Alchemy (Day 30, #NaPoWriMo 2013)

Alchemy abounds these days,
Lovers like us seldom part,
I rest, stunned, and stare at you,
And you at me.

I'm not timid, nor you weak--
When we revel in desire,
You succomb like tender fields,
In August's blaze.

Fruits imperiled by the sun,
Which to mud has dried the stream,
Still taste succulent and sweet,
Upon the tongue.

(c) Hannah Six, 2013

Alchemy (Day 30, #NaPoWriMo 2013)

Untitled (Day 28, #NaPoWriMo 2013)

Untitled
By Hannah Six

Like October's pumpkin,
sliced open and
scraped
clean
with a metal spoon,
the inside of
my heart
has been stripped,
scoop by scoop,
of its tender,
bruised
and fertile flesh.

Untitled (Day 28, #NaPoWriMo 2013)

Little Hen (Day 27, #NaPoWriMo 2013)

Little Hen
By Hannah Six

Listen, little hen…

Before you take another
peck of the feed
that filthy old
man
tossed down,
Tell me…

Has that particular brand of
seed
ever tasted
as good
as you thought it would?

Didn’t think so.

So, why don’t you go
find yourself,
instead,
a sweet treat
to take your mind off
the infernal heat of
that barnyard
you’ve been around
(more than) a few times?

Or, better yet,
give seed up altogether
and try taking a bet
on worms...
They may not look as tasty,
but they would never
break your
beak.

Little Hen (Day 27, #NaPoWriMo 2013)

Angels (Day 26, #NaPoWriMo 2013)

Angels
By Hannah Six

Vain rocks and mountains,
fall on and hide these words!
Oh, depart, ye cursed everlasting!

All suffered insufficient lack
and rampant consumption,
removed, though,
after the rather haphazard
and imaginative world
began to write fantasies --

miniature adulthood kingdoms of
avid readers
literary ladies
and pilgrims.

The poetry used children’s
creative endeavors
a year after their deaths, when
toy soldiers
each
selected
a favorite.



Note: Today's poem is an erasure, from Jane Eyre (pg. xvii of the cheapo Barnes & Noble mass-market sized paperback). Click here to learn more about erasures.

Finally, if you enjoyed THIS erasure, you might also enjoy Not Normal (an erasure from the 2013 Mini brochure handed out at the Philadelphia Auto Show) and Biochemical Engineering (another erasure, this time from an amalgam of information about biochemical engineering from Wiki and Duke University).

Angels (Day 26, #NaPoWriMo 2013)

Harbor (Day 24, #NaPoWriMo 2013)

Harbor
by Hannah Six

lustrous febrile cloak
confiding in
my treacherous extremity
anchored fast
in swirling gelid dusk
devoid of words
my fingers entangled
in sleek and golden safety
reclining against
a piercing, luminous night

Harbor (Day 24, #NaPoWriMo 2013)

April 19 (Day 19, #NaPoWriMo 2013)

April 19
By Hannah Six

My sister's birthday...
Her eyes sparkle, like champagne,
Through reading glasses

April 19 (Day 19, #NaPoWriMo 2013)

No. 2 (NaPoWriMo 2013)

Chickadees, Starlings, and Jays

By Hannah Six

Outside the house

in which I do not live,

a sycamore is budding, branches festooned

with tight, furled leaves and

chickadees, starlings, and jays.

Fertile, rich-brown, the fields

are plowed and moist,

while, in the distance, a faint lime haze

gently slides winter's drab cloak

from the hills' broad shoulders.

Outside the house

in which I do not live,

an ocher-breasted warbler, small as my thumb, trills,
announcing his return and
the grand opening

of a brand new nest

in the same old spot--

where, yearly, the black snake

invades and eats the eggs--

under the eaves of the porch,

where I spent many a fine day spinning;

for company, a glass of tea

so cold it would leave

a dark, spreading circle

on the ground.

Soon, the cool morning mist,

summoned by, and succumbing to, sunrise,

will hover, protectively,

over the creek-carved valleys.

The afternoons will shimmer with heat and insect songs

and swirls of dust, the rumbling of thunder

mumbling to itself beyond the western ridge.

And a million fireflies,

like fairy-lights, strung among the apple trees,

will flash, in three-quarter time,

in the twilight, the blue hour,

outside the house

in which I do not live.

No. 2 (NaPoWriMo 2013)

No. 1 (NaPoWriMo 2013)

Untitled

Coarse surface, cloaked in

Glaze of crystalline water,

Embraces each hue.

No. 1 (NaPoWriMo 2013)