Solitude of the Crowd

 

“Venetian Doorway” by Mari French

 

looms a doorway

that leads unto where

no one certainly knows

to approach it

requires blind faith in

the secular scripture

of unconscious memory

history fallen to scythes

it requires that faith

or the motherless hope

that the scarified legs

who have pushed upon paths

through past portals

to demophobe suffering

this time will somehow

safe carry away from

the clamoring silence

of unliving voices unnerving

insistent with praise

for the terrified solitude

dead in the midst

of the crowd

Behind the Round Door

(I don’t normally work from prompts, but this one tickled my imagination.)

From Sue Vincent’s Blog: Daily Echo

someone kind
someone gentle
whose dreams have no edges
whose skin bears no scars
no experience pained by
sharp corners of life
here lives someone who laughs
with big round belly sounds
sees the world with a settled
polite equanimity
wanting no special advantage
at peace with their
insular place in a circled society
feeling its comforting
sense of inclusion
of sharing
non-linear systems of
faith and philosophy
reverent with music of spheres

or perhaps the round door
simply leads down the
rabbit hole
granting uncertain asylum
to truly mad minds

Death’s Doorstep

 

“Door to River”  by Willem de Kooning

 

 

what does it look like
will I know when I’m near
something marbled and sooty
worn saddle of petrified wood
or of cold quarried granite
that’s older than time
is it braced with black
hellfired ironwork rails
or dressed with white flowers
in pots of cerulean blue
which design did the
grim ancient architect
choose for his door
does it blazon my name
bear a lock or stand open the
moment I make
my unwary approach

just a thought
might I slyly avoid
ever stepping too close
being pulled by the hands
reaching out from inside
if I stay where I am
right here in my chair
ever motionless
never again to walk out and about
among perils and pastimes
of life in the living
perhaps this is how I should plan
to cheat death
of my worthwhile
permanent company

 

 

From my book Human Waters

Doorway

“Love ‘n Sunshine”
Painting by Mikki Senkarik
From mikkisenkarik.wordpress.com

some doors are too beautiful
dressed in more splendor
than anything they could hide
too inviting of real disappointment
too charming a front for interior bliss
but the only way to know
is to open and enter

Estate Planning

Photo from loghomes.com

(75 word micro-story #4)

 

No one up here in the north country seems to use their front door. Some even block it off with planters and such. I suppose that’s one way to minimize snow shoveling labors.

But there’s something civilized and congenial about a formal front entry. It offers welcome. I wouldn’t mind the shoveling, or the company it brought.

I’d use mine if I had one, if I had a house. Anything but this cursed cardboard box.