Lake of Lost Souls
I love poetry! I love the way a good poet can take the most mundane thing, the most everyday of events and make it magic. I love the way the words get inside your head and swirl around like wine, tinting everything with their flavor. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and that's true when its the perfect picture. But the perfect words can paint a different perfect picture every time you come back to them, a different perfect picture for every person who reads them.
Poems come to me at the oddest times, usually when I don't have hands free to write them down. This one popped into my head as I was driving to work on Monday. There's a lake (several actually) all misty and swaddled by autumn trees on the way. And I had to hold the words in my head, running through them over and over, until I finally got to my desk. Luckily there was this Poem Walk Contest hosted by bullishink and dusty journal going on and, double lucky, it fit the theme.
Lake of Lost Souls
Mist
rises off the lake in wisps and tufts that remind
me of -
I jerk my mind away
from that edge and focus
instead on how the changing
leaves turn to stained glass in the morning
light, on sucking in deep
breaths of crisp air that leave
a clean feeling like a memory
of peppermint at the back
of my throat.
Wind swirls dead
leaves into eddies and whispers
my name through the trees. I shiver deeper
into a summer-storage-scented
fleece and force my feet
to jog.
Perhaps today.
The curve is on me
suddenly, pavement still stained
with skid marks and the stink
of smoking rubber.
He waits.
My feet slow. My heart quickens.
Perhaps today
I'll join him. Perhaps…
Sun crests the last
rise and lights
the milky tendrils
of mist drifting
along the surface of the lake.
Not today.
Posted with Blogsy
3 comments
Trackbacks/Pingbacks
- Poem Walk 2012 Winners - BULLISH INK - [...] Lake Of Lost Souls [...]
This is absolutely lovely and rife with dark undertones!! Wonderful!! I am so glad you joined our Poem Walk!! Yay!! Thank you!!
Beautifully evocative…
There’s a lovely darkness to this poem, and some beautiful imagery. I love the line “that leave / a clean feeling like a memory / of peppermint at the back / of my throat.” Such a perfect description!