# The Blind June Challenge -- Memories



## candid petunia

Ladies and gentlemen, grab your blindfolds! We're going to be playing a little game.

Tie the blinders around your muse to heighten her other senses. Take her to a quiet spot -- probably by a little stream where she can hear the soft gurgling of water and lush grass beneath her feet; or probably down in the dungeons where the air breathes thick and the dark world seems darker -- and then ask her what her strongest memory is. Let's see what she comes up with. 


The prompt we have for the June Challenge, as suggested by the winners of last month, is *Memories*. 

You may interpret the prompt any way you wish, though of course site rules apply. If you are unsure of the challenge rules please read the 'stickies' at the top of the board.

*
This challenge will close on the 15th June, 8 p.m. GMT. 
*Do not post entries in this thread.* All entries should be sent by PM either to Chester's Daughter, or to me (candid petunia), and we'll post your poems for you.*
If you wish to protect your first rights and want your entry posted in the workshop thread, simply mention that in the PM. 
Remember poems posted once will not be edited. So please make sure your entries are properly formatted and edited before you send them to us.



Do not post comments in this thread. Any discussion related to the challenge can take place in the Bards' Bistro. Please also refrain from using the "like" button until the challenge has been closed and the poll opened. 


All right, now let's get writing!


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## candid petunia

*Spring '92*

I'd watch as bands of colour
flit 'round my room;
My own patch of rainbow,
alive in full bloom.
Projected from crystal
suspended by string,
lit by the light 
of the weak Sun of Spring.


I remember the shouting
grow worse day by day.
I remember "Don't worry,
we'll love you anyway"
I remember full boxes 
and bags in the hall,
when my family split
like the light on my wall.


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## candid petunia

*Yesterday ?

*Was that yesterday?
My mind plays tricks now.
You were here, laughing, 
face turned to the sun.
We paused along the shoreline
and the sea sighed as we kissed.
Was that real? 
Or just another of my memory’s cruel tricks.
The seagulls mock me
and the sand turns cold under my feet
I thought it would be warmer,
as it was yesterday or last year.


There is another on the beach,
She walks with aimless abandon.
Perhaps like me, she too is lost,
strolling on the shores of another time,
revelling in that uncertain sunshine.
She too stops now and then,
introspective gaze fixed on distant horizons,
before returning to her tide.


The wind gusts
and I remember 
your hair, tossed and swirling in the breeze,
Giggling with childlike glee 
as the waves caught you by surprise.
Was that you?
Was it me?
Was that a yesterday or lifetime?


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## candid petunia

*Most Goes Unheard
*http://www.writingforums.com/poetry...lind-june-challenge-memories.html#post1635112


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## candid petunia

*Coffin nails

*There are miles between 
my pillow and my dreams.
I'm not sure I still want to warm
the cold side of your bed.

It’s just, I’ve seen every inch now.
I've slept on the floor of your head,
where it’s cluttered with fairground novelties 
and platitudes scrawled in notebooks 
in your best handwriting.

Even through all the furnishings
I smelt the stale air and the pine.
I washed that stagnant smell out of my clothes,
when I stopped sitting in the pews at eight years old.

You've seen what my burdens alone have done,
They've worn their blisters into my palms
and worn a curve in to my spine.
I just simply can't carry yours too. *
*


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## candid petunia

Remember buttered toast 
lounging on the sun-
glossed plate? We’d tend 
our house. Trim its green hair. 
Love-dot our bed-sheets.
But one day your face slammed shut.
I spat out my lips. 
Now the walls grind their teeth
and the wings of butterflies. 
Sticks of butter hiss. Fat 
crowds around our erogenous zones.


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## candid petunia

*Stained

*Dark drops of time stain the fabric of my brain.
The mud, lipstick, and blood,
Leave a distinctive stain.
Their tatters bring me an undeniable comfort.
With feelings of familiarity,
Like sleeping in a husband’s old shirt.​


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## Chesters Daughter

SWING

Swaying from my favorite tree
On a summer day at noon.
The waves are calling out to me.
The gulls are looking down.
My vision blurs. A nap is near.
The sea breathes over me.

It was here I stood for the very first time
And found the strength to walk alone.
"A handsome stride," my father said.
It was here I learned to speak.
Love's first taste was here as well.
And the taste of my first hot dog.

It was here I discovered that the world was changing,
How little control we had.

They came from the stars and swept the globe,
One at first, then all the rest.
They splashed the sky with light.

Our fears emerged and then grew strong.
They told us what they wanted...

Not our bodies nor resources.
Not our fear nor our respect.
They didn't even want our loyalty.

They wanted just our memories.
The first ten years of all our lives.

The skies went dark and the world grew cold,
Our hearts constrained by their demands.
Then low they bowed as tribute made
To idols in the sky.
The games we played,
The pains we felt,
The stupid things we loved and loathed,
The idols took them all.

Standing here, beneath this tree,
I turned my head up high.
Shouting loud, I told them no,
And asked what they would do.

A global roar disturbed the land.
It shook the clouds and rose the sea.
The lights flashed violently till dawn.

