Poetry Meetup

I'm having a bit of trouble writing today's writing class assignment. Mostly I think because it's late and I'm tired. I've had a full day dealing with the real things in life - things outside my writer's world. So I thought I'd list the two poems I'd written for The Poet's Table poetry Meetup that I missed on Thursday. This week's poetry prompt was Water, Water Everywhere. I didn't get a chance to read them to the group, so here they are.

It’s Raining and I’m a Long Way From Home

the mizzle begins

to wet our faces

and my t-shirt

i stop the old Harley

beneath the underpass

before i make the long winding trek

into the rockies and beyond

shall i stop or shall i go?

a question i’ve asked

a hundred times

as if tlaloc

will answer me

i gaze upward

to find some clue

to what the future holds

for two open-air travelers

who have but one raincoat

yet all i see

is an evergreen mountain

regal and powerful and tall

whose peaks i cannot see

for the sinister black raincloud

has chopped off its head

we wait

and we laugh

to fend off our fear

which we must not show

for surely then the mongrel

shall envelop us in its deluge

and eat us.

she snaps shut the rain suit

and mounts the pad behind me

with a hug that’s tighter and different

i point the old bike into the blackness

like a sword

Somewhere Beyond the Sea

when i stand at the sea

and look westward

something ancient

and organic occurs within

an essence of promise or hope

of something else out there

that’s richer and purer

and beckons me

if only i will come

i have never been saddened

by the setting of the western sun

rather tears of joy in the knowing

that my sunset is the sunrise

of another shore

silently and powerfully

i am beckoned

by the blissful warmth

of what lies beyond

the rolling cold of the sea

and if i look just right

i can see and feel

a thousand ancestors

in two perfectly endless rows

one row looking seaward

the other gazing back

like standing alone

between two mirrors

then it comes to me

i am their proxy

they have stood in this place

and felt what i feel

as they yearned across the ocean

to the setting of the western sun