# Anonymous May Challenge: "Mom"



## Chesters Daughter (May 1, 2019)

*IMPORTANT NOTICE: We've a new update to the rules. Henceforth, kindly refrain from using the "like" function, or offering critique on any of the entries, UNTIL OUR WINNER IS ANNOUNCED. We are implementing this policy in an effort to protect anonymity as well as to spare our entrants the agony of being unable to respond to any critique they may receive for what could conceivably seem like eons. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

*As previously announced by Gumby, we've updated the *challenge rules*. Henceforth, all submissions will be anonymous.

*Please remember that in submitting an entry you are obligated to cast at least one vote in the poll. Failure to do so will result in your entry being disqualified.

*The prompt for this month's *anonymous *challenge as chosen by moi is: *Mom

*You are free to interpret the prompt in 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.

*Your entry must be submitted anonymously and therefore should be PMed to me*, *Chester's Daughter**, **so that I may post it for you. Please be sure to indicate in your PM on which board you prefer your work posted, PUBLIC or SECURE. I am responsible for linking all entries posted on the secure board to public board.

*****VERY IMPORTANT*** Kindly make sure your entry is properly formatted and error free before you PM it to me as you will be unable to edit your work once I have posted it. If your work requires a disclaimer, please inform me in your submission PM.

PLEASE ALSO NOTE THAT ANY ENTRY POSTED DIRECTLY TO EITHER BOARD WILL RESULT IN THAT PARTICULAR WORK BEING DISQUALIFIED, BUT YOU WILL BE PERMITTED TO SELECT ANOTHER WORK TO ENTER ANONYMOUSLY THROUGH THE REQUIRED CHANNELS. 


Do not post comments in this thread. Any discussion related to the challenge can take place in the Bards' Bistro.



This challenge will close on the 15th of May at 7pm EST.**
*


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## Chesters Daughter (May 7, 2019)

*
Crying in Uniform*


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## Chesters Daughter (May 8, 2019)

*Layers: In the Garden*

Her shins cracked,
heels crumbled.
Her hands turned inside out
unable to cradle my face.

She fell inside her body.

Crumbs of bone and scattered ashes
bury within roots and soil.
I cannot pluck my mother's face
from any rose.
A marble wall wells
layers
of represented death.
Posted, machine etched,
somewhere inside that crowd,
it's Dorothy.

Stone garden bench
grabs the sun,
refracting
reflection and repose. 
It burns my thighs.
Apathy responds.

But in my twining dream
peace caresses guilt.
She is a world,
a particle magnified,
alive, 
resplendent, 
complete.
All in all,
etched by God.


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## Chesters Daughter (May 8, 2019)

*
Momma*


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## Chesters Daughter (May 8, 2019)

*Upon Argent Eyrie*

High silver-draped ancient crags
slip down to an ink-nectar sea 
that reaches up with foam-fingers 
toward the peaks at even-tide. 

The sullen hoar-frost hermit moon
shakes his round curmudgeon head
and turns away with a silent scowl 
while the frigid but laughing stars 
dare to cajole the falcon-kindred
nesting secure upon Argent Eyrie.

Through sleepy-slits, the raptor young 
peer out from within a dream-stupor
upon a multitude of glittering eyes
leering down from the night-darkness,
rodent-spectres come to haunt them 
in their slumbering, or so it seems
to the little ones who, with bellies full,
shudder under the privileged warmth 
of maternal-wings, and hidden there
close tight their bright and tender eyes.


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## Chesters Daughter (May 8, 2019)

*Reflections of Scissors*

One like the other,
copies made 
of carbon and time.

The smile, the eyes,
hair, heart, and laugh
all fit, found with phi.

Yet there is something,
subtle and small,
a nuance of newness…

One not absolutely
and utterly identical.

The difference
rests in the hands.

One holds string,
the other, scissors.

Scissors that have
cut, clean and true…

Strings swing, dangle
a tangle of memory.

Yet, both still stand tall
a smile reflected…

The hardest lesson of all.


