Always the world splinters—
the world breaks, fractures,
yet we lean into the cracks,
as curators, as keepers,
guardians of each other’s troubles
We gather the fragments,
hidden deals, relics, left-overs.
Embers still warm from the hearth.
Praying to self, I was near you once,
and it mattered, it burned,
it endured, it lasted, and mattered.
In the prance of happenstance
uncertain, trembling, raw, delicious,
we shuffle our scarred tokens,
knurled with abraded edges,
blurred and charred—
still radiant, still reflective, alive.
Laughter bends into mirrored halls.
Mirror on mirror aligned;
none showing the same viewpoint,
a shifting, stuttering constellation,
echoing a thousand selves
crying out together in reflection.
We are more than simply ourselves.
We are the harvest, the gathering.
We are the constellation.
A mosaic of cracks, left uncovered.
Where we let the light crawl in.
We are a threshold, an opening.
Where the light breaks in—
through the doorway
cherished as broken,
not worth fixing, nor mended.
Never broken enough,
Never done enough.
The door is broken.
Let the light come in!
A turncoat sheds his skin, like autumn leaves,
To don a new coat with many bright hues.
With a mask, and an overcoat for thieves,
For whom or what, when, his deceit may choose.
Once clad in virtue, now as a fraud dressed,
Hiding the old spots of truth frayed, faded,
That once for friends and loyalties professed,
Now remain as scars, torn and abraded.
He knows no truth, nor love, nor noble dream,
For chameleon's spots are insecure,
Flitting and feigning camouflaged esteem,
Beneath the coat of colored spots, impure.
Can a change of skin or spots on a coat,
Ever excuse a lying turncoat's gloat?
I will celebrate temporary triumphs
Little moments when my skin feels like my own
The days I wake up without the crushing weight on my chest, setting the elephant aside to greet the dawn
I will write profusely , when I feel whole again
I know that these minutes are fleeting
I can't always recognize myself, or hear my own thoughts anymore
There is a void both within me and outside of me
A longing for a life that used to be
I've been busy drawing blanks
Occupied with my sorrow and its visceral weaponry
When I can find myself I'm already stretched to thin
I've been molded to the fabric of this new existence
Abraded and raw where reality meets the skin
I have come up with many ways to fold myself
Fitting in to the necessary shapes and spaces, can you see the seams
My desperate attempts at stitching
I've grown weary of trying to keep it together
I thought it better to become hollow
I want to cry, to scream, to be enraged
Instead it has been the numbness I've chosen to embrace
Cheers to the small victory
Of still having days I get to be me
Even if it hurts
SAND
airborne
dust devil
stinging whirligig
rips my hair, eyes, and skin
I’m well-scoured and abraded
“Cleansing sand storm, if I survive.”
NB: Clarity Pyramid, two triplets and a single line; 1/2/3/5/6/7/8 (7 lines total)
The mobile mind of the indomitable mariner,
the resolute sailor floating on the waves of life,
rolling on the curled crests with splintered moon,
drawn into dark agony troughs of drowned stars,
spread to oblivion breaking on the shore of past.
The crushed sands carve seaward footprints,
designed by the crumbled contours of decay.
Time arrow points to terrain beyond the shore,
away from the abraded wilderness abandoned,
where the chasm consumes the collapsed hopes.
The weed-webbed wasteland defined deep within,
piles up the washed out wreckage of life unlived.
The withering garden garners metallic bleakness,
as the path paved outside the familiarity fence,
waits to be walked by the mesmerized wanderer
to the mesmeric meadow of tantalizing tomorrow.
The invented alchemy aptitude of mystic memory
makes glittering gold on the rusted crust of ruins.
Marigold blooms in the scrap heap of abiding hope
in the Midas touched junkyard of the metallic mind.
_________________
February 19, 2023
For Brian Strand's Your Choice Again Contest
Hustle of traffic
In red and green
With whirls of more motor horn and
The thrust radio in my car
All concealed and unfortunate but,
In fierce search of oasis
"why not play the recorder?"
That someone said
And felt the rain...
Tale of love abraded by rain
Tale of absence gore my veins
Tale of glimpse bygones stake my chest
And sounds of raining sings melancholia,
Glooms every joy we together savoured
Once alive,
And some ghosting nights...
And my mind full of abandoned tasks
Knock inside the glass of my car
Here's signals green.
I felt,
This vehemence of your desire
I am savouring,
Both unconsciously and unconditionally
Since shrouded you in the riot of 2008!
(Bombay songs, 1995 depicts as playing)
What day was it I found this piece
Of broken bottle turned to gem
Abraded by the sands and tides
And worn to faded opulence
Just trash upon the ocean’s shore
Now in a jar upon a shelf
And miles from sights and sounds of gulls
And years gone by from when first found
A talisman to touch and hold
To shore up memories now gone cold
Of walks together on the beach
And hunting for the sea glass gems
Perhaps some magic still remains
Of walks and sharing finds.
