napowrimo # 9

The prompt is - complicated.
Use at least twelve words from this list: flap, winter, torch, pail, jug, strum, lever, massage, octopus, marionette, stow, pumice, rug, jam, limp, campfire, startle, wattle, bruise, chimney, tome, talon, fringe, walker.  Mention something that tastes terrible, a sound that is pleasant, and include some lines from one of your failed poems.   Oh my!




Stopping By


A blustery evening.
Chimney smoke
of burnt wood 
acrid on my tongue.
I'm a lonely walker
at the fringe of town,
startled by wing's flap
and talon's click
in the graveyard.
Rather than flee, I enter.

Other than a pail
and a pottery jug                                       
not stowed away,
all is in order.
The wind strums in
winter’s thin branches.
I'm walking to your
grave marker.
In lurches of moonlight
as swift black curtains
blow aside, I see mound
after mound, neat beds
with grass rugs tucked tight
and stone headboards.


These dead
once watched the same moon
shining now on graves empty
of souls passed from here.
Are you there beyond those
swift black clouds, there among
the winking specks I see
in patches of night sky?

                    Wanda McCollar