I Need Your Hand

By Aarron Mondello

28/12/2017

I need to hold your hand, please
While I open the curtains wide
I need the sunlight to help me ease
The cold unforgiving night

I’m scared and I need your hand, please
To help guide me to the window
Lest fate begins to jest and tease
And leaves me lying in the snow

I just need to know you’re there, dear
While I pull the curtains open
While I listen nervously for voices near
Vile and softly spoken

Please my love just give me your hand
I’m begging you from my knees
Kneeling here in the grit and sand
Help me open the curtains, please.

©Aarron Mondello2017

Image

https://hawkke.deviantart.com/art/Hold-My-Hand-37222014

Christmas Morning

By Aarron Mondello

24/12/2017

It’s the morning of Christmas
And all through the house
Children were waking
With a calamitous shout

Like stampeding elephants
The run down the hall
Nearly trampling the toddler
When unbalanced he falls

Into the lounge room
And up to the tree
They all go a sprinting
Squealing with glee

There’s a rustle of paper
Then sharp tearing sounds
All voices are silent
While they see what they have found

From Mum and Dads room
There came a great roar
“We’ve not got our coffee
Best open no more”

Collectively they groan
As though with one voice
They back away from the presents
Knowing they’ve got no choice

Big Sister then says
“We’d best fix them a drink
Or trick them with water
In a mug. Do you think?”

They all heard Mums voice
All knowing and smug
“We know the sound
Of cold water in a mug.”

Dejected rejected
They head for the kitchen
All except for the toddler
Who waited expectant

The coffee was made
Finally done
So Big Sis called out
“Come Dad and come Mum.”

Mere moments had passed
They went back to see
Mr Four Year Old Brother
Unwrapped all under the tree

There followed tears and tantrums
Crying and fights
None were as happy
As on Christmas Eve night

I’ll finish this tale
By telling you true
They all had a great Christmas
I hope you do too.

©Aarron Mondello2017

Featured image

Waddington’s Limited Edition Christmas Puzzles

My Christmas Poem

By Aarron Mondello

24/12/2017

The tiny tree
On the table
Silently awaits
December’s fable
Sparkling baubles
Figurines
Most days go
Largely unseen
Until the magic
Comes that night
And bathes the children
In Christmas light
Excitement bubbles
In the air
Wide eyed with wonder
They stand and stare
Until one shouts
“This one’s yours
And look it says
From Santa Claus”

©Aarron Mondello2017

Featured image found on Pinterest

Little Darklings

By Aarron Mondello

17/12/2017

“What is a Darkling?”
I hear you ask
Well it’s a little shadow-child
Wearing a little shadow-mask
Flitting running
Through the trees
Blending in
Barely seen
Tittering laughter
Follows behind
These little imp-wraiths
As they hide
From all who come
Near to them
For Darklings everything
Holds fear for them
“Are they evil?”
You enquire
No more evil
Than burning fire
They have a power
In their heart
A power some will
Seek to covert
“So they have magic?”
You seem confused
“They ARE magic”
I say, amused
Their very shifting
Shadow form
The essence from which
Magic is born
They have no use
Of their own
For the power set
Within their bones
A cup of water
Can’t drink itself
As the Darklings
Can cast no spells
“So they are good?”
How to explain
Would you put alignment
To a flame?
Neither nice
Or evil things
They just are
Little Darklings
“Are they real”
Your voice goes soft
Not any more
I scoffed
People hungered
For their power
And hunted them
To their final hour
Now no more
Do they flitter
Through the Shadows
Running thither
Their end was long
Brutal and violent
Their old homes
Now lay ever silent
Beautiful shadows
Always laughing
Their only downfall
Was being Darklings.

©Aarron Mondello2017

Featured image: A Rustle and a Murmur by moppaa

https://www.deviantart.com/art/A-Rustle-and-Murmur-442059115

<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/silent/”>Silent</a>

The Empty House

By Aarron Mondello

13/12/2017

There’s a quiet street in suburbia
Where all the houses look the same
Except this one large empty place
Squatting at the end of a lane

The yard is grown six foot tall
With grass and prickly weeds
The wood is flaking the walls are cracking
Along their every seem

It sits so morbidly peaceful
Empty in the sun
Dirty windows like clouded eyes
Watching everyone

One day I pushed open the squealing gate
And walked down the broken path
Towards the clouded eye-windows
That stared out from the house

I walked around until I found a window
Not too high and slightly clean
Pressed my curious face against the glass
To see what might be seen

Dust motes danced in a bar of sunlight
Like tiny golden fairies
Intricate twirls to and unheard tune
Kaleidoscopic entities

Shifting dancing dapple shadows
Moved along the walls
A constant flux of colourless runes
Penned in shifting scrawls

An old rocking chair leaned like a drunk
In one corner gone all dusty
Faded flowers and vines marched up
The edge of cushions mildew and musty

I could not see the wallpaper print
It was torn and yellowed and stained
With black patches of growing mould
Dotting what remained

The door in the room was shut
So beyond I couldn’t peer
But the feeling I had from the abandoned room
Is not even mice came here

Muffled sound echoed through the house
To where I stood outside the room
Not carried well on still, dead air
Like air within a tomb

I gazed a moment longer
Through the dirty glass
And tried to imagine I saw walking
Reflections of the past

I walked away from the dirty window
My heart was racing fast
The house loomed large behind me
Alive, lonely and vast

I looked back when I reached the gate
And thought it all surreal
That such a large and empty house
Felt altogether unreal

Still today that house stands empty
Down a lane in a cul-de-sac
With its clouded window-eyes stands sentry
Silently guarding our backs.

