Challenge #22: Three Random Elements II

[Fluffy]

Three Random Elements II​

One of my earlier challenges had a list of three things to inspire a poem. Feel free to refer to Challenge #13 for examples that may be of use, in case my instructions may be confusing. You're throwing different ingredients in to see what comes of it. You write with a theme and style of your choosing while involving the following elements in some way:

1. Breath
2. Antique
3. Puzzle

A reminder that the actual words themselves don't have to be in the poem. Figure a way to put these items into a poem. String them together into something that represents how you interpret these three things. Challenge your brain and writing skills, show me what you come up with! :]

 

[Fluffy]

I like to nearly kill my brain by challenging it with palindrome poems. This will do until I feel like making any changes. Inspired by me constantly being kept awake by my own creepy thoughts and dreams.

Up All Night

Archaic fables,
echoing thoughts of mishmash
Sighs cold and somber,
chills embracing flesh
Shivering from confusion of
morbid reveries
Signs? Perhaps fears?
I have questions;
Ancient ones know answers
Answers know ancient ones
Questions I have:
Fears perhaps? Signs?
Reveries morbid
of confusion from shivering
flesh embracing chills
Somber and cold sighs,
mishmash of thoughts echoing
fables archaic

 

[RiverNotch]

Not yet the serious response, but hey:

A READYMADE HAIKU (If anyone gets the reference, then you'll know why this fits "ancient"):

Slim Puzzle

You know how to whistle,
don't you? You just put your lips
together, and blow.

 

[noodle]

A breath hangs in the air,
As she holds the marble.
It's clutched between dirty fingers,
Pried out of a bag of old.

The glass is scratched,
Chipped and faded,
But still, it shines in the sun,
Rays dancing through it.

She wonders who owned it,
Who knocked the orb,
Up against its brothers,
And watched as they scattered.

Were they happy?
Were they sad?
What were their dreams?
What did they fear?

She'll never know,
But it's more than a marble.
It's a memory, a legacy,
Of someone who left long ago.

 

[PoetLore]

The little shop tucked square between
A laundry and book store mostly unseen
But those who chance to peek inside
Will find themselves transported far and wide
To places long ago forgotten by the world and men
But things from those times resurface again
All covered in dust and sometimes grime
Though still they stand the test of time
And sit there on a shelf patiently waiting
For someone to see their worth and dating
And someone comes and looks their way
Takes in a breath and brushed off the decay
Turns the pieces of the puzzle in place
And sets it back gently upon its base
Inquiring cautiously the price of the pieces
Glowing at the reply as their panic now ceases
Money is exchanged and the treasure wrapped up
And placed in a box beside a china tea cup

 

[Doctor Jax]

You are a puzzle in three dimensions,
the sort I would ponder for days.
I used to turn them between my hands,
with ever more elaborate plans,
with a stubbornness hard to convey.

So I have pursued you feverishly,
trying desperately to catch a peek,
at what it was I must be missing,
to understand why you kept dismissing
my advances so tongue-in-cheek.

Your complexity continues to catch my eye,
an antique kaleidoscope I can't put down,
even though in the same breath
you say that you just aren't ready yet,
but you still keep me hanging around.

Perhaps I enjoy being so frustrated,
maybe I can't let go of a puzzle undone,
like there's a shame in leaving it unfinished,
even as my hopes for you diminish.
You were never something I could have won.

Because a puzzle is meant to be solved
by diligent hands and a diligent mind.
And you, no matter how hard I struggled
were always going to leave me befuddled
because there's no solution to find.