Best Afterimage Poems
You know I wonder, what's our position look like to you?
The emotions we felt for eachother, to you were they ever true?
Nah, you were looking right through, searching for a place to nest
You found my weakness, piled the sticks and layed down for your rest
I gave you my best, at least give me a little recognition
I'm still trying, as you watch me limping, stuck in this position
My skin's itching, find me a cure or leave me to ache
The weight that you've already given is more than I can take
Through my eyes, I saw your presence as another apendage
Now the colors are black and white, the shades of an afterimage
So I stay in this orphanage, hidden behind these walls
I lost the spark to my flame, and drank the gas to it all
How did I fall? I could've swore I was standing straight
But if it's not meant to be, let it be 'cause its fate
And open the gate, to better things let the wind blow
When people step on the fallen leaves, hear the crunch and let go
It's destiny, so let me be free, to fly high
I wanna rest in Heaven, and when the times right I'll glide
But until then, I'm gonna have to learn to survive
And someday I'll feel no pain, until then, I'm alive
On the canvas of life, your signature lies,
Etched onto my granite heart, and the ever-changing skies.
Your essence, turned my primary colours, to vibrant schemes,
And now, in every hue I see that it’s you tinting my dreams.
You recoloured my world, breathed life into grey,
Transformed rigid contours into a graceful bright ballet.
Energy was no more just a word, it became an intimate dance,
You left your signature in every moment, every glance.
Each beat of joy is but a reflection of your presence,
An echo of laughter, lost in adolescence.
Each drop of sorrow finds its roots in your absence,
A shadowed valley, of your love, it's the severance.
You are both the zenith, and my deepest despair,
The interlude of greys, the weary threadbare.
The man I am, is but a silhouette of your inspiration,
A walking spirit of our lost constellation.
Once driven to become worthy of your affection,
A homage to your faith, an attempt at perfection.
Your phantom fingers no longer sculpt my path,
Yet, their imprints remain, a ghostly aftermath.
The woman who’ll cradle my unborn child in her womb,
Is the benefactor of the man that you helped to bloom.
Yet, my love for her, though steady and true,
Can never engulf, as completely, as I once loved you.
Your signature is everywhere, a residual glow,
In every sunset's burn, in the morning cock’s crow.
You transformed me, your essence deep in my vein,
An echo of love, a masterpiece of bittersweet pain.
The red sky became a dark fading light
across a darkened meadow
where our hands were still visible
as we tried to touch the sky
a star fell cutting through the black canvas
vanishing as quickly as it came
leaving an afterimage in our eyes
we made a wish, but neither would tell
as we lost ourselves in laughter and wine
knowing that tomorrow was far, far away
In this place where joy was captured
the rush of life slowed
and we came to know the quiet bonding of two souls
It was there our lives changed forever
and all that was before became unimportant
as tomorrow was not that far away anymore
I cup my hand
no Doppler's circle
this well of emptiness
as I splay my fingers
more of the same
hits the floor
fits of giggles
screams
groans
murmur then fade
eyes hold the sound of the afterimage
as ears seek its nuance
observer - the end/in the beginning
the hatching in the darkness
a dance within the drift of focus
of every empty
cupped hand
I know you have to leave, so go now, love
I'll be waiting here for you, it's okay-
And missing you doesn't start instantly
Since your presence lingers, for a short time
Like the afterimage on your retina
When you've been looking at a light too long
And see it even after turning away
But after blinking a few times realize
You've been standing alone in the darkness;
Somehow the shadows crept in unnoticed-
They must have snuck in with the cruel silence
That mocks me every time I'm without you
So hurry back to me soon, my sweet love
Come back to me, please, come back to me
Im half awake, and glaring at the sunrise
distant brilliance slowly eating at my dry eyes
squinted to best witness the aureate Apollo
refract off blades soaked through with dew
heaven's first blush, midsummer quiet, and coffee scent
cast clarity, light unveiling the burden
weighing down on every living being
clearest with the coming of the day
burning black holes into my brain's blank slate
sundering my soul 'till shatter state
fast approaches on the infinity of empty space
veiled out ahead of me
Restless with the lethargy of baring witness
I stir the pit, and catch flames leap up
from within carbon prints of gray matter
quelled embers lay suffocating beneath
ash dunes and smoldering phoenix feathers
matted and clumped by filmy deliquescence
spent of all but their will to rise again.