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## Chesters Daughter (May 10, 2019)

*
Mother Knows Best*


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## Chesters Daughter (May 11, 2019)

*Tissue Paper Tulips*

It wasn't just about the tulips,
was it, Mom...
it was about creating a memory
of us... for me
there, under the silken sun
a moment when your smile
was luminous with love
a memory to sustain me 
through a barren winter
where joy and laughter
was buried with you

I treasure that vivid snapshot
the Autumn sun an unexpected gift
washed us in watercolor gold
as fragile as an old silk scarf

We planted tulips in the iridescent afternoon
you holding the trowel in brown gentle hands 
digging small nests
where precious bulbs would rest
I placed them in the still warm earth
each one a promising future joy and hope
a Spring promise
your last gift to me

Winter is finally gone
and the tulips are blooming
delicate blossoms of tissue paper gold


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## Chesters Daughter (May 11, 2019)

*Mom*

Chestnut brown eyes, 
wavy hair, mousy smile.
I crafted you a story
with all my chewed, 
tiny action figures.

At the end I told you,
“When you get better, we’ll play again!”
I asked, in my squeaky voice,
“Would you like that?”

No one ever told me your beautiful light,
the candle I came home to each day,
would be snuffed out by the reaper’s scythe.

Your little boy went off to school,
crafting tales, poems, dreams-
because at first, 
it reminded him of you. 

I have another story for you, Mom:

You, a young immigrant girl from Ireland
wandered blind with hands outstretched
until meeting your prince and falling in love.

You had two caring, healthy children
living your wholesome, but short life-
until passing silently into death.

When everyone cried at your funeral,
I’m there, as I am now- but a wizard,
dressing myself entirely in black.
I cast, with my shaking hands,
the only spell I could make
transforming their tears into magic,
sending you and your adoring family
heavenward to be happy forever.

I’ll always remember you.


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## Chesters Daughter (May 12, 2019)

*Mom’s Crop*

I found Mom out back,
resplendent in a battered lawn chair,
admiring her crop
of eight yellow inhalers,
(good God, she's hoarding empties)
lovingly planted
in freshly turned soil
as dark as my dread.
Orange caps
resembled warped blooms.

Dirt-encrusted 
inhaler number nine
was loosely held
in her muck-covered hand,
her mouth smeared
with loam lipstick.
Seemed exertion encouraged
enough lucidity
for her to realize
she needed a puff.

Sunlight glinted off
thick glasses
sadly magnifying clueless eyes
of brilliant blue
which had been
as sharp as a hawk's
when we’d planted actual vegetables
two decades before.

Within three hours,
a new regime came into power
lorded over by illustrious
Dr. Everything Gonnabealright.
Wearing a smile of cubic zirconia,
he deftly scribbled a scrip
with a dainty hand
as pasty as fresh plaster.
One tablet b.i.d.,
with a full glass of water
if you please.
Hearty claps upon our backs
ushered us out the door.

She never knew
what the pills were for -
clarity could not be coaxed
from vocal chords encased 
in the concrete born of love -
"Just vitamins.", we told her.

Her paralyzing dismay
at a three syllable word
found on page 
twenty-six 
of her dog-eared paperback Webster's
tethered the truth
well within a corral of empathy,
its swinging sign proclaiming
"Leaky lips need not apply
nor are welcome."

Four years later,
like her mind, her lungs abandoned her;
I approached the subsurface abode
which was hers to share with Dad,
an almost empty vial clutched 
(practically crushed)
in a clammy claw.

With my free hand,
I tossed a perfect pink rose,
its petals still warm with 
the breath of my final farewell,
onto ebony soil,
the sight and scent of which
brought forth a recollection 
of the plastic garden
that had heralded
the beginning of the end.
My sister wrestled the bottle
out of my death grip
whispering
"She doesn't need them anymore."

Most of her traits were buried
long before her body.
She passed never remembering
she had ever forgotten
and without the stigma
of a capital “a”
emblazoned into what remained
of her brain.

Our silence had ensured her peace
and protected what little was left
of struggling cerebral cells.


I've never once regretted it.


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## Chesters Daughter (May 15, 2019)

This challenge is now closed.


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