The first two lines from - I am Me Set me Free - by Maria Williams
Use my oil and mill my seed
My healing powers are all you need
I grow on trees as old as time
I will keep you in your prime
I can help you with abraded skin
Keep you fit and keep you trim
Poured on bread your taste buds flutter
Better health than greasy butter
I grow on trees from ancient time
Best in soil with added lime
Pick me green before I'm ripe
Take no notice of the hype
Consume me black is just as good
Add me to your favorite food
I am the olive and well known
All across the world I'm grown
Australian fields you'll find me there
Where the land used to be bare
The natives from the Continent
Planted seeds it was their bent
So healing cooking keeping fit
To the grape I add a bit
The two of us protect you well
Ends the tale I have to tell
"Always thought of myself as a top of the food chain type of guy but lately I'm stuck on the bottom"
In the pitch of night I wander
foraging the inner workings of the mind
life hasn't been too kind lately
but what is one to expect
I feel not at ease as I reach out
to touch each appendage
kicking back as the pain explains
what is wrong and and what is right
Fresh wounds fillet my soul
and I'm vulnerable
but not scared
fear's not what I fear
Some scars are abraded
as I try to naw off the weak
the dismembered, the cancerous
cells calling me over and over
I will not heed their message
but they won't stop
as I limp onward not knowing
or caring what will hit me next
Adversity
'I need a word; I need a enunciation to exclaim'
Albeit I lack them
I need ear to hear echoes also sounds,
Circumstance holds everything bound
Assorted terminologies of facilitation, certainty and belief
Nothing accumulated lone mounted reef,
Tear coursed like brook inside
Nothing heard than rest in peace beside,
Resonance of tear; aches and cries,
Authority brought no deduction, without any assays
Temporary camps and houses all over,
Numerous loss, destruction nothing could cover
Abraded land, ways and house
Senators here are mute and louse,
Like mole of orifices and mouse
So, I need a stage, a rage and craze
'I need a word; I need a enunciation to exclaim'
But I lack them
Allusions transposed,torn worn abraded
threadbare of decorative function
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Waiting
Years have passed by
as I endlessly wait,
Sure you are at peace
crazy... that's my trait,
Life a dejected flute
that you no longer hold,
Its many holes waiting
for your tender kiss,
Warm breath to be blown
inside of me,
Magical melodies ...
Those loving moments
longings that got buried,
Waiting to erupt
anytime passion volcano,
Molten smooth lava
to unleash my desires,
Asleep on flames ...
Drumming beats
of a broken heart,
Losing all rhythm
waiting to be mend,
My soul you took along
a mere body now crawls,
Abraded bleeding ...
Faint colourful images
treasured deep within,
Spirits that intrigue
for all times to come wait,
Be sung as regional songs
those tragic tales of love,
Glorious pages of history ..
Written Sept 9th, 2015
For contest "Waiting" by James Rogers
Awarded 1st place win
Entered into "Best love poem #3" poetry contest by SKAT A
Awarded 10th place win
At the distant verge of horizon
Slowly submerging is weary Sun
With reddened face
Bidding grudging adieus
To his day long drudging
Brooding over mandatory next come
I stood there staring at Him
I wanted to say “don’t depart”
In an automatic reflex
I lifted my right hand aloft!
Nay! He didn’t stop! I wept!
As feared reemerging are my
Horror-ogres, with creepy insurgence
A dirge from distant mountain range
Barged inside my fragile core
With harrowing clangor
Oozing out acid-reminiscences
From burrows of my bruised past
Started corroding once more
My already well-abraded heart
The dark thickets of moonless night
Are thickening my tiresome thoughts
I wriggle on my bed like a sloughing serpent
In an insomniac discomfort getting ready
For deadly duels with my night spirits
My only hope! A quick crack of dawn!
To restart my histrionics and harlequinade
amongst my people; and dazzle one more day
Making fun and pleasing everyone
With my feigned charm and exuberance
Dreading inside the night at imminence
I avoid the light that invades the space of the windows
because it perturbs the nuances of my thoughts:those
frigid sepulchral memories of yesteryears' love lying
uniformly beyond a damp partition of consciousness,trying
to escape as a means of a venerable excuse for me to
decimate this flesh and soul which gives residence to
those effulgent ponders that waver restlessly and tangent
upon the structure of the optimists' creed that was bent
from capricious minds and hypomanic-states to which nothing
states of the verities of the now abysmal dolor which rings
through my heart with incessant intonation of a melody
that schlepps through my senses in remoteness of euphony
which springs forth from mouths of angels vocalizing of their
freedom.And within those octaves I hearken of the loss
of my freedom which I once embraced in the solitude
that abraded piquancy of vibrant day,having worn it away
to evince the cold moments of paltry existence when those
unawakened fleeting thoughts(which are semblable to windows
of graves)allow no memory of yesteryears' love bereft
to evade,and no glint of light to invade the eyes of death.
butterflies despair
wounded and abraded - yet
forges right ahead
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