“
What happened is, we grew lonely
living among the things,
so we gave the clock a face,
the chair a back,
the table four stout legs
which will never suffer fatigue.
We fitted our shoes with tongues
as smooth as our own
and hung tongues inside bells
so we could listen
to their emotional language,
and because we loved graceful profiles
the pitcher received a lip,
the bottle a long, slender neck.
Even what was beyond us
was recast in our image;
we gave the country a heart,
the storm an eye,
the cave a mouth
so we could pass into safety.
(via seashelllz)
She wrote
Upon her skin
Her secret desire
In hieroglyphs
The language of symbologyBut those who could
Not read, mistook
Them for lines of worry
Traces of sadness
The blush of shynessWhen I met her
I read aloud
Each chapter and verse
That I could see
As if the language was
My own
Surprised as I was
That one would write
On flesh, So blatantly
Such passionBy her eyes
I soon could see
That few, if any
Had read her pleasSo she bid me come
Through dark alleys
And follow her home,
And quickly too,
So that she could undress
And let me read.
(via apoetreflects)
The Waiting and the Farewells -
Half-sleeping vision—
dream or memory?
Grass frozen beneath my feet,
crisp as the air,
crunching at each step,
a sound more felt than heard.
The night crystalline-clear,
bitingly pure, vibrating with possibility.
Was it a going-to late at night,
or a going-from, early, before dawn?
No matter,
she was there,
in the waiting with ready embrace,
or in the waving of departure
in premature longing.
There behind the glass,
at the door,
warmth of the bed clinging to her,
waiting or waving,
in anticipation or leavetaking,
expecitng or already missing,
the going-to, the coming-from,
heart pounding the same rhythm for each,
felt within like that ice-brittle grass,
and the cold air inhaled.
Traveling to love or taking it away through the dark,
the scent of her hair in memory or yet upon me,
vivid and intense as the night sky.
Who was she in shadow at the door?
Who is it I see?
All of them,
all I loved and was loved by,
all who waited or bid me goodbye,
and who travel to me now
as sleep descends,
when I am vulnerable, unguarded,
when I cannot avoid them.
I will not wave,
I will not be welcomed,
they say it,
I say it,
in voices more felt than heard.
—Michael Boiano
(via apoetreflects)
Its late.
The sea is swilling, dully flat against the harbour wall
Even the clinking sail boat masts have lost enthusiasm
The drapes more flail than flap, the Christmas lights
In the morosely quiet marina, weak and helpless
Against the grey chill of winter.
People are huddled in the bars and restauraunts,
Groping their iphones like old aunties with sherry;
The leatherette banquettes, wrinkled and slick
From the wet and worn out traffic of seasonal shoppers
And in the multi-storey all is a-squeak with the whine of windscreen wipers
As the chill constantly drizzles down.
He waits.
You promised to come back, laughing loud, promised that you would call
Downstairs the children play on gameboys only half expecting,
That there will be hot food, the fire lit,
Or your verbosely happy persona, will re-appear
Against this cold, dark, sadness.
People pass by on the rain slicked street
Caught in the streetlight holding each other, like fools
Against the winds and time, serving to remind you once again,
That she promised, that it’s Christmas; love, peace, goodwill
Are all in short supply, un-stocked shelves in your local supermarket.
It’s late, you gather yourself up in the half-light by the window,
As the waves, thick with memory and hope, swell and fall
You’ll wait, a little longer.
© Juliet Brain, 2011
Winter is eating the trees
Wake Up! The Poetry of Honesty -
Amy-Louise Webbers post on finding her way through tough times and some salient advice from an unexpected direction….
Ashtree Honeybee: I Am Learning To Abandon the World -
I am learning to abandon the world
before it can abandon me.
Already I have given up the moon
and snow, closing my shades
against the claims of white.
And the world has taken
my father, my friends.
I have given up melodic lines of hills,
moving to a flat, tuneless landscape.
And every night I…