
 on that tract now

a co-habitation --
a formless tendency
toward bilingual fluency.



copyright/all rights reserved Audrey Howitt 2016

Posted for Poets United Poetry Pantry

A Cuppa

she went first.

it was her way
to settle things early on
broach unpleasantries
teacup in hand

launch earl grey
through spit
shine until done

crepe smile
fingers bent
ditching the cup
in favor of
a lily.


copyright/all rights reserved Audrey Howitt 2016

Posted for Poets United Pantry

The Center of Things

By Alexa Szlávics - Own work, http://www.szlavicsalexa.com permission: http://www.szlavicsalexa.com/licence/licence.html, GFDL, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34083052

I am the darkness,

awaiting exposition

by peripheral light.

You come,fear etched

in the many colors of your face.

Do you know that you flow

from my center--

your beauty, from mine?

I will sheath you in death's stillness

but for a moment

before numinous breath

finds you 

and calls you away.

copyright/all rights reserved Audrey Howitt 2016

Come share your poetry today at the Pantry

Portraits at Rest

A Rock, by Thyago Hills

wikimedia commons

cool eyes
leak quietude
in umbra.

silence, the mantle i wear.


copyright/all rights reserved Audrey Howitt 2016



Sanaa's prompt is Rest. Come join us for a feast of poems at A Dash of Sunny

Also linking up to Poets United Poetry Pantry