DARK AS A LUNAR ECLIPSE

 DARK AS A LUNAR ECLIPSE

Black widow spider crawling on the stair,

Black magic disappears into thin air,

The last crumb ingested goes to the hips

I am as dark as a lunar eclipse.

Black hole disappearing in the hierarchy of space,

The foot soldier stumbles, loses points for lack of grace.

Revelers drink to excess, loose lips sink ships,

I am turning dark as a lunar eclipse.

Subsumed by the woebegone umbra of the earth,

Blackness throws its fisticuffs, destroying moonlight's worth,

Until the moon fights back, blushing damaged red,

Intoxication moving and traveling to the head,

Spreading to extremities, the legs and fingertips,

I am as dark as a lunar eclipse.

Black crow feeding over tattered remains,

Nothing left but the asphalt blood stains,

A carrion bird thinks nothing of tearing as it picks,

I am as dark as a lunar eclipse.

Black fog of sadness descends over me,

Send the crowd away, there is nothing here to see,

My coffee has turned cold, wasted between sips,

I am as dark as a lunar eclipse. 

The darkness does not last they say, three, four hours tops,

Somehow it gets the best of me, pulls out all the stops.

I am sorrow's whipping boy and I must take my licks,

Ravenous and dark as a lunar eclipse.

Black widow biting, poison in the bloodstream.

I have no more power, and I have lost the dream,

The last crumb ingested, it goes to the hips,

I am as dark as a lunar eclipse.

-Bruce Potts

Copyright 2022

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

*This is a poem about depression obviously. Please talk to someone trusted if you are severely depressed or call the Suicide Hotline at 1-800-273-8255!*

MADWOMAN

MADWOMAN

The madwoman sits in her spinning room,

playing eerie melodies through the night. 

 She strokes her ancient harp, weaving a spell of insanity. 

 And the neighbors, 

 hearing the strange vibrations, 

 Gather in the streets to gossip and gape. 

 The supersonic music plants demons in newborns 

 sleeping in their cribs

 and lures the neighborhood men far from the arms of their wives. 

 Into the lair of the madwoman and her black circular bed with the spider web design. 

 Intoxicating the scent, irresistible the sounds, 

They so long to sample 

 Her poisonous wine. 

 Meanwhile ever more sinister sounds 

 Emanate from the spinning room. 

 The madwoman laughs at her talent 

And plays 'til the dying of the moon. 

 -Bruce Potts 

 Copyright 2020 

 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

One of my character study poems from my archives

MOTHER EARTH

MOTHER EARTH

Mother earth, you have made me to walk a fine line.
Despair protrudes through my skin and bones,
The dirt of lost years poisons my magic potions,
Covers my emotions with the smell of tomorrow's futility,
A relic unconvinced of his worth and utility.

Mother earth, you have made me a drone,
Dependent on the friends who phone
To solve all my depressions,
Who snare themselves in the tangle
of my shaky self-impressions.

Mother earth, your thumb and forefinger
Tap heavily on my shoulder.
Meanwhile I grow so much older.
While autumn leaves blow in the gutter,
And wasted old men mutter of their dreams that fell astray.
Sweet and saccharine mother earth,
There is blood on your hands today.

I sit and shiver in this twisted vessel of clay.
Nerves shot, blood clot, my stomach a twist of impossible knots.
Random chance plays out its dance,
Builds me a shallow grave where I can sink half-alive,
Falling through another of your mud slides.

Mother earth, you must make me brave,
Build me some sort of a sheltering cave.
For the rain it pours but offers no relief,
Brings only sorrow, dredges up grief.
Into the winter I fall like a leaf,
Left over from autumn, antiquated beliefs,
And old foul superstitions 
To these I recklessly cling,
Of snow and ice I sing.
Mother earth, you must build me a tenable dream.

I tremble like a child before dreams that fall away,
Dreams that once seemed possible in the clear cool light of day.
Dreams that once lit up my soul with their promise and their power,
Whose smooth veneer soon disappeared like light from a meteor shower.
I soak up rays that i despise, the sun reveals its evil eyes,
And shows me my flaws and my dismal worth
Yet I linger in the shifting mother earth.

Mother earth, I am left to cope,
With the longstanding challenge of your tightrope.
Black clown walking with grass stained shoes,
Dipped in a paint pail marked the blues,
Perishing in your pool of unbearable sadness.
Is there no way out of this careless earthen madness?

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2013
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED