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Best Poems Written by Amy Van De Casteele

Below are the all-time best Amy Van De Casteele poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Amy Van De Casteele Poem

Hawk's Eyes

in the bright light of day you appeared...
a gilded angel with falcon wings,
you rose up out of the desert sands 
and your gentle beauty struck me dumb - 
sending a tremor through my soul...

marvelling, pretending an air of studied uncaring 
i watched you through a veil of wind-blown hair 
and tried to ignore the yearning sighs of the 
blood in my veins, 
and the keening of a heart that was broken - 
that, seeing you, healed briefly - 
only to fracture again every time you turned away

you were fatal...
i knew this in my marrow, even as i stared, 
riveted, at your cherub's innocence, 
suffocating, slowly - sweetly - 
in the decadent gold-striated hazel of your 
hawk's eyes
you were a killing blow out of the blue, 
and once again i was lost...

"angel" i wanted to cry, "angel, ask my name..."
but, naive as Adam, you lost yourself in the bustle 
and sand-blasted clamor of your clawed companions...
bereft i hovered, a lonely kestrel riding the chill wind 
of your ignorance...
a single tear slid down my cheek; 
oh i would have impaled myself on a thousand spears, 
if it would only make you run to my side 
and scoop me into your bronze embrace

but time slid by and planets shifted - 
the day's end drew near...
desert dunes dissolved into the hazy purple of night,
and i was forced to say goodbye; 
to pretend love at first sight was just a giddy adolescent joke, 
and that your image wasn't tattooed on my heart 
in blood and fire...
only then, as my soul swelled with the bitter bile of 
disappointment, did you turn and behold 
the torment of your beauty written on my face...

boyish, innocent, your eyes clashed with mine - 
and melted my core to lava - 
and gave my battered heart wings; 
clipped wings perhaps, but wings nonetheless...
you smiled, a saccharine-coated admission of acknowledgement, 
even as your eyes stabbed cruelly, violated my bruised soul, 
and the sun set at your back - 
gilding you in demonic flame...
and in a blazing flash, that was it, the die was cast, 
reeling, bleeding, i broke our searing gaze;
'angel you may be, my oblivious love,'
i thought as i walked away 
'but devil you are for wounding me this way - 
and never even knowing my name'

Details | Amy Van De Casteele Poem

The Medusa Touch

What have I done? She wonders…
Brittle blue gaze riveted on her lover’s chiseled features
His is a face set in stone
Eyes, mouth, jaw; all fixed, grim – a granite façade
Where has the softness gone?
That tender dawning of affection…
The loving gleam in dark chocolate eyes…
What have I done to erase it? She wonders -
Because she knows it was her doing
Knows it instinctively;
The knowledge is engrained in every fiber of her being
It was she, who else, who turned that face into rock,
It was she who wiped away the smile, the glow
Her cursed ire, her impatience, her irascible self-destructive streak –
With these tools she chipped away at him until he splintered
Yes she has broken him; 
Broken the one thing she loved in all the world
Medusa-like, her willful cerulean glare turned him to stone
Now his eyes are twin pebbles
Cool, hard, unforgiving;
A grating stare is all he has to offer her
His heart sits motionless, a hunk of marble in the cage of his ribs
Beating for her no longer
His love for her has died a frigid death; drowned in a sea of ice
No more the fluid caresses, the warm grins, the ruffling of her hair
No more, no more, his love for her…
It is an unfeeling and frigid monument now
A tombstone, a dusty memory, the rattling chill of the Reaper’s breath
She has turned him into stone
Her lover - and her love - is no more
Oh Medusa, Medusa my girl, what have you done?

Details | Amy Van De Casteele Poem

A Struggling Poet

they're not speaking to me now, the Muses; 
they're being stubborn, 
witholding information, like beetle-browed accomplices - 
their mouths pulled tight as drawstring purses. 
they sit on their twin thrones of epiphany and genius, 
smiling silently, 
mockingly, while my fingers twitch with impotent yearning 
and the chambers of my mind are cold, 
dark and hollow as a cave. 
i have become a contradiction in terms - 
the wordless poet strikes again...
writer's block is the yoke around my neck, 
the anchor that sends me drifting lachrymose 
into the suffocating depths - 
i am drowning, 
swallowing tendrils of seaweed and tufts of 
gossamer melancholy. 
a struggling artist shouldn't have to work this hard - 
to pay the bills yes, but not to create; 
without the birthing process there is no artist...
yet there is still hope, a smidgen, a dark smudge on the horizon. 
some knight errant might appear, with golden locks 
and a smile that trembles the knees,
to inject love and longing back into my sulky heart. 
he might extend his brave hand, down into 
these murky depths, and yank me up; 
dragging my creativity, bedraggled, choking, 
retching, into the bleak light of inspiration's flare...
but then again, who believes in knights these days? 
i am just as likely to wither away down here, 
among the fishes and the wall-eyed anemones, 
until the words have all filtered from my brain 
and poetry is just a fond memory 
from long-ago halcyon days...

