107. Lin Hart

Runs free

Poet, satirist, wannabe artist, and fledgling zinester from West Virginia. Married, mother of two. Definitely a cryptid in disguise. Her work has been published by Penstricken and SixtyOddPoets, among others. Explore her poetry zines here

Poems

We Carry Them With Us
Borrowing Books
Is this her way of testing us?
Ivy Grows
Spoiled Harvest
Why is my skin so loud?

We Carry Them With Us

My grandad carried his soul around
with a coffee mug and a subtle grin.
He walked with a mountain resting
on his shoulders and the ocean spray
seeped into his skin.

Spirits followed his footsteps
spectres he couldn't shake
of the lives he saved,
and the ones he couldn't wake.
He'd take a drag off a cigarette

And you'd see them standing
at attention in the smoke.
After he passed away, my family
used to joke and say that, “I was just
like him. Just as stubborn, and proud too.”

I laughed it off, smiling my own subtle grin.
Where did past generations stop
and I, myself, begin?
My mountains were older than his
more rounded, they rested on my hips instead.

My emotions often compared to an ocean
beneath my skin, though my heart
trapsed river paths more often.
I had the same proclivities for cream sherry
and the powerlessness therein.

If you look at my footsteps
they fall heavy and direct.
My spine, a lightning rod as I sit
by the fireside with my coffee mug,
watching ghosts rise in the bonfire smoke.


< < <

Borrowing Books

Sorry I doodled in the margins.
I tried to illustrate pictures pertaining
to the poetry on the pages,

a mourning lamp hops sadly at the bottom of one
and I tried to draw a portrait of you
with thin legs and arms and a smile too.

There is a house we might live in
in the background if
we were made of ink and paper

and I tried to get the kangaroos
just right, grazing quietly next to you
but I’ve forgotten what their tails look like.

I drew a fresh baked pie in the corner for you
it turned out to be more like a cupcake without frosting,
something gone astray in the baking process I suspect.

I drew me as an armadillo running away,
the ears look funny and the shell reminds me
of a turtle scurrying around on a Sunday afternoon.

The trouble I had was in drawing an angel
dancing alone atop a pin, she wanted to look like me
and I didn’t know where to begin.

Most importantly I drew these pictures
so you would think of me thinking of you and waking
at four thirty in the morning to write this poem

like an asterisk star shining
annotating a moment in the pages of our lives,
we may almost share together.

< < <

Is this her way of testing us?

The mountain shakes the frost
wondering if her children will
starve before they freeze.

They show up barefoot at hotels
asking for just one room
for the night, gone by morning.

They hunger, bitter in lines
till doors snap shut, donations
gone, no assistance here.

What charity can hearts have
in a world of white noise,
stark chaos like blizzard snow.

I look to the mountain mother
wearing her first winter shawl
draped over her hair.

I finally see her face for what it is,
I know her name as Mary, and she
has covered her son's eyes from our plight.

< < <

Ivy Grows

a rondel

Ivy grows in the unused mind
a city filling with cracked stone.
Skyscrapers shine like bleaching bone
no memories left there to find,

consequence of thoughts data mined.
One thought remains, standing alone
in city filled with cracked stone
as ivy grows in the unused mind.

The thought is rooted like a street sign
words betraying no sound nor tone,
they read exactly as they're shown.
Dead End street for the faith blind
as ivy grows in the unused mind.


< < <

Spoiled Harvest

a Spenserian Sonnet

The hurricane ripped through the orchard grove
separating roots from soil, from stone
sod musk-scented tumbling treasure trove
of fruit fallen between branches, clawed bone,

Bark broken betrays rings of time known,
truth of nature's benevolent malice
on display as reverence is here shown
as to the animals, it's a palace.

The spoiled harvest becomes a chalice
wherein the next season's young will be born,
the earthen pains become growth’s catalyst
for it's from weathering the brutal storms
That nature grows each bright blessing anew.
With every hurricane, the orchard grew.


< < <

Why is my skin so loud?

Why is my skin so loud?

Raindrops on my skin
A thunder in my brain

Drum drum
Shouldn't complain.

Clothes dripping off my body
Nothing fitting right

Drum drum
Shouldn't complain

Speech a clatter
Words don't matter

Drum drum
Will I shatter?

The music isn't loud enough
To drown out my inner voice

Drum drum
Am I going insane?

A scream echoes within
A sound no one else can hear

Drum drum
Shouldn't complain

The raindrops fall
Reminding me to just breathe

I am always okay.

< < <