bristolstreet posted a poem by Elizabeth Metzger with this intriguing line:
- the broken heart rolls three blank dice
This got me thinking about empowering a broken heart.
And the number three.
And what else rolls, besides dice...
Let these images roll around in your noggin today and see if anything rolls out. I'm thinking of a series of couplets like this:
The broken heart rolls three blank dice
The broken heart kills three blind mice
Stream of consciousness, this is what came. The dice, carrying the weight
No longer tumble
My heart, three times smaller
Than hers
Definitely a bit cliché, but I always want to contribute at least something whenever a writing prompt comes along. Especially so as I hadn't done any poetry for a while. I've been concentrating more on lyrics. First draft business too: He seldom sat this way.
His jaw clenched tight
A twist in his gut
He looked away, fenced
In by rushing thoughts He settled and met her gaze
She blinks, pupils dilated
So long had he awaited another glimpse
He bites his lip with baited breath
His broken heart rolled three blank dice The first rolls with a thirst of a soul enticed
One that has to think twice
Each side strung along
by various lies The second beckoned questions
As it slowed
The tension grew
What could he ask out of the blue? The third remained clouded.
Strained as he waited for an answer.
And as nothing came
He knew he was free again.
I think it's cool that you went with the "fortune-telling" aspect of rolling dice. It makes me think of tarot cards--isn't there dice involved in a reading?
Your lines are inspiring me, rezzeJ and thenewgreen tng - could be a song rezzeJ - I love the idea of the three blank dice having desires, but blanked by lies, tension, and cloudiness... I'll have something by midnight. _refugee_ is not experiencing a broken heart right now... humanodon might be... or might be between broken hearts flagamuffin - who knows? galen probably... and all our hearts are broken by 8bit's temporary absence...
You've broken my heart into three little pieces:
One for you
One for me
One for us. I know I can't blame you but
Who else is there for it?
It is you who has crushed me
To dust And I want to request of you, immediately
Please reprise
your philosophies
Of love 'Cuz it seems to me lately
You've a mutable temper
And it's kinda hard
For me to trust
1. The broken heart's dice look like marshmallows --
sweet, mushy -- then burnt to a crisp.
by ellensjaffe 2. What does a broken heart do
while waiting for the other shoe
to fall? does it cry boo-hoo
or try something new?
does it play solitaire
or disappear into thin air?
what does a broken heart say?
is it silent as stone,
chilled to the bone?
Does it scream like that painting?
does it come close to fainting?
What is it waiting for?
to do something more
say something more
be something more
restore
explore
open another door
All Things Are Made of Atoms from a quote by Feynman's Lectures on Physics All things are made of atoms
little particles that move around in perpetual motion
attracting each other when they are a little distance apart
but repelling upon
being squeezed into one another.
I'm just popping this here for the moment while I contemplate its writing prompt potential. All things are made of atoms
attract, repel, attract, repel
The first heart jumped-- beat down
against your settled gut, replete
with a little lovelorn lateyear ambition. I'm not saying it became yours then:
but the familiar knew a new death,
and in that instant each cell
flowed with new acrobatics. You left me with the second heart
careless in its skips and turns and, worse,
stitched hollow with your absence. I became the artist of my own desolation,
flung it angry from my ravaged chest, let it
splatter reckless on the empty canvas,
our precious past made spectacle. This third one's my own. Homegrown,
every cry and moan echoed
in the ebb and return.
A little cliché. I had trouble anthropomorphizing a heart so I empowered the "I" instead. I should learn to be more comfortable with that, though, so I don't fall into the first person trap all of the time. Darling, let's not speak of love:
leave it to charm.
I really enjoyed that and I agree with lil, it doesn't seem cliché at all. Nice work.
What, then, can a broken heart do?
Will it breathe in and out?
Hold its breath and turn blue?
Do the lights go out? Can it blow a fuse?
Can it make rhymes like Dr. Seuss?
What can a broken heart do? Where, then, can the broken heart go?
Will it hungrily hunt
When its down in the dumps?
or write bad verses
with whining and curses?
Where can the broken heart go? What now does the broken heart know?
Will it be able to go with the flow?
Will it let time heal its pain?
Will it find itself in another love game?
The broken heart only knows how to play nice
The broken heart throws three blank dice
Once a time, lil, I had a poetry blog, and a broken heart can write very bad poetry And some flash prose: “At least he's taking the right fuckin' steps, at least he's making me mad at him so this will be over sooner.” But then her voice softens, not to the point of tears, but definitely past the border of sadness, and she is quiet, and almost whispers - “At least he was nice to me, in the car,” she talks to herself, keeping it a secret from that watchful night. And, “At least he seemed to care.” She walks home in the darkness and the cold under the solemn sky, wrapped in her own thoughts. Under those merciless stars she is alone. She's just a girl, walking back home, but as she walks she is plagued by how she watched him beckon to that other girl like a lover, to come in, and simultaneously shut her out. She tries to be angry, and can be, a little. They did leave her alone, after all, to walk back in the dark and in the cold. So she spits at the side of the road and tells the night,