Details | Amy Van De Casteele Poem

Never Enough.....

You are not enough...
Your body, the lethargic blood in your veins, little red rivers...
Your aging heart, gallantly beating – 
I want to kiss its straining crimson chambers,
Bless it, the poor doomed thing...
You are just not enough
Your skin is too frail, your hair too cashmere-soft,
Your calcified bones are so – breakable 
I lie beside you and trace my fingers over your face, 
Receiving the butterfly kisses of your brittle eyelashes, 
And behind them, those cocoa-dark eyes, windows to a soul that sleeps
Benevolent in its oblivion...
Then down, softly down my fingertips dance, to the cupid’s bow of your lips, 
Unstrung, slack with weariness…
I bend my head and touch my lips to yours – and shudder, tenderly 
Your kisses have the seal of death upon them, the bittersweet reek of coffin fodder
You are not enough…
You could never be enough, not for me
My hunger for you is insatiable, unquenchable, 
I want to swallow you whole; I want to climb down your throat and sleep, 
Tucked safely inside your skin, 
A parasite composed of love and ravenous yearning
I want to eat your very soul, or catch it in my fist and pour it into a 
Diamond jar, never to be unleashed –
But to be hoarded, like a magic ring, a Holy Grail of gently glimmering love
I want you to be mine – forever…
And once I have you, 
Locked inside that little diamond vessel,
Oh my sweetheart…I will never let you go

Details | Amy Van De Casteele Poem

Murdered Love

My love for you is a creature, a solid breathing 
Entity, a mangled creation of shadow-black flesh 
And the thread-like interwoven muscles of my 
Bleeding excuses…
The paltry reasons I put up with your countless 
Slights, insults, depravities, are its backbone, 
The eyes are mere sockets, the hollowed out orbs 
Where my intuition has failed…
My love for you stalks at my feet, its hot breath 
Warming my Achilles heel, the weakness that lets you in…
I cannot escape you…I cannot fool myself into hatred, 
Though it’s just a thin line away, 
I cannot shake off this damnable love, no matter how much 
It hurts, no matter the knives of white-hot agony that stab 
My heart, no matter how you choke me with your ropes 
Of lies and deceit…and you, how you repay me,
You pick up the shards of my shattered dreams, so much crushed glass, 
And grind them into my weeping wounds, you spit on 
My flailing hopes as they flap on the ground like crows 
With tattered dragging wings…you murder me with a smile…
And all the while my love for you clings to my hem, bulldog determined, 
Digging deeper and deeper into my melting soul, penetrating the bone, 
Burning brands of linked sixes in my marrow 
Soon I fear it will bite so deep it will sever me in two, and leave me, 
A mangled maimed malcontent dying slowly in a pool 
Of my own pathetic longing…my own self destructive love

Details | Amy Van De Casteele Poem

Her Only Way Out

Rejected
Defected
A hopeless case
Lost, drifting
Vanished without a trace
Sorrowing, woeful
Mired in despair
Anguished
Frustrated 
Tearing out fistfuls of her hair
Lonely, yearning
Trapped in solitude
Hoping for a pitying hand
To raise her up and help her stand
Desperate, on edge
Whirling this way and that
Frantic, caged
Like a hissing wild cat
Untamed, undisciplined
An unbroken horse
No kindness, no softness
Her spirit so unyielding and coarse
Is there any hope for her now?
To whom can she turn?
Who would want this rebel child...?
Who can lure her in from the wilds?
Perhaps there is nothing left for this witch
But the muzzle of a gun,
Pressed to her cheek,
The squeeze of a trigger
So obliging and meek
And the crack of the bullet
Splintering her skull
The closing eyes
The graceful fall
And then...
The bloody bittersweet end of it all

Details | Amy Van De Casteele Poem

Dwindling

These days, i avoid the mirror...
Shunning my reflection, as a hunched Gollum 
Ducks his head from the sun’s incendiary stare –
I do not want to see…
Do not want the mirror’s truth, 
Etched in the hollows of my cheeks, 
In the death’s head darkness that dwells in my morbid eyes
My demise lurks in the mirror, 
Watching, biding his sweet time
And the child that I was is just a memory I chase, desperately 
Through dream-dappled meadows, 
In a haven that no longer exists…
My life has dwindled,
Shrunk to the point of light on the head of a pin,
i survive on mere seconds of borrowed time,
Snatched moments here and there,
Handfuls of dust trickling through my fingers 
Into the greedy belly of the hourglass…
It is all just a half-hearted dance macabre waltzed on a floor of shadows
Lies and truth are demon partners at my shoulder 
And love is Eurydice flitting in my wake from the depths of Hell,
She calls my name but if I turn to look,
Even to savor a final incandescent tryst of souls –
I will burn to ashes and die

