Riddle Me This

On By dorahakIn Poems

The tea kettle whistles
A moth flutters and dies
Your mask shatters to pieces
A madman explodes the moon
A butterfly flaunts a human face
You dream of a lion’s rest
Birds in-choir in a priest’s robe
You fire a revolver on the run

The key to the riddle —
Masquerading as fun
To the gibbering wags
Deaf to the last gong’s sound —
Hides like a promise
In your broken heart

For image credit please click here on Carrie’s Sunday Muse #245; Shay’s Word Garden Word List using three of twenty words; and Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt #297 using “key” in prose or poem of 71 words.

22 thoughts on “Riddle Me This”

    1. Indeed, I agree. So much in the world to jolt our hearts and all the time there is that inkling of a knowledge that there must be something better, something greater, something eternal with its promise of peace.

      Liked by 1 person

  4. This is ambitious the way you used all of the Muse images and built the first stanza around them. Laugh clown, laugh (as the wags would have it) but the key to it all is in the heartbreak and the longing it creates for something better.

    So nice to have you at the List, my friend.

    –Shay

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. So many spices to enliven poetry and ambiguity is one of them which the Muse images let me carve corners around to picture heartbreak, as you say, chaos, fear, all that ends the dissimulation that life is fine, life is grand, when all the way our hearts reveal an undeniable need for an ideal unattainable in and of ourselves.

      Liked by 2 people

  6. Dora,
    Your montage of ‘happenings’ overwhelmed me leading up to one focused intimate concern. Made me further disgusted with our media pushing a crisis at every turn. We know that it’s meant to distract us from what’s important. Well done!
    – Susan ❤

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. They do seem to specialize in that b/c it’s “never let a crisis go to waste even if we have to make several up.” Moments of clarity are hard to find. Thank you Susan! ♥️🌹♥️

      Liked by 1 person

  8. Oh my God, this is just exquisite, Dora! Damn, I love the idea of using all the images at once like that and describing it like a sort of parable! So clever and brilliant. It’s like a little arthouse film and I want to know what happens next 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

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