The End of Everythihg

 The fire didn’t realize the strength of water

until she killed him.

The water didn’t realize

the strength of radiation before she evaporated

like a magician’s rabbit (without the wiggle), and began to complain about the sky’s all-powerful portal

— which, as everyone knows —

will kill us all.

By Elodie Pritchartt, August 18,2023

Passion Play

"Their souls entwined," the poem read,

and to the azure skies they sped.

A poem's no good unless it's spent

on passion, pain and lovers rent

from others' arms before its time,

all penned in verse, both free and rhyme.

I don't remember poems like this

in English class, all filled with bliss.

Our poems were writ on roads and mice

all forked and timorous (and filled with lice).

These sexy poems are more my ken

all wet and slippery, skin to skin.

Where brown is never brown, but bouillion

and blue is nothing if not cerulean.

And life is heightened by degree.

All senses more... sensitivity?

So you touch me and I'll touch you,

And 'ere you know it we're all through.

And smoking cigarettes and spent.

If only poems could pay the rent.

~ Elodie Pritchartt

First poem I ever wrote, circa 1994

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Dreamscape

Last night I dreamed I was in 
India.

Elephants and houses had

memories as long as being.

A phantom shook my shoulder.

I tried to wake,
but my dream was syrup.
I could not swim up.

I felt you touch me,

and tried to stir.

I think death will be like this:

Sticky, sweet, heavy.

And silent as a sigh.

~ Elodie Pritchartt

April 7, 2014

The Forest in Fall

She walks in dappled brown.
The trees, emboldened in
their bare embrace,
reach down, carress
her freckled frown
from their anchored
heights to touch her face

A pile of tiny bones,
ivory needles in forgotten
threads.  Small
among the roots and 
acorns put away,
peek out and shudder.
Hides itself away.

Circled round like fiddlefern,
tiny boxes -- vertebrae --
soft as chalk
and fragile whisper
under baby's breath,
"Don't leave."

She kneels, blinded by the dapples
darting through the trees
that sigh and shiver.
Enchanted by its size,
she lies beside it gently
Closes her eyes and smiles.

Signs

All around the city

sparrows fell.

Pigeons lay like litter

in the streets.

That's what it took

to make us stop, look

up and think

about

the end.

Is this how

it begins?

Not with a bang

but a flutter? When I came

across the turkey on

the north fork trail

I wondered

how long

we’d have.

The clouds hung

low, like dirty cotton,

a nagging ache

behind my brow.

I squinted against winter’s

stubborn glare.

Is it too bright? Or is it

darker now than ever?

If God’s eye

is on the sparrow,

where is his ear?

Is he listening?

A thousand

thousand feathers fall

like prayers from the sky.

Silence.

~ Elodie Pritchartt

17, May, 2007