Details | Amy Van De Casteele Poem

The One That Got Away

You visit me in dreams…
Phantom of broken hearts, you materialize, 
With a seductive smile on your lips – 
And dagger blades in your liquid eyes…
Casanova of breathing corpses is what you are; 
You murder young girls, with your charm – 
Tell them they’re beautiful, 
And before they know it they’re disarmed – 
And writhing in your embrace, doomed…
Fated to become just another notch on your bedpost, 
Another number on your tally sheet 
And then reduced to mere ghosts
I was just another one of them, I know
To me you were a god, gorgeous and divine; 
To you I was just a breathing toy 
I was stupid to think you could ever be mine
I should have known of course  
I had seen how the others had fallen 
But somehow as soon as your lips touched mine, 
All of their pain and heartache was forgotten 
I thought that maybe this time would be different 
That I could teach you how to love, to care…
God, what a fool I was – 
Your heart always was too small to share
There is only enough room for you 
No one else can squeeze or force their way inside 
That’s why when you got bored of me 
I was just tossed callously aside 
Another corpse for the graveyard, 
Another broken toy for the bonfire 
And you, wolf-like, stalked into the night 
Searching for another woman to quench your insatiable desire 
Leaving me here in the dark, 
Tears on my pillow, staining my pallid face 
With a battered bleeding heart – 
And all this love rotting, and going to waste…

Details | Amy Van De Casteele Poem

Entwined...

I am an obsessive, possessive compulsive
Besotted by your flawed brand of perfection,
My love for you is a grasping fist -
Crushing you, slowly suffocating,
Squeezing the breath - and the resistance – 
from your lungs, from your soul…
Constriction breeds subtle friction, 
You flail now and then like a landed fish, 
But you can’t escape me darling…
You can’t get away because you don’t want to,
Your willpower has corroded, has eroded to dust 
I am your heroin, killing you softly as the old song goes,
Caressing your heart into fatal submission…

Oh I don’t deny, sometimes the drug wears off, 
And you have a bad trip -
Sometimes my whip lash fails to strike…
And your dormant defiance rises with bullish temerity…
Sometimes I nearly lose my hold, and the fist weakens, flaccidly… 
Then I have to rein you in and force a harsher bit between your gritted teeth
Ha ha, oh yes, it can be a cat and mouse game, this romance, 
A tenuous balance of shifting powers, 
Like tectonic plates, seething beneath the surface…
The scales tip seductively in your favor, then in mine -
Sometimes your fingers slip round my throat, 
The manacles of my love asphyxiating…
Sometimes I lead you by the ring in your nose, my bovine beauty – 
Sometimes it all becomes too much, like black waters rising, 
Closing over my humble head,
And I start to choke…to drown…
But in the end, my fingers are locked round your heart,
And if I go down – baby, so do you

Details | Amy Van De Casteele Poem

To - My Future Husband

Love has many faces; takes many wildly varied forms 
A  shape-shifter of the heart she leads us a merry dance, 
Giggling girlishly from behind a golden mask...
One moment she is a capricious imp, 
Pinching the end of your nose and making your heart flutter 
The next moment she is a kindly old woman, 
Offering you a fresh baked cookie with a tender smile 
And dropping a gentle pat on the top of your head 
But then, perhaps on pre-menstrual days, comes Medusa 
All spitting snakes and flaming eyes, 
Casting your heart into a fiery chasm of beautiful despair...
A brief and muted hell where you hang suspended,
Gossamer manacles wound tight about wrists and ankles 
Tormented by the hissing demons of jealousy and doubt – 
It is in this brimstone bear den that I find myself now, 
Beads of sweat dribbling down the nubs of my aching spine – 
Discontent warring with wistful desire in the cerulean wells of my eyes 
And all because of you...
Avenging angel you are my dear, paragon of beauty and light, 
With your innocent smile and unblemished soul – 
How you put my corrupted heart to shame...
How you make me cringe, and doubt the worth of my affection 
You know, it is your love that has sent me here to this place of heated torment 
Your love and the fear and doubt that it stirs inside my shameful soul 
You see, I am starting to love you so much – too much 
The power and force of it terrifies me, as it drowns me in silken waves 
It puts me in such a vulnerable position, digs me a deep dark hole, 
A grave in which I will lay down to die if my faith should prove unfounded  
If the sneering demons of my jealousy speak the wicked truth; 
That you will one day see sense, and reject me with a sorry smile, 
Realising that I am sunk too low for your lofty heart to ever reach...
That the tarnish on my soul is just too black to be wiped away 
And that you are better off without me, on your unsullied perch, 
So far away and close to the sky where your fellow angels live – 
Bathing you in divine love and light 
The kind I could never give