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As promised, I’m pleased to present PPM’s ALL POETRY Sunday features.
Spring is pushing and pulling her way out of slumber, and with her rustling ways she’s stirring up all kinds of things. Mixed amongst the compost piles, along with thoughts of blossoms and rebirth, are the unforgotten things that are finding the light again.
I hope you are all moved by this week’s poetry features as much as I was. Congratulations to all of our featured writers.
It has been an elongated and worthy day. I have had time to contemplate. Not the in between distraction sophistry. A brain striptease.
hook and eyes
pop halleluiah
revealing the secret door at the top of my spiralling spine staircase
the door is not pearly
the door is the colour of Demeter’s tears
dead centre of the door is a knob fashioned out of Noah’s Ark
a bouquet of peacock, lyrebird and siren boa feathers is knotted around the knob
above the door is a stained glass window undressing the seven deadly sins
there is light passing through the waves of coloured glass that waltz at the foot of the door
honey holds anise, cumin, myrrh and cassia in the air
beyond the door strings of a harp are being perfumed
the sound feels like lush green grass through toes
a Sunday when you wake next to love that stays a lifetime
mathematical notes square root your outer and inner the only equation is
turn the knob.
The night is thick with memories
Cinching, thicker and tighter
Coils around her heart
Love a thread that wouldn’t stay
Put, unraveling time and time
Again
She felt as if her heart was encircled
By an invisible barbed wire
Words recoiled in her brain
Like the fence’s metal barbs
Causing her heart to bleed
Invisible tears that leave no trail
As they slowly ebb and flow
Down her face
She wipes but nothing is felt
Upon her hand
Time stalls, taking her down
Familiar paths
One’s she has walked over
And over
Love has played such a fickle
Game
Leaving her alone and empty
Except for her memories
Memories that enfold her in
The sweet heady mixture of
Passion’s elusive pursuit
She recalls arms as they
Held her
A cocoon embrace sealing
Her within the moment
Kisses that rained down, devoid of
Tenderness but blazing
Hot boldness as passion
Rose
The night is shrouded in folds
Of voluptuous velvet
Wrapping her in a sensual
recollection of spent desire
She longs to feel the touch
Of skin on skin
Of sweat slicked bodies
Entwined in mutual gratification
She longs for the promise of
Forever
For the words of love to have
Meant something other than
A prelude to another sexual
Encounter
Another one night stand
Another night of broken dreams
She longs for the youth that
Seemed to disappear with
Each disappointing encounter
She was so naive, so lost
In the fairy tale of love
And happy ever after
Now in the twilight of her life
She dwells on stolen moments
Brief touches with the elusive
Prince of her dreams
And facing the delusion filled
Life she has lived
Why was love not meant to
Find a place within her heart
Someday she hopes that
She will be granted
An encounter with Love
Until then she will continue
To live in the shadow of what
Was dreamed of and what
Was reality
Time is ticking down
Each tick tock another wrinkle
Upon her face
Each day another sad reminder
That she lives alone
With her hunger
Love as fleeting and elusive
As a touch of a butterfly’s wing
Eludes her, dancing just out of
Reach
Slipping by her yearning
Aching soul
Someday, perhaps it will slip
Effortlessly , quietly into her
Waiting heart
If I could write,
I would not draw.
I’d let these melodramas
be told
through whichever format
best fit.
I would box haiku,
or bind circumlocution,
to carry with you
on the bus.
Many years ago,
when more emotionally mute,
I made vessels of pain.
I speak better now,
but when faced
with so many words,
I draw blank.
Therefore I draw.
How to measure the breadth of a word?
I learn a Russian dancer’s name
and roll it over and over
like a lozenge in my mouth.
Can darkened space
on light compare?
These lines I leave
talk louder than I.
Their cadence is
the tug and pull
of my wrist on pulp.
As with so many lines,
it is best to read between them.
I have discovered
Recently uncovered
Buried deep
In the minds of men
In waking sleep:
Secrets.
That death is the passage of wonder
That life is the fountain of power
Seeping blood and tears on Eden’s bower.
In the beginning
Man was mad
He must have been
He is now
So I wonder how
Evolution is fixing this.
Death’s cool embrace in life’s mad kiss.
I have discovered
A world where everyone I am
Drawn to is damned
To mental sickness and disease
To tumors and waters and leakage of
Secrets
Aged and wise and cunning
Powerfully deceitful in innocence
Underestimated by the rest of the world
Harmless in acts and dangerous in thought
They have sought what I sought:
To understand and discover
Sanity
Lunacy’s infertile lover.
Life is
To behold the grace and force of legends deep
To dance in the threshold of pain and beauty
Where we stand, you and me
Eyes locked and knowing
Understanding flowing from iris to iris
Color to color
Until your pond water eyes
And my forest glades
Collapse into one rich and vibrant hue
Of green and blue:
Green for nature and blue for sorrow
My experience in life:
Here today,
Swiftly fled tomorrow.
Let it not be you whom the angels seek
Let it not be me that the heavens keep
Let me be
Alone with my intrepid dreams
Alone with my torturous fears
No one else here.
Lost so many, found so much
Lost an embrace, found gentle touch
Lost to such
Realms of laughter and butterfly lives,
Short and swift, so tender and alive
But once gone, once frost has come
They tell their tale with broken wings
Scattered on the bedewed ground
Muted colors fading with each breath I take
Finally understanding why the one who walks
Angelic and placid
Can never know my Soul
And why it is they who sit
With passionate eyes and fiddling fingers,
Busy in their minds, lost in morbid daydreams
Or endless fantasies
Every bit as afraid
Every bit as passionate as me
-Why it is they who so entrance my spirit
And lure my secrets as I lure theirs!
Because we are the Old Spirits,
We know too much
We know the nature of dreams is such:
That each man wakes, alone and pale,
Longing to hang on to one moment more
Of that sleep-heavy wonder
To stand before death’s veil,
Immortal.
Our souls are torn asunder
But still we smile and know this much:
Life isn’t thus.
Life is the dance of dreams, fanatical and raw
But dying is innocence
And death is the road to awe.
© Sunrisegirl’s Emotion
On the edge…. I feel it there….. Will it fall……
It sits; a big ball,
Changing colour.
Mainly Blue it stays,
holding existence in its ether.
My body relies on it,
for protection, / security,
comfort,
I hope it won’t break.
For then the knock on effects will be too big…
please don’t
I whisper
Only after it has been placed
upon a large cushion
in a padded room
with no windows
or doors,
Only then will it be safe…
A knock on my door,
A man… with bad news
and harsh words…
I listen,
I absorb,
I hurt…
The ball moves,
rolls over the edge,
whizzing fast towards the floor,
the speed increases, suddenly…
... it lands,
CRACK
It is damaged.
So am I.
I fall to the floor.
I have shattered.
It is too late.
Mother Earth is…
Paint by number
heaven and Earth
swimming in colour
Drowning in tears
consumed and raped
destruction for years
Beauty with grace
land and water
our sacred place
Full of rage
neglected and abused
confined by cage
The human race
past, present, future
time and space
Choking on pollution
blind and helpless
without a solution
Every living creature
great and small
our bountiful teacher>
Looking for blame
man and war
a crying shame
pieces of me lying on the side of the road
my flesh is now shredded
by the footsteps of inhumanity
a heart which carried a song of love
blackened by the tar of lies and deceit
of those I once loved
eyes which only saw the beauty of life
were pulled from their sockets
thrown onto the roadway by the racism and intolerance
of those who preach their hate in the name of god
my lips once red and pursed
now lie in a pool of blood, the blood of the homeless
and hungry who are cast aside
the scents of lavender which tickled my nose are
now gone from my nostrils
and the stench of death permeates
pieces of me
I wonder if you still think of me,
As I often think of you.
Your presence made me feel alive.
Warm with memories, I still feel your embrace but the cold absence tends only to an unsealing wound.
My haven, my adventure, my muse, my love…
I wonder if you still think of me,
As I often think of you.
Slowly waking, half conscious, I remember my new title and adaptations.
Watching the sunlight play on a cold shapeless pillow that misses your form.
Strong and focused on the outside,
Shattered splinters on the inside.
Constantly barricading the bulging archway, verging on the breaking point.
Altering my appearance as penance, all the whilst praying for the phoenix.
No elixir could cork the bleeding, even if I were into such things.
One of the hardest lessons to recognize and swallow is to love more than to be loved; everything else is bearable, adaptable. We can not have it all…or can we?
A nagging longing,
Held firmly by a will-power that is stoic, persistent, and selfless.
My roots run deep but they are expansive. They are a network of wonder.
And all the while, I can not forget, will not forget, to be true to myself.
The distance between leads us on our own journey,
With our screenplay’s to write,
And our soul’s to feed.
This shall be our connection.
I wonder if you still think of me,
As I often think of you.
How can I not?...With all my love…
Even when
I lift them up,
there are still invisible roots—
like gum on a shoe
on a day when the sun
is most high
like diamond
elastic violin strings playing
the sweetest song.
Ask the earth,
she will tell you the same:
how we are all long hearts
through the soles of her feet,
eternally bound
and in love,
A love
more precious than fruit
on a planet
full of starving men
who have never
even felt
the sun.
We are dancing,
each day we are
dancing!
at opposite ends
of the same
diorama,
in the space
between a butterfly’s wings
flying in the face
of heaven.
Your face tattooed
With invisible ink
To the inside of my lids
A name echoing
In the halls
Of lost hope and
Buried fantasies
A fervent promise,
A silent wish
Never come true
The scent of a
Blown out candle
Ripe berries
And abject failure
Gone
Carried away
By the wind
A ghostly touch
Cold and frightening
From a past
Dead and buried
Relegated
To the graveyard
By a butterfly’s wing.
Spring is pushing and pulling her way out of slumber, and with her rustling ways she’s stirring up all kinds of things. Mixed amongst the compost piles, along with thoughts of blossoms and rebirth, are the unforgotten things that are finding the light again.
I hope you are all moved by this week’s poetry features as much as I was. Congratulations to all of our featured writers.
to turn or not to turn by © Lisa Jewell
It has been an elongated and worthy day. I have had time to contemplate. Not the in between distraction sophistry. A brain striptease.
hook and eyes
pop halleluiah
revealing the secret door at the top of my spiralling spine staircase
the door is not pearly
the door is the colour of Demeter’s tears
dead centre of the door is a knob fashioned out of Noah’s Ark
a bouquet of peacock, lyrebird and siren boa feathers is knotted around the knob
above the door is a stained glass window undressing the seven deadly sins
there is light passing through the waves of coloured glass that waltz at the foot of the door
honey holds anise, cumin, myrrh and cassia in the air
beyond the door strings of a harp are being perfumed
the sound feels like lush green grass through toes
a Sunday when you wake next to love that stays a lifetime
mathematical notes square root your outer and inner the only equation is
turn the knob.