©Aarron Mondello2017

Featured image is a wallpaper, I couldn’t find an original artist

http://www.wallpapermania.eu/wallpaper/sunlight-through-the-broken-windows-old-house

Her

By Aarron MONDELLO

12/12/2017

This little bit popped into my head while my lovely lady was reading fan fiction and I was gazing at her. It’s not much, but I hope you enjoy it.

Her

The quiet laid on thick
Like a winter woolen rug
Not the least bit uncomfortable
When silence is shared in love
I glance over and see her
My angel across the room
Balm for all my heart ache
Bane of all my woes
She sits and stares intently
At the story she is reading
I don’t think she sees me silently
Gazing and at her, peeking
The words of the world she’s reading
Play across her glasses lens
Will she look up at me and smile
When the next paragraph ends?
Probably
For she’s the one who always smiles
Even when she feels she’s can’t
Although sometimes she needs a little help
To locate her little laugh
Now she yawns she’s tired
Most likely off to bed
Where like usual till morning comes
She’ll sleep just like the dead.

Aarron Mondello2017

Featured image is apparently a wallpaper. I couldn’t find the original source.

Old Mothers End

By Aarron Mondello

11/12/2017

Grey clouds racing through the night sky
Over darker lands below
Where death stalks every quivering creature
And only twisted things grow

In the centre of this dead land
Lies a Forrest dark and brooding
With a small clearing at its heart
Where stands a willow tall and drooping

A patch of green here and there
Still shone amongst her branches
Though mostly Mother willow had succumbed
To poisonous sickly advances

At the base of her gnarly roots
Sat an elderly elven fellow
More bones and skin no meat on him
His face gone gaunt and sallow

Every day from dawn till dusk
He laboured with his hands
At his feet sat crystal vials
A dozen all on stands

He drilled the trunk of Mother Willow
And drained her healthy sap
Twisting the drill to bore a hole
Then knocking in a tap

There was not much healthy sap
Left to drain out of she
For nearly dead, on her last legs
Was this mammoth willow tree

But old man elf remembered
A time before the dark
When Mother Willow sang to the moon
As the children climbed her bark

So now he sat and cried
Silently as he drilled her trunk
The dead lands all about them
Echoed with his mallets thunk

Sweating and tired and nearly done
He stopped to take a breath
Old Mother Willow whispered her thanks
Then finally gave in to death

Her last green leaves withered up
Right before his eyes
Her brown bark turned to ashen grey
As he howled sorrow at the skies

She was the last, he is the last
This garden of eden no more
He packed his vials of her precious sap
And left for brighter shores

None can say how his road travelled
As he searched horizons far
But you can see the vials of Mother Willows
Sap as all the stars

And still the grey clouds race
Over that land twisted and dead
Where in every valley or mountain range
Stalk countless eyes of dread.

Aarron Mondello2017

Featured image

https://www.claudemonetgallery.org/Weeping-Willow-Giverny.html

The Ruined Halls

By Aarron Mondello

10/12/2017

Shadows crawled
Across the walls
Wearing the face of men
The broken bricks
Laying thick
About the rotted floors
Broken glass
Twinkling shards
Still hung in every window frame
And through the ruin
To a sombre
Sung by the wind a’howling
Trapped forever
Always dancing
Moved the Shades of the Past

Forrest marching
Ever closer
Towards the cracked brown walls
Wood beams rotting
Gaping chasms
Where termites ate the floors
Bleached white bones
Of little creatures
Stacked in one quiet corner
Yawning mouths
Leading deeper
Rot has devoured all the doors
Still, trapped forever
Always dancing
Moved the Shadows of the Past

Where flowers grew
In every hue
Now was dry and barren
And the path
Out the front
Was all but overgrown
Any gardens
That ever grew
Have long been choked by lawn
Only crows
Live in the beams
And shadows of the attic ruins
While trapped forever
Always dancing
Moved the Shades of the Past

Where little children
Used to run
Now there is only settled dust
All the halls
The voices stilled
Have become the den of rodents
Nothing left
All is gone
Gone to rubble, ruin and rust
Yet through the ruin
To a sombre tune
Sung by the wind a’howling
Trapped forever
Always dancing
Moved the Shadows of the Past.
©Aarron Mondello2017

Featured image: The Ruin Hall by Ehsartem

https://www.deviantart.com/art/The-Ruin-Hall-473606705

Memories of a place

By Aarron Mondello

6/12/2017

It’s funny how a place
Can bring clarity of the mind
Sent across the ages
From a Once Upon A Time

Walking through this place
I’m assaulted by the past
Some memories I wish would fade
Some I’m glad still last

As the winds blow up a song
A ode to yesteryear
I realise I no longer belong
In any space around here

Familiar faces seen
Staring right through me
I’ve outgrown this place
And it’s moved on from me

And where once I thought
Coming here would leave me
Anxious and distraught
I am feeling light and free

For in this place of the past
My heart no longer rests
And while my memories here will last
I like my hearts new home the best.

Featured image Bussleton Jetty, western Australia

The Heat

By Aarron Mondello

4/12/2017

The heat is baking
My creative
Juices into dust
I can not wait
For the sun to abate
At the coming of dusk
The cool nights hand
Wrapped about this land
Is for what I dream
If you’ve lived
In the Aussie heat
You’ll know just what I mean
There have been times
In this life of mine
The road has actually melted
Tar stuck to my feet
In a burning heat
Land like an ore recently smelted
Shimmering heat lines
In the distance rise
Up from the scorching earth
In this sun kissed land
Where I lay my hand
The country of my birth
Even in the shade
On these hot days
There’s no reprieve from the sun
But I wouldn’t swap
This land so hot
For anything or anyone.

Featured image found here

http://www.vengavalevamos.com/travel-guide-preparing-your-australia-holiday-guest-post/