I grasp at the green broken glass
strewn about my feet like seeds
planted by last night's ignorance
and the sin of forced forgetting that
we all someday pay recompense
for our vice's and the gluttonous
way we all practice immoderation.
The world is quiet in lull
humanity lost to an illusion
breathing soft
and sleeping soundly
altogether
We exist
to want and rub against
the way the world turns on
a crooked axis, each moment less lucid
than those sunspots and dewdrops
coursing through dirt-clay veins and
branding the cracked dirt with morning
I cant shake loose the afterimage
imprinted on my blunted senses
experiencing everything I reach
is less than whole
understanding the universe
exists as fragments blackened in spite
of time's one plight forever pulling it apart
The sunset split the sky,
the fire danced and spit,
and the condensation clotted.
I seized eternity that morning
amidst the doldrums of sleeping masses
its truth intimate and calming.
I sense slumber cease and the suburbs rustle
the dreamers stumble about in waking
to shower away their sweat and dreamt delusion
start their cars, and drive away in sync
I listen closely to their heavy sighs
the shift of sagging shoulder plates,
bent under with Atlas tugging at the reins
kind's struggle never ceases to
echo off of terra firma, quaking
with each clanking of the chains
that bind our beating hearts to
alarm clocks, freeways, work weeks
and the torment of monotony
Last night, the "wolf moon's" crepuscular aura glowed.
A luminous peach orb, it hung in its abode
so spectacularly, that I silently slowed
my weekend walk through the willowwacks, while words flowed,
as molten lava from volcanoes would explode.
Its afterimage was like a handsel bestowed,
bewitching in a pulchritudinous yellowed
radiation that etiolated, 'twas stowed
in the recesses of my mind, an episode,
a pageant suspended in mythopoeic mode,
that called out in its classical clarion code -
thoughts emanating from moonlight, my path had showed.
01/14/17
As others Rush out from Subdivisions
applying War Paint hiding Scars
All have Grand Designs, their own Missions
you feel as Nobody's Hero watching their fancy cars
What You're Doing more than one can ask
The Way the Wind Blows sends the Good News First
You have a Bravest Face - they a mask
the one, is you blessed - for they are cursed
Paid The Big Money without counting cost
You Bet Your Life if truly A Farewell to Kings
to enter a Twilight Zone and get lost
it's A Far Cry to get Something for Nothing
With The Speed of Love to find your seat
Emotion Detector going crazy
you Stick It Out - await a strong and simple beat
to dance to - and not be lazy
The Available Light dims it's beams
The Main Monkey Business about to start
So far from your Middletown Dreams
to feel a Secret Touch on your heart
Time and Motion are about to Freeze
as Circumstances assume control
Their music brings you to your knees
as it does all in The Larger Bowl
Your Counterparts they feel it too
beyond what The Camera Eye can see
Beneath, Between, and Behind you
like Second Nature - where you want to be
After time most short, when the music stops
and there's only the sound of applause
Aging Dog Years - your heart drops
put into Limbo by a too long pause
Lessons inform you it's just Chemistry
their giving a Marathon of a gig
They've kept Open Secrets under Lock and Key
Show Don't Tell is all they know, you dig
A Sweet Miracle - upon the stage
Heresy - it has to end
know you must Turn the Page
Afterimage - you it sends
into the night
Rocking Under Starry Heavens
Titles and partial lyrics by Lee/Lifeson/Peart
It’s the point of no return.
Eyes dive in, swim, drown, refuse rescue.
Denser than black,
fiercer than blood,
a telepathy of purple,
a saturation of half-remembered yearnings.
It’s an incest of shades,
blue impregnating blue a hundred, a thousand times,
until light is aborted,
but its afterimage persists.
It’s a blue cocktail in a blue bar,
into which a lone teardrop
from a woman’s face falls,
but whether of sadness or of joy,
none will know.
It’s a mystery too deep,
an ecstasy too blinding,
a feeling that sears like a dream.
Unclear and unfocused thoughts,
Trapped in negative emotions.
I can't seem to chase away the bad thoughts.
All I can do is sit around.
I'm waiting for someone,
But I can't remember who.
