Poetry Month — Week 3

Emily Brammerson
3 min readApr 24, 2023

Another week, another batch of original poetry in celebration of national poetry month. I am loving putting on the poetry jams each day — Enjoy!

Prompts & image by Amanda Newbold Neitz & Chris Eldridge 2023

15. Emancipation
Grab hold the fire in your belly,
Feel the tingle in your throat.
It is time you set you free.
Swing open the gilded gate,
Let the phoenix fly and sing,
Give call your intrepid desire.
Speak, dance, chant, or write,
Your time, your energy, your power.
Freedom the key.

Image by author.

16. Delight
The astringent apple on a brisk fall day.
Lyrical popping gravel gray.

The taste of the wind on a frigid winter’s night,
Toes in saddle shoes, coat taking flight.

Magic pulsing through purple veins,
The tickle of ozone beckoning rain.

17. Haiku Form
Balls, cleats, juice, fruit chews.
Small forms sprawled over blue bruise.
Youth soccer game views.

18. Remembrance
Your life before me,
A time beyond my memory.
The habits you formed,
The paths your feet warmed,
Unspoken moments that shaped your mind,
Sunlight reflecting, splicing, forming shadows in kind.

The time before death became life,
Sunrise, watermelon, knife.
Porch swing, cool water under feet,
A gentle kiss on your sun worn cheek.
Blessed family to bathe and feed.
Spirit embodied until it’s freed.

So much I have left of you,
A smile in my mirrored view.
The rhythm of my clumsy gait,
The journey’s beginning shape its fate.
In the time after life became death,
Your memory and my breath.

Image by author

19. New Beginnings

Today another bright and blue,
Like any other but also new.
Heart wide open to hear its plead,
To dig a hole and plant a seed.
Love,
Water,
Nurture,
Sow.
Give it time and it will grow.

20. Regeneration
In the thirty years since nuclear disaster,
In the area around Chernobyl flora and fauna have thrived.
Living happily human-less lives.

Even in the wake of great woe,
Nature finds a way to grow,
Filling each available niche.

“Ah”, you may think “this is the way”,
That nature makes its great comeback and makes selfish humans pay,
Every one of us, reduced to a skull.

Yet there is another hope,
It doesn’t play as well in tv shows,
but there are more ways that we may cope.

What if instead of disaster,
Empathy we collectively master.

21. Leanings
I have found occasion to have dark leanings,
And sometimes I lean towards light.
Not to be bogged down in meanings,
But you won’t find me lean towards the right.

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Emily Brammerson

Mom of two, cultivating hope through nature and science.