© Lovelyrita’s Goya
© Rhenastarr’s Elusive Love
The night is thick with memories
Cinching, thicker and tighter
Coils around her heart
Love a thread that wouldn’t stay
Put, unraveling time and time
Again
She felt as if her heart was encircled
By an invisible barbed wire
Words recoiled in her brain
Like the fence’s metal barbs
Causing her heart to bleed
Invisible tears that leave no trail
As they slowly ebb and flow
Down her face
She wipes but nothing is felt
Upon her hand
Time stalls, taking her down
Familiar paths
One’s she has walked over
And over
Love has played such a fickle
Game
Leaving her alone and empty
Except for her memories
Memories that enfold her in
The sweet heady mixture of
Passion’s elusive pursuit
She recalls arms as they
Held her
A cocoon embrace sealing
Her within the moment
Kisses that rained down, devoid of
Tenderness but blazing
Hot boldness as passion
Rose
The night is shrouded in folds
Of voluptuous velvet
Wrapping her in a sensual
recollection of spent desire
She longs to feel the touch
Of skin on skin
Of sweat slicked bodies
Entwined in mutual gratification
She longs for the promise of
Forever
For the words of love to have
Meant something other than
A prelude to another sexual
Encounter
Another one night stand
Another night of broken dreams
She longs for the youth that
Seemed to disappear with
Each disappointing encounter
She was so naive, so lost
In the fairy tale of love
And happy ever after
Now in the twilight of her life
She dwells on stolen moments
Brief touches with the elusive
Prince of her dreams
And facing the delusion filled
Life she has lived
Why was love not meant to
Find a place within her heart
Someday she hopes that
She will be granted
An encounter with Love
Until then she will continue
To live in the shadow of what
Was dreamed of and what
Was reality
Time is ticking down
Each tick tock another wrinkle
Upon her face
Each day another sad reminder
That she lives alone
With her hunger
Love as fleeting and elusive
As a touch of a butterfly’s wing
Eludes her, dancing just out of
Reach
Slipping by her yearning
Aching soul
Someday, perhaps it will slip
Effortlessly , quietly into her
Waiting heart
© Cynthia Lund Torroll’s Statement
If I could write,
I would not draw.
I’d let these melodramas
be told
through whichever format
best fit.
I would box haiku,
or bind circumlocution,
to carry with you
on the bus.
Many years ago,
when more emotionally mute,
I made vessels of pain.
I speak better now,
but when faced
with so many words,
I draw blank.
Therefore I draw.
How to measure the breadth of a word?
I learn a Russian dancer’s name
and roll it over and over
like a lozenge in my mouth.
Can darkened space
on light compare?
These lines I leave
talk louder than I.
Their cadence is
the tug and pull
of my wrist on pulp.
As with so many lines,
it is best to read between them.
© Lilynoelle’s Frantic Life
I have discovered
Recently uncovered
Buried deep
In the minds of men
In waking sleep:
Secrets.
That death is the passage of wonder
That life is the fountain of power
Seeping blood and tears on Eden’s bower.
In the beginning
Man was mad
He must have been
He is now
So I wonder how
Evolution is fixing this.
Death’s cool embrace in life’s mad kiss.
I have discovered
A world where everyone I am
Drawn to is damned
To mental sickness and disease
To tumors and waters and leakage of
Secrets
Aged and wise and cunning
Powerfully deceitful in innocence
Underestimated by the rest of the world
Harmless in acts and dangerous in thought
They have sought what I sought:
To understand and discover
Sanity
Lunacy’s infertile lover.
Life is
To behold the grace and force of legends deep
To dance in the threshold of pain and beauty
Where we stand, you and me
Eyes locked and knowing
Understanding flowing from iris to iris
Color to color
Until your pond water eyes
And my forest glades
Collapse into one rich and vibrant hue
Of green and blue:
Green for nature and blue for sorrow
My experience in life:
Here today,
Swiftly fled tomorrow.
Let it not be you whom the angels seek
Let it not be me that the heavens keep
Let me be
Alone with my intrepid dreams
Alone with my torturous fears
No one else here.
Lost so many, found so much
Lost an embrace, found gentle touch
Lost to such
Realms of laughter and butterfly lives,
Short and swift, so tender and alive
But once gone, once frost has come
They tell their tale with broken wings
Scattered on the bedewed ground
Muted colors fading with each breath I take
Finally understanding why the one who walks
Angelic and placid
Can never know my Soul
And why it is they who sit
With passionate eyes and fiddling fingers,
Busy in their minds, lost in morbid daydreams
Or endless fantasies
Every bit as afraid
Every bit as passionate as me
-Why it is they who so entrance my spirit
And lure my secrets as I lure theirs!
Because we are the Old Spirits,
We know too much
We know the nature of dreams is such:
That each man wakes, alone and pale,
Longing to hang on to one moment more
Of that sleep-heavy wonder
To stand before death’s veil,
Immortal.
Our souls are torn asunder
But still we smile and know this much:
Life isn’t thus.
Life is the dance of dreams, fanatical and raw
But dying is innocence
And death is the road to awe.
