Tag: Poem

July

I want to move closer into the heart of the world.

I want to feel

with it.

I want melody to dance through my skin.

This is all we have.

As much control as we had in our arrival

Is how little we’ll have upon departing

*when you live in each moment, you’ll find yourself with less plans. Stop looking forward

It’s hurting

You. Primal thought;

I

want

him.

but there’s much more, I

couldn’t write through

The poetry in everything

we’ve ever said to each other. I guess that’s how you know

A single note is played, 

sent into space,

pulsing through the layers

we can’t see.

Everything about that moment, and the one before, and the one after, is different.

The note dissolves, and still remains

ringing somewhere.

I can see it through my tears.

Evidence suggests

Whoever deemed selfishness a sin, was thinking of others and therefore missed the point.

Flawed from conception, we birthed the quest for perfection,

‘Make something beautiful,’ the voice did insist.

So, we wrench words from the most sacred of spaces, though they’re dirtied on their way down,

the extent, depending on how clean our hands are, surely.

Pronouns will shed light, ciphers then blur meaning,

but the arrogance of capturing reality, really will taint any poetic contribution.

Cold

I froze time

so nothing could fade

 

the sky remains white

its truth was choking me

 

the wind is howling

so I know you’re here

 

there are two realms

my angst regards their coexistence

 

how are we to pull our gaze from one,

to care, at all, about the other?

 

falling lightly

ash covers all in a powdered layer of grey

 

there was no eruption

it’s just there if you see it.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

‘There is a pleasure in the thought that the particular tone of my mind at this moment may be new in the Universe;

that the emotions of this hour may be peculiar and unexampled in the whole eternity of moral being. I lead a new life. I occupy new ground in the world of spirits, untenanted before.

I commence a career of thought and action which is expanding before me into a distant and dazzling infinity.

Strange thoughts start up like angels in my way and beckon me onward. I doubt not I tread on the highway that leads to the Divinity.’

(JMN, III, p. 79)

(he was twenty-four when he wrote this)

 

The dance

As the world revolves

pirouette through streak and shadow

beside her seasons

forget your learning,

leap and soar

through space instead.

Sense is undeserved in such wonderful mess,

we’ll learn language through our Own worlds,

and only then

            as Time flows on

But also won’t

            I write this now

I wrote this then

            Soon I’ll be gone

But here you are

             So here am I

             And here we meet,

A place unmapped, yet rendered real

Blinking through a stream of transformation,

lush green fronds Spring apart, in dance.

Winter winds then blow,

the force that prompts your psyche,

turns Autumn leaves to burgundy

which then settle

on a still lake, one Summer afternoon,

it’s gold tinged and existing,

more perfectly than anything else.

Someone of unimportance, skips a stone.

The strongest emotions will dissipate in ripples.

I’ll stare through your eyes with love,

mosquitoes will drink our blood,

The clouds roll on,

The lake will lift and meet the sky,

The Sun

kisses gratified skin

the Moon

kisses its ocean mirror.

Wave responds,

lulling

mounting

spraying,

Til –

             Release, you’re in Eden.

the case for lust can be made, when

nothing is ever done really, for the right reasons.

Such tiny creatures

architects of superb illusion

wherein lies at least one – answer.

we’ll somersault through life and death,

sorrow and love,

hurtle through the depths

or be bogged down by pure shit.

Don’t leave behind destruction

Don’t immortalise despair

Soar high,

and you’ll be slammed back down to earth again,

somehow still in one magnificent piece.

How are you

Treading water in a tsunami,

closing your eyes

and singing

like that changes anything at all

Its here you’ll meet your other self,

the one whose expression won’t change

while your insides are being skinned,

whose tone remains even

whilst your face is stomped on by heeled boots.

This valour will go unnoticed,

though alienation can be a blessing.

You might be empty right now

but you will remain

you may not be able to feel

but it will transpire through you

you may not be able to cry or laugh

but strength is your constant

there’s no happy ending here

but there’s no ending either