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Best Poems Written by Shannon Hilson

Below are the all-time best Shannon Hilson poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Shannon Hilson Poem

Breathe

This dance feels resurrected
Right down to the cherry stains on your sleeve
And the tapestries that look like iron will
But are really shadows cleverly woven to imply it.

I can not see here
The lights are too low
But sometimes things are better seen
When lit by the lanterns of the mind instead.

They look brighter
Redder
Closer to real
Than real could ever be.

We were here once before
A thousand years ago give or take a century.
I spoke with a carnelian tongue
You tasted like pomegranate seeds.

Going back there again
Carrying that same tune
Becoming crimson
Becoming other
Breathe

I lost my breath
You gave me yours
You held me
You said
Breathe

Details | Shannon Hilson Poem

Neptune's Concubine

Last night 
The heavens caught fire.
Each planet and star
Was seduced by the treacherous Earth
And each in turn died in flame 
Attempting to possess her. 

From this destruction
Neptune alone was spared.
And he smothered us all
With an oblivion cape
All tied up in tide
And hung with mermaids.

Last night
I slept on a tall, sugary cake
That was being blown 
This way and that
By the twentieth wind.
And I dreamed.

I dreamed
Of being rocked to sleep
By divine arms that smelled of rain.
And I dreamed
Of falling to the ground
And becoming the ocean's disciple.
 
Last night
I died and it felt familiar.
I smothered quietly in marzipan
And misty blue breaths that choked.
I sang a song of nautilus shells.
I learned a tale of universal law.

And all this time I lay still
Upon the back of the plum cake.
He held me as I wove a tapestry
Of hungry planets
And immortal assassins
He held me as I dreamed on.

Details | Shannon Hilson Poem

The Valium Bath

Fixed under water glass
Like a splinter beneath Poseidon's skin
There is no Sunday
And no one knows Rhyme
With her cool hands
And her goat's feet.

There are only
Walking dead
From whose wool-lined mouths
Pour blindfolds
And broken keys
Strangle holds
And bloody knees.

Rapunzel bruised
Left for dead forgotten
Bound and gagged
By her own golden hair.
Drowning in the Valium Bath
Warm and blind
Dying slow
But unaware.

Details | Shannon Hilson Poem

Ink

Becoming is like taking up
A crystal goblet full of purple ink
The stuff that begets hatters and rabbits
And curious oysters with bad endings in their cards
And drinking it down
Taking in all those not-yet thoughts
Those embryonic fantasies
Those epiphanies still wrapped in their silvers
And making them yours
Just yours
Just yours in their brilliance
In their ever-changing solace
And using them to change your stars.

Details | Shannon Hilson Poem

Always and All Ways

Imagine for a moment a house
With more doors than a house can own
And a field of golden wheat that is more than wheat
Where the green grass should be.
Within stands a tall arch raised higher than high
And leaning at an angle no arch can lean
And still remain merely an arch.

Beneath the arch lie the fragments
That once were knit together
In the guise of grand statues.
Marble behemoths that told the story
Of their Creator long past and faint.

Our Lady appears beneath the arch
That is more than an arch.
She sings a clear note
That is more than a note
And looks up to the sky
That is more than a sky
And is a shade of blue no sky
Has any business wearing.

The marble remains hear and obey.
The soundtrack rewinds itself.
The sands reverse their direction at once.
And all is right in the wheat field once more
As if Destruction himself
Were the real myth in this tale.

Details | Shannon Hilson Poem

The Thirteenth Hour

It is not something
That can be tied
Pulled to you with a rope.
Nor laced and bound
To feel its own every breath.
You can not lay it on crust
And taste it like lemon epiphany.

You can not steer it
By turning the wheel this way and that.
Nor can you feel it
By running your hand
Along the wallpaper's edge
In the middle of the night.
It is made up of tinsel particles
That only appear after the thirteenth hour.

A nicotine fit
A sour apple dream
An oblivion kit
A kiwi ermine scream

A cutlass blade
A bottomless well
A peacock shade
A pathos bell

It is all and nothing.
It is both then and when.
It is the why and the how.
It is the here and now.

It is the snow pepper future.
It is the black cherry past.
It is diamond lust glory.
It is every man's story.

Details | Shannon Hilson Poem

Message In a Bottle

I washed Your feet in the desert 2000 years ago and You thanked me in a language I
have forgotten that I understand.

I have eaten three pomegranate seeds that have caused me to forget how to see.

I have hidden beneath the wing of a dragon so long that I have forgotten that I am cold.

I am trying to catch happiness with a fish hook even though I know this to be impossible.

The path I walk is paved with broken Scarab's wings and the sun is setting.

I am wondering if I can bring back the Dawn by canceling Springtime.

I don't remember which way it was..... me dreaming Him or Him dreaming me.

I have forgotten what color You told me your eyes would be the next time we met and
because of this, I don't know how to find You again.

Spending millenia seeking a color you have never seen before is the most exhausting
of tasks and requires a faith I no longer possess.

I know not for Whom I write these things, but I know that all of them are true.

Details | Shannon Hilson Poem

A Toast

To the pale green light of a new dignitary overhead....
To the hypothetical dawn....
To the fae mercurial sand....
To the violet beat of the gift of the drum....
To the falcon of stone....
To the when, the where, the why, and the which....
To the thirteenth day....
My deepest regards.

Details | Shannon Hilson Poem

The Name of the Shade

There is a word for that color
That one
That one fixed perfectly snugly
Between blue and green
That shade the ocean turns
When it is cold
And foggy
And seals appear to be something other
Something half human
And half sentient guardian.

That shade
That one
That you sometimes see on peacock tails
And taste in fairy tales
Like lime and ether
In Shadow Lands
Shadow Lands
Lands you know how to get to
But can never find on any map.

There is a word for that shade.
There is a name for her
The one that was never born
At least not out loud
The one that wears her robes like mummy dust
That saves her soul through blood lust
That one
That one that knows how many stars
It will ultimately take
To buy a brand new moon.

Details | Shannon Hilson Poem

Nothing of the Kind

I may wear planets as if they are pearls
But I am not your Messiah.

I may eat fire
But I am not a Dragon.

My underwear drawer is not lined with seraph's feathers.
My eyes don't hide galaxies like you think they do.

Don't look at me like I can walk on water.
Don't bow before me as if I'm holy.

Believe me when I tell you
I am nothing of the kind.