In their fear, my brethren came.
They pinned me to my favorite tree.
They cut my tire from the rope
And rolled it down the hill.
They raised me high, and dropped me hard,
The rope around my neck.

With all I have, with all I need,
I'm back where I began:
Where I learned to be a man,
Where I learned to be my own.
Watching the waves call out,
Watching the gulls look down.
Swaying from my favorite tree
On a summer day at noon.


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## candid petunia

memories

birds fly high
fish swim 
elephants walk

i slump on my bed
images in my mind
some remain some forgotten


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## candid petunia

*That You
*http://www.writingforums.com/poetry...lind-june-challenge-memories.html#post1637150


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## candid petunia

*A Train Journey* 
http://www.writingforums.com/poetry...lind-june-challenge-memories.html#post1637209


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## candid petunia

*Not yet time
*http://www.writingforums.com/poetry...lind-june-challenge-memories.html#post1637541


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## candid petunia

*Wishful Thinking

*I walk the shoreline
at breaking dawn
on a crisp
late winter morn,
numbed to my knees
by frigid brine,
hoping to freeze
my overtaxed mind.

Passive lips of tide
kiss my steps
and quickly hide
every trace 
I'd been there,
each grain of sand
restored with care.
Tracks of my lone
intrusion erased;
the sea always rights
what's been displaced.

How I wish the sea
as company
everywhere I amble,
for then there'd be
no history
of missteps taken 
so senselessly.

I abhor treading
this beach alone
seeking to exile
memories
etched in stone -

indelible
for eternity,
forever consuming
inner harmony - 

if only my memory
were made of sand
then unwanted footprints,
upon demand,
would be effaced by
my certain hand
leaving only those
I can withstand.


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## candid petunia

*Sweet Pea
*http://www.writingforums.com/poetry...lind-june-challenge-memories.html#post1638542


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## candid petunia

*Unrequited Love

*When I close my eyes memories of you embrace me  
As if frozen in time and embalmed in my memory.
Like a delicate moth drawn to a dancing flame
I was a foolish young girl who played a dangerous game.

I danced with the devil while you played with my soul
As your sweet melodies of love made me feel whole.
I yielded to your passion and to my burning desire
Our bodies entwined my inner-self on fire.

But now as the tears of my youth merge with those of old age.
I should feel nothing for you but contempt and a burning rage.
For you my first love for whom I shed so many tears.
My unrequited love still undiminished by the passing years.


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## candid petunia

*She Used To Know The Name Of Every Flower
*
On good days, I’d answer
the endlessly repeated questions,
differently each time – 
over and over, like a game.
On very good days, she’d seem to play along. 
Once again in her prime –
back again, just the same. 

“Where’s my purse?”
“What’s happened to my toe?”
“When’s (insert my name here) coming home?”

“Mom, you don’t have that purse anymore.”
“Umm…alligator– must’ve bit it clean off.”
“I’m right here – I’m not leaving – this is me – you’re not alone.”

 Daily we would recite the family tree
and, daily, it would be pruned back a little more.
First, you’re searching for the key –
Then, you’ve completely lost the door.

“Where’s my purse?  You know, the black one with the gold clasp.”
“Have you seen my missing toe?  It’s the strangest thing.” 
“When _is_ (insert my name here) coming home?”  

“Your purse is gone mom, gone with the wind.”
“The fairies took it – but, they left you a quarter!”
“I’m right here – I’m not leaving – this is me – you’re not alone.”

Although I didn’t leave, I said good-bye –
four or five years before she died. 
That was when I mourned.
That was when I cried.

She used to know the name of every flower.

“There was candy in that purse!  Don’t you know where it’s gotten to!”
“Look at this – my toe is just gone!  It was there the other day and now... poof!”
“Oh when is (insert my name, my face, my life,
 all remembrance of my existence here) coming home?”

“Ahh, I’m pretty sure _that_ candy is now in your pocket…”
“Well, I heard tell that you lost your toe in a poker game… you really shouldn’t gamble with mobsters, you know.” 
“I’m right here – I’m not leaving – this is me – you’re not alone.”

When she had shrunk down to her core,
I got to meet the sweetest child.
And I would have never known _her_ before
if not for that illness, even mild.  

But still, she used to know the name of every flower.


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## Chesters Daughter

*Rare Earth and Air
*
Not the same as the whiff of air on a first day of wetted asphalt,
but something different. A bit of green forest, while richly brown
and I can smell it. The scent does not belong in my town,
but I know it.
I shut my eyes to see the mossy logs; the leafy carpet.
Ten-year-old hands flipping rocks, roll the logs, digging through and finding frogs
among the litter.
Salamanders are tiny worms; hardly squirm, and bein’ scared at night crawlers
big-a-round as a finger. 

Grandfather, if I could’ve told you.
Grandmother, if I could still hold you.


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## candid petunia

*Beautiful *


Seven times I was kissed in real life 
I counted. 
But never by the soft, red, lips of a girl;
only my granny when she was drunk,in a good mood,
and felt sorry about my face.
I left the lipstick mark upon my cheek
to prove that someone could actually love
a boy called Halloween.

