The Iron Poet Challenge #33
Poetic Form: Free Verse
Theme/Prompt: Fear of Missing Out/Fear of Regret
(either or both fears– stated or implied)
Ode to Tommy Tucker
Sean Bracken
Tommy Tucker traipsing
Through thoroughfares thronging
Thrusting thriving thieving
Listless loiterers lingering
Leering, longing, lusting
Letching lurking langered
Sirens soliciting seduction
Storyville suggestive
Salacious sensual sensation
Promising promiscuous persuasion
Personal procurement providing
Pleasure pain perversion
Tommy Tucker trembling
Thinking terror tumbling
Troubling thoughts tormenting
Fearing finding failure
Fearing faking feelings
Fulfilling final fantasy
***
(Untitled)
Nerisha Kemraj
Turning back the hands of time,
Would things work out some other way had I chose different?
Trying to step in a new direction to make things work but thoughts bring forth hindrance.
Should I stay or should I go?
Lest I should lose it all,
I’m caught between the two.
On either side mountains loom,
A raging river in between
Music in the distance,
An air of melancholy,
Adding to my blues,
The horn blows,
And a clock rings in a new hour
The road forks out,
Waiting to be tread on,
Stuck where I am,
My decision holds me back,
My fear of the unknown.
***
Escaping Time
Michael Cottle
Destiny
Flows into itself with the passing of things
Time
Escapes us as we slip in the midst of things
Branches
Paths that we could or should have taken
Our Road
Stretches on to leave behind the forsaken
Insomnia
Not for the lack of the branch we are on
But Sadness
Simply for the opportunities that are gone
***
la douleur exquise
Violet Teagan
honeyed blues
queen
stretched beneath the sky
smoke-stacked
and diamond lit
makes wish upon a star
craves
the shadows-maker
half-hidden in the dark
surrenders
with cresting, lotic waves
but even in her blackest depths,
he mirrors other fire
every night a war,
a Pyrrhic victory
the salt-mouthed gulf,
it swallows him
he pulls her to the sea
***
Josh Flores
Artificial clouds swirl around:
Thickening the air,
Obstructing vision,
Obliterating musky scents.
The round shrine
Acts as an alter
To the bronze-skinned
Soul-eating Goddess.
A bottle of spirits,
A glass of tallowed flame,
A dish of smoldering ashes.
Missing a willing sacrifice.
Drumbeat matches
The cadence of my chest.
The horns draw out my
Deep dark desire.
The piano keys whisper, beckon.
The singer’s sensuous voice
Licks my ear, sending chills
To my groin.
Brown jades set in pearl
Find me looking.
Legs tremble. Don’t move
Don’t fall. Don’t go!
Feet propel forward.
Time does not pause.
Standing to be judged or
Worse yet, be dismissed.
Her full red lips
Acknowledge my want
With a slight smile.
Turn! Run! But I can’t.
Though the promise
Of her touch and the night
Will curse me forever,
I am tonight’s victim.
***
Shine Over Storyville
Matt Henderson
Oh, Storyville moonshine
that great blind orb shines on you
magnanimously
cool level even
and deadly indifferent
It just shines
all the way, all the way,
all the way down
It ain’t taking nobody’s name
and no one is giving out real names
anyway
It is just shining light
as far as it can reach
all the way
down to the deep and the dark
and the into the dirty
casting shadows on faces
who know shadows
and alleys, and ten cent cribs or better
if you’re rolling high
these faces know shadows
better than they know the light of day
This is where people make deals
or play games with the night
heat rising on the dark streets
Summertime jazz or a doorway
lit up all red and full of hum and buzz
calling card for a little queen of spades
hearts hard like diamonds
Everybody wants something and nobody wants to miss it
My favorite little red rider broke me down hard
when she wouldn’t let me take her away and
she knew I couldn’t hide my heart in the Storyville shine.