On the edge…. I feel it there….. Will it fall……
It sits; a big ball,
Changing colour.
Mainly Blue it stays,
holding existence in its ether.
My body relies on it,
for protection, / security,
comfort,
I hope it won’t break.
For then the knock on effects will be too big…
please don’t
I whisper
Only after it has been placed
upon a large cushion
in a padded room
with no windows
or doors,
Only then will it be safe…
A knock on my door,
A man… with bad news
and harsh words…
I listen,
I absorb,
I hurt…
The ball moves,
rolls over the edge,
whizzing fast towards the floor,
the speed increases, suddenly…
... it lands,
CRACK
It is damaged.
So am I.
I fall to the floor.
I have shattered.
It is too late.
© Lisameryl’s Mother Earth
Mother Earth is…
Paint by number
heaven and Earth
swimming in colour
Drowning in tears
consumed and raped
destruction for years
Beauty with grace
land and water
our sacred place
Full of rage
neglected and abused
confined by cage
The human race
past, present, future
time and space
Choking on pollution
blind and helpless
without a solution
Every living creature
great and small
our bountiful teacher>
Looking for blame
man and war
a crying shame
© Sally Omar’s Pieces of Me
pieces of me lying on the side of the road
my flesh is now shredded
by the footsteps of inhumanity
a heart which carried a song of love
blackened by the tar of lies and deceit
of those I once loved
eyes which only saw the beauty of life
were pulled from their sockets
thrown onto the roadway by the racism and intolerance
of those who preach their hate in the name of god
my lips once red and pursed
now lie in a pool of blood, the blood of the homeless
and hungry who are cast aside
the scents of lavender which tickled my nose are
now gone from my nostrils
and the stench of death permeates
pieces of me
© Electriclstorm’s Mother Why Does It Hurt so Much
I wonder if you still think of me,
As I often think of you.
Your presence made me feel alive.
Warm with memories, I still feel your embrace but the cold absence tends only to an unsealing wound.
My haven, my adventure, my muse, my love…
I wonder if you still think of me,
As I often think of you.
Slowly waking, half conscious, I remember my new title and adaptations.
Watching the sunlight play on a cold shapeless pillow that misses your form.
Strong and focused on the outside,
Shattered splinters on the inside.
Constantly barricading the bulging archway, verging on the breaking point.
Altering my appearance as penance, all the whilst praying for the phoenix.
No elixir could cork the bleeding, even if I were into such things.
One of the hardest lessons to recognize and swallow is to love more than to be loved; everything else is bearable, adaptable. We can not have it all…or can we?
A nagging longing,
Held firmly by a will-power that is stoic, persistent, and selfless.
My roots run deep but they are expansive. They are a network of wonder.
And all the while, I can not forget, will not forget, to be true to myself.
The distance between leads us on our own journey,
With our screenplay’s to write,
And our soul’s to feed.
This shall be our connection.
I wonder if you still think of me,
As I often think of you.
How can I not?...With all my love…
© Kristen Reynolds’ There Is an Earth Attached to My Feet
Even when
I lift them up,
there are still invisible roots—
like gum on a shoe
on a day when the sun
is most high
like diamond
elastic violin strings playing
the sweetest song.
Ask the earth,
she will tell you the same:
how we are all long hearts
through the soles of her feet,
eternally bound
and in love,
A love
more precious than fruit
on a planet
full of starving men
who have never
even felt
the sun.
We are dancing,
each day we are
dancing!
at opposite ends
of the same
diorama,
in the space
between a butterfly’s wings
flying in the face
of heaven.
© Sybille Sterk’s Echos
Your face tattooed
With invisible ink
To the inside of my lids
A name echoing
In the halls
Of lost hope and
Buried fantasies
A fervent promise,
A silent wish
Never come true
The scent of a
Blown out candle
Ripe berries
And abject failure
Gone
Carried away
By the wind
A ghostly touch
Cold and frightening
From a past
Dead and buried
Relegated
To the graveyard
By a butterfly’s wing.
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