The Army in the Clouds

All over the world, 

people saw hovering in the sky,

clouds,

their outlines shaped as soldiers.

I saw them from my car, 

but wanted a better look.

Pulling over, I got out and examined them.

Some were black, some were white,

and some had gone grey.

All around the planet, 

there were vaporous outlines of all the soldiers

from all the wars throughout all the years.

While looking up at the sky, it started to rain - 

rain falling as tears.

Wherever they were seen, their whispered chant was heard,

and they spoke softly as one:

“Do everything in your power to bring peace to the world

so that we may finally rest.”

 

 

 

The Horror of Dust

Dustbowl days have found us

with stiff masks, choking, and parched,

for love’s morality. This darkness

threatens us. We seek relief, sustenance

from the deeply rooted grasses torn, displaced,

malefaction is all that is blooming. 

On the still screen the dead lie shriveled-stilled,

a common enough image every day.

There's no tears from the sky, to ease the

furious winds of pain. No tears. Eyes seer. On cracked ground

where feed sack skin hangs from skeletal frames

much deprived of the sensible beating

of hearts with hope. Safety and serenity lie as fossils on

barren, infertile land.

Yet, we must still offer prayers for solace; 

send them to seed the sky, 

with old memory of peaceful footprints, 

even though no longer evident from these vapid eyes, 

before eternal desolation

and the darkness of the dust envelops us all, 

and the wind takes us.

© 2022

 

Thank you to Stephanie J. Bardy and David K. Montoya for publishing this poem in the May issue of The World of Myth Magazine.

https://jayzohub.com/darkmythproductions/theworldofmyth/107/poems/banshee.html

Banshee
By: Linda Imbler 

Hail to the inexplicable bookkeeper, 
who announces that there will be those departing. 
She does not give us a boding landslide of names, 
only trumpets the unvarying strident alarm, 
ear-splitting in its seriousness.

Shrill soprano notes, 
removing all silence from the air, 
cracking open the sky. 
A sound that falls as a superhuman cuff.

Her wise impudence may be felt as displeasing and frightful. 
Even so, 
we should express our gratitude for her talents, 
to she who wears the unsubtle crown of foreshadow, 
so that we wake each morning prepared to accept today's losses.

-

 

Thank you so very much to Poet Vatsala Radhakeesoon for the honor of having my poem included alongside some wonderful writers as we celebrate International Dylan Thomas Day.

https://vatsalaradwritingworld.home.blog/2022/05/11/international-dylan-thomas-day-2022-mauritius-2/

Is Dark Really Right?

In the stilly night, we reviewed our lives,
recalled our best treks through the deepest dells,
through steep wooded valleys called The Dingle.

Handed glad tidings to watchmen we passed,
smiling through dreams, strolling in the green mead,
through aged eyes, searched for high empyrean.

Wondered our fate as the ether darkened,
strove to espy all that made life favored,
tried to keep our thoughts from going afar.

Yet, the sun set with all celerity,
cold seeped into bones, turned corpses niveous.
We were warned such gelid fate would happen.

The best son of Wales gave us the caution,
do not go gently, we should have listened.