Author: Gypsie-Ami Offenbacher-Ferris

Wait he said
until I’m free
He did not know when
or if it’d ever be

My tree stands regal
in the dark
alone

It’s twinkling lights
cast arcing rainbows
about

A lovely red skirt
wraps around its trunk
barren

A faux tree this one
not like my trees
before

The golden glow on top
warms the small room
coldly

I sit and stare
upon its lonely beauty
contemplating

Beautiful would it still be
if no eyes ever made that
decree?

Bottom feeders do not know
that they are in fact
bottom feeders

Having been born
into that station in life
they know no other way to be

Eating excrement daily
is a daily thing no more abhorrent
than steak to a carnivore

In the rare instance a bottom feeder
is hooked by a hungry fisherman
it is tossed quickly away in disgust

Unless of course
that hungry fisherman
is more than just hungry

Should the fisherman
perched high upon his watercraft
find himself starving and weak

Then that which was deemed
disgusting to purview previously
now becomes appetizing and appealing

The fisherman eats his fill
until sated and then
discarding the leftovers –

they sink in pieces
back to the bottom
once again

What you have wrought
upon this Earth –
upon me
is blasphemy!

Look what you have
done to my children,
my flowers, my trees,
my creatures!

To you have I given
a paradise never such
as seen before anywhere,
on any planet!

To me you have laid waste
my lands, my soil and air
without regard and unbelievably,
without care!

I am sorry my loves, vegetation all,
the four legged, the no legs,
the warm and cold blooded
– I am done!

In response to Maria Antonia’s Photo Challenge #11 / Window

Amid the traffic and blaring horns
drivers sitting rigid stiff confined
within the controlled atmospheres
of their stick shift and automatic conveyances
halted for the moment by the snarled congestion
of holiday travelers and local rush-hour workers

I turned and pressed the window down button
releasing a portion of my glass and metal enclosure
enabling a treat of fresh wintry air to pass
across my over-warm and blushing cheeks
still reddened by my rarely released and never seen
out-burst of frustration and temper

It was then within the brush and dried thistles
lining the side of this overused
and ill thought out highway
I heard the faint but lovely chirping
of a wee little bird perched upon
a thin thorny twig looking fit as a fiddle

He sang and he sang with all of his might
as though saying goodbye or maybe hello
to all of the humans in line on this night
going nowhere so fast on this stalled pavement lot
I thought as I sat contemplating the scene
what a beautiful world and gave thanks once again

Life is like a soap bubble
squeezed from an opening
impossible to fit through

Popping forward into a glaringly bright world
full of undercurrents, tumultuous waves and chaos
bobbing around without perceived purpose or direction

Catching a ride on a stream
of atmospheric happenstance
ignorant of its intent to be tsunami or gentle tide

Surviving, expanding and growing
during the bumpy but wonderful journey
to become a glowing, colorful soap bubble

Sometimes collapsing beneath the strain
of gravity and the rough path dictated
by fate, timing and the original soapy ingredients

All bubbles, the big and small, fast and the slow ones,
the multi-colored and the nearly invisible orbs
bounce around until finally popping out of existence –
Gone

Stuck within the echo of life’s clock
rooted in a past that slips away
before my eyes

The sound of footsteps
upon each hour loop through years
of creaks that stir a frightened imagination

Before I open my eyes to look
the past has claimed the future
imagination becomes reality

Always a tag-a-long
the dangler
the third
the one left behind
in an emergency

Never number two
number one a long-lost dream
something little girls
and old women dream about
in a world where they do not exist

Contemplating the role
of the ever-present
but seldom seen
or noticed third
needed by couples and groups

Time passes slowly
the tag-a-long
sinks into despair
weary of the chase
retreats to become – a loner