Literati,

I am so pleased that the number of writers who chose to respond to our contest prompt with poetry is on the rise. Poetry is an oblique art, more so than narrative fiction, and often, understanding comes only upon reflection and not with the immediacy of the word as it is written.  So it is with Grant Laurence’s contribution to this contest.  His poetry has a profound effect, felt only after it has cascaded into your consciousness, there to linger for a while. (about 5 more entries to post before we select finalists)

Colorless,

by Grant Laurence

 

Gone the dreamless nights and carefree mornings

Now shadows of the past, with truths that have no virtue

Shattered by a conscious fog within our suits of status and glory

Love battled for on the synthetic field of life

 

                                             And death to spontaneity

Dead are the children who want no gold

Washed are my hands that no longer seek to hold you

 

For it was us who ran without cause or destination

Ahead of the breeze and unknowingly complete

Our carefree steps unmeasured by time

And it was you who truly loved me in our naked bliss

As we became one under the etched tree of many

 

Your face then plastered across the walls of my mind

And everything I touched was you

Your salty glaze

You were my weightless burden, a vacuum for my soul

Where days became soldered

 

Until it rained

 

The barren dandelion with no chance to bloom

The outcast

Its yellow hue denied for another

A wish undisclosed falls heavy on a muddy grave

Only the breeze offers comfort to the lonely walker

 

Colorless is the rainbow after the storm

As I shelter under the old oak, and wait patiently for you

Kicking my heels and remembering the faces that no longer exist

For those roads have new maps far beyond my compass

 

The leaves on the big oak have now fallen

And I sit amongst its scattering

The earth’s new cloak a reflection of my mind

A puzzle that was never meant to fit

 

And my eyes drip with envy

As memories of youth cut their path to pitted fruit

As I reach for you, my heart will no longer stretch

Hardened by too many days alone and too much thought

 

The glory that was real, now dust

The bitterness of blood caked on my hands from untendered wounds

An old man in a frayed gray coat, waiting on a bus

Fumbling onboard

A seat to anywhere with no bridges to the past

Now that tomorrow does not speak to me

And today has turned its back

 

——-

Here is a rainbow in three stages of molting, fading into a colorless state:

(Sometimes, the pot of gold is not at the end of the rainbow, but at the end of a poem)