Black frost, or: Dreams stare

Poetry Partners #61

A poem by Freya Pickard of ‘Dragonscale Clippings’

black frost creeps
devours sleep
fire in your eyes
clouded umbels burn

black dust drifts
disturbs your sleep
purple-stemmed hemlock
smoulders

black frost burns
tearless eyes weep
vampire dust falls
both shadow and flame

black frost creeps
disturbs my sleep
vampire dust
drifts and burns

• Freya Pickard: https://dragonscaleclippings.wordpress.com/

A golden shovel poem by ben Alexander of ‘The Skeptic’s Kaddish’

In blank verse

Frightened, they walk warily beneath black
blanket of dark, rockets, fierce, stars at night,
worn limbs and faces burning with black frost.
Fearfully, they watch as the sunlight creeps
into view, cautious lest their child disturbs
the silence; their terrified eyes in my
dreams stare directly at me as I sleep,
pleading: "Save us from the Ruthless vampire
that gorges on dreams, grinding lives to dust.
Save our babies ere they are merely drifts
of ash, borne off by time's frigid winds and
forgotten, even as their homeland burns."

---

Let’s write poetry together!

When it comes to partnership, some humans can make their lives alone – it’s possible. But creatively, it’s more like painting: you can’t just use the same colours in every painting. It’s just not an option. You can’t take the same photograph every time and live with art forms with no differences.

–Ben Harper (b. 1969)

Would you like to create poetry with me and have a completed poem of yours featured here at the Skeptic’s Kaddish? I am very excited to have launched the ‘Poetry Partners’ initiative and am looking forward to meeting and creating with you… Check it out!

---

List of Poetry Partners