In the brightest light
I used mirrors to remove my face:
stared hard and squinted my eyes
until flesh fell away and I couldn’t recognize myself at all. 
I saw mouths and heard them singing 
beautiful crescendos toward my given name.

I kissed the mirror mouths and swallowed the songs.

Oh how I love Jesus, Oh how I love Jesus
How great Thou art, How great Thou art

I was nurtured, untangled, 
a place 
where angels lazing in bluebonnets
hollowed out soft wing beds, 
and halo fires sparked across wild fields.
God’s perfume igniting a sinless world,
hallowed by my name. My name.

Kiss seven, when the world took me away,
was harsh:
not warm, like the soft, red, lips of a girl.
My granny, forever drunk, and in the foulest mood 
kissed my face and laughed the words

"So long, Halloween, you nutty boy."

I wiped the lipstick lie away
to prove there never existed a boy called Halloween.


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## candid petunia

*Broken dreams

*Along with the grandeur of youth,
came dreams of a majestic future.
Resplendent visions of a beautiful tomorrow,
that gently stole relish of moments with nature.
Spring was no time to smell the roses,
even as summer teased with sun-kissed beaches.
The ardent one slaved through his vernal age,
busy charting the course of an idyllic hike.
Eyes danced as a masterpiece blessed the page;
a blueprint christened "_the _path down the pike".
Today the old fog broods over the charred paint,
aimless and vapid on the tattered canvass.
Scorched by the rapacious flames of fate,
and scars of unconsummated fantasies.
A monument of yesterday’s broken dreams,
and memories of a tomorrow than never came.


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## candid petunia

*Photograph, Exhibit B

*I used to know a vampire
who went by the name of Me;
he knew everything there was to know
in vampire secrecy.

He had a golden pocket-watch
filled with blackened mud.
His plastic Buxton water-bottle
overflowed with blood.

He liked demo tapes of emo rock:
Deftones, All Time Low.
He would dance all night on his own but
panic at the disco.

Sometimes he spilled his empty words
out onto the street,
and he would look so ashamed;
he would start to drag his feet

and tell me about the good old days
"The old days were always good
before black was white and white was black."
He would pull up his mangy hood

and tell me how to feel afraid
of the change around the world.
How to hide and how to seek
and show the fangs unfurled.

He would wear loose abysses 
that swallowed up the sun.
His teeth were in the bullet
and he was holding the gun.

Now I always think about
the time we had apart,
after the world made me pull the trigger
and shot Me in the heart.


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## candid petunia

*The St Clair Bridge Hurts
*
As when I look over
I see the trees with parrots and humming birds from the Dominican Republic.
I see my hand pointing them to you and I hear my laughter crystal pouring afterwards.
And I look next to me to collect your smile and the love sparkling from your eyes
And there is some runner ready to bump into me, staring at my stare…

And I realize there is no laughter,
There is no you,
No love coming from your eyes…
My cheek is frozen and cannot move to smile, my eyes hurt and my heart is torn.

I look back at the trees,
And the parrots and the humming birds come to life again,
I go back to the laughter,
I turn again to see you,
And there’s an old man coming to meet my icy gaze.

I did the exercise a dozen times until my heart ached.
And I wanted to curl out there, on the pavement of the bridge,
Hide my face and bury the treacherous laughter that does not even exist.
This is why I’m saying that the Saint Clair Bridge hurts…


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## candid petunia

*Pieces of you*
http://www.writingforums.com/poetry-challenge-secure-entries/139239-blind-june-challenge-memories.html#post1639029


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## candid petunia

*A Mother Speaks

*I have watched him grow.
seen him on unsteady legs,
gurgling, drooling,
innocent eyes gazing up at me.
I have witnessed nasty falls,
nursed injuries, Kissed
his bruises.


I have woken up in the middle of the night,
quietening him, lulling him back to sleep.
I was a doctor at night,
a teacher at home,
and his friend when he came home from school
in tears, recounting how he got bullied.
When he cried, my heart wept.
When he laughed, my heart knew joy.


When he had an accident, I stayed up at the hospital
for five days
knowing no peace, unable to eat.
Once he plucked a rose from our garden;
with eyes mischievous but also with love
he gifted my flower to me.
I smile at the memory,
but recalling what he was brings tears to my eyes.
Now he has grown up and I'm the one in the hospital,
but there is no rose beside me;
neither did he visit, nor give a call.
I suffer, not from the pain without,
but from the pain within.
I forgive.
I hope.
I wait.
I wait.


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## candid petunia

*Memories*

Good, bad and ugly,
Have been my memories,
Some I am still trying to forget,
And some I remember barely.

Seasons change and flowers bloom,
Life is nothing but series of events,
Each day teaches us something new,
Each experience is either beautiful or brings doom.

But time is a great healer,
Yesterday’s unpleasantness, Feels better today,
Our memories warm our hearts,
Let’s raise our toast to hope, for tomorrow will be better.


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## candid petunia

This challenge is now closed. Please proceed to the *voting thread* to cast your votes.


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