14 March 2024

Lady Macbeth Advises Her Husband

 

Source


Listen.
Really listen.
The blood won’t wash off my hands
or out of my clothes.
Will Not Wash Out!  Look! 
Listen.
I didn’t know before I killed,
and really, killing was easy,
but blood won’t stop flowing.
 
Listen, my husband, do not kill—
not again.
You killed the king at my urging.
I should have known better.
But how many others must die? 
Did you target my friend, Lady McDuff? AND HER CHILDREN? 
Killing is too easy.
Do you aim for Malcolm?  Will you kill 
all those who oppose you?

It doesn’t matter if you win, I tell you. 
You’ll be standing here like me,
unable to wash the blood off your hands,
unable to wash the blood off your clothes,
from your land, and from your soul. 
The blood will drive you mad!
Listen to me now. 

Really listen.


 For my prompt "Character(s) in Action" at What's Going On?  (With thoughts of contemporary wars and those who promote and prolong them.)


My blog poems are rough drafts.
Please respect my copyright.
© 2024 Susan L. Chast



11 March 2024

Ex-Students

 


Children I knew as a teacher
disappeared into adults
leading serious lives.
 
In our chance encounters,
I see their youth postures and
hear their young voices.
 
My smile matches their smiles.
A good kind of remembering—
seeing new bloom on old rose bushes.
 
A good kind of forgetting—
the care some bushes needed
to mature so gracefully.

 

I pray for them and their families:
Be safe from harm.  Help create
the earth you need to survive. 


For Sumana's prompt "Children" at What's Going On? 


My blog poems are rough drafts.
Please respect my copyright.
© 2024 Susan L. Chast

06 March 2024

21 Reasons I Speak

 


  • Because I have been hiding in silence
  • Because silence has not cured my heart sickness
  • Because I must share the truths my heart discovers
  • Because I need a friend in truth, and she needs me to appear
  • Because I need to hear myself break through the noise and horror
  • To say what I find there
  • I want to write a song
  • And say your names
  • To remember
  • To remember words and sentences I forgot
  • To say I love you
  • You are a child of God
  • To cross the real and fake barriers among us
  • To ask for cease fire, for food, for peace, for wonder
  • Because when we speak we are not heard, but when we are silent we cannot be heard, so it is better to speak*
  • To invite others to voice what they know
  • To start the hard discussions people avoid
  • To break through numbness
  • To name and see what is, the good as well as the rest
  • To spin alternative worlds where people can breathe
  • To be alive

* from Audre Lorde's poem "A Litany for Survival"


For Mary's prompt "Fifteen Reasons" at What's Going On?


My blog poems are rough drafts.
Please respect my copyright.
© 2024 Susan L. Chast

26 February 2024

Earl Grey Tea

 

source


Earl Grey tea is not just a cup of tea,
but, rounded with honey, a rich toddy-
like taste for a break in late afternoon.
 
It lacks only the whisky or bourbon
to be a real toddy, as it flavors
Chinese black tea with Spanish orange oil.
 
Imagine it on your tongue—the caffeine
of tea and the citrus of Bergamot
oranges, a hybrid with tart lemon.
 
It is an elixir of gods, a good
choice for fictional Captain Jean-Luc
Picard of the Star Trek Federation.
 
Picard’s Enterprise is the superman
of starships, ready to rescue oppressed
peoples and to forge new alliances.
 
Sometimes, I dream of this while curled safely
on the sofa, mug of honey-grounded
bergamot tea warming my hands and heart.
 
Other times, the tea is medicinal—
a cure for sore throat, swollen glands, and stuffed
sinuses—a clearing for good sleep, and
 
a balm in the here and now for wounded
spirits when action seems impossible.
Earl Grey tea is not just a cup of tea.


For Sherry's prompt "Not Just  a Cup of Tea" at What's Going On? 


My blog poems are rough drafts.
Please respect my copyright.
© 2024 Susan L. Chast


19 February 2024

Color Cure

 

 

I, who have been yellow with a clinging
cold this brown winter, feel a color cure
building from the ground up.  Purple crocus
survive a lingering snow, mouths open
wide in lacy white on a green background.
All of us inhale the promise of spring.

 

Naked trees breathe, too, with their wet grey twigs 
swaying lacy in a cloudless blue sky. 
I am happy for a long moment, a cure
of another hue, as I imagine how someone could
paint this moment, how I might feel colors
swirl away both sickness and sorrow.


For my prompt "Colors Passing Through" at What's Going On?


My blog poems are rough drafts.
Please respect my copyright.
© 2024 Susan L. Chast


13 February 2024

Windows to the East

 

 


Windows to the East frame the color show of dawn
at times splendid in reds and oranges, or dimmed
in pinks and yellows, and today diffused and colorless
through grey mist. Which is more ominous?
Red blood and rocket fire, the fake promise of truce
baby pastels offer, or this grey rain turned snow?
 
I remember days when dawn promised delight as
when Romeo sees Juliet on her balcony, or even
their lover’s morning when nightingale turns to lark
and Romeo must flee—and even now each dawn
brings possibilities and I wake up with joy
for day arising with its own peculiar light.
 
But sober, sober on reflection of war that
I left behind only in my dreams.  Today
death reigns halfway around the world, night turned bright with
fire, and dawn only more death and its companions
starvation and homelessness.  Snow-filled dawn, I pray
for light to reveal a way to ease the strife,
for a balm to heal the harm done to all life.


For Sumana's prompt "Aubade" at What's Going On? 


My blog poems are rough drafts.
Please respect my copyright.
© 2024 Susan L. Chast