I'm waiting so long...
I'm waiting for someone.
My fingers tremble from anxiety.
I can no longer feel my feet.
My very soul seems like it's frozen.
Chasing away any bad thoughts is not an option.
I'm waiting so long...
But I can't remember who.
I'm waiting for someone,
But do I even know who?
I'm waiting so long...
Courage is something I no longer have,
All I can do is look back.
But it's not like I can go back.
My face is starting to feel numb.
Anxiety is the only thing that I know.
I'm waiting for someone.
I'm waiting so long.
My feet are frozen.
Hands can do nothing but tremble.
My face is now numb.
My soul isn't warm.
I lost all my courage.
I'm waiting for...
I'm waiting...
I'm...
Stuck with an afterimage of myself.
It does nothing,
For I can't go back.
Someone will one day come.
But do I even know who?
I'm waiting for someone,
I'm waiting so long...
And yet no one comes.
But do I even know who?
Does it even matter now?
I've frozen over,
Waiting for someone who can't even come.
After all, I've given up on myself.
I'm waiting...
Consciousness filled me.
The dream evaporated from my eyes,
Leaving behind an afterimage of nonsense.
Soon after,
I found control of my limbs;
Wiggling my toes
This way and that.
I stretched my legs as wide as I could.
And that’s when I hit it .
My naked calf brushed
Ever so slightly upon the
Hard
Dead
Creases of
Flesh.
All of a sudden –
I hear exhales unlike my own.
Icy stabs like a harsh, dry rain
Pinching the hairs on my chin, erect.
Faster and faster
The essence escaping my lungs
Climbs through
Muck and gloom
To become another’s oxygen.
A gritty smile
Scrapes against my thin eyelids,
Bundled shut-
Afterimages melding with creeping shadows.
.
“That-
“That nonsense. It was not a dream…”
“It wasn’t.”
"i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go..." ee Cummings
In the silent wondrous wonders of my yearning,
you appeared
as a lasting vision burned deep into my eyes
In the flaming quiet of this moment,
my heart trembled
and love rose like a glorious glow
breaking the darkened horizon of my yesterday's loneliness
like a rising sun that splayed warmth so timeless
as to nourish my soul
and lead me to escape the tideless shores of emptiness
where my lost barren heart had dwelled
for so long
Before the world turned
and your gift of love begets love
to leave an afterimage in my heart
Where promises are laid upon the altar of life
and poems were etched into my soul
to be read like a haunting melody
from the lips of your passions that need to be held
like a precious jewel...forever
11/1/19
contest Writing Challenge, November-Some Kind of Love
Poetry Contest
sponsor Dear Heart-Wiishkobi Ode
Memories of you left an afterimage in my eyes
I found blindness to be a comfort
where darkness dressed in dreary black
and my soul laid its head on my heart's grave
to weep about wishes withdrawn from love's breath
when your footprints faded away
and an open door swung back and forth in the wind
leaving nothing but yesterday's dim-lit realms of shade
in this darkness, I heard Angels cry
from our love's broken bliss of beauty
where tears dropped from eyes of sadness
onto empty palms, that once held love and roses
could that I have cried to someone, somewhere
to be so empty, so helpless
as to dissolve away with every emotion that fled
until my heart became an empty husk
and my world an unwanted withering stem of dead petals
that slowly bent and crumbled, falling to Earth
to land on my knees, brokenhearted
it's where you'll find me
but, you won't find me, for you have gone
and I have become nothing more than a weeping shadow
of shades and sadness filled with memories
that left an afterimage in the eyes
2/25/22
contest Some Broken Hearts Never Mend
sponsor Faraz Ajmal
Sensuality is the wellspring
that feeds passion to the soul
through the deepest depth of desire
that pauses in quiet solitude
before leaving an afterimage in the eyes
where it burns the boundaries of higher senses
when music soft, caresses the ears
through the amber light of dawn, rising
awakening every sense as the eyes search
the welcomed realms of imagined expectations
so the beautiful face that pauses
can look back in joyous yearning
as it becomes the artist that paints the glorious renderings
of a longing gaze that fills the unmeasured distance
between the eyes of lovers
It is the understanding of wants and needs
when passion is worn by the soul
to warm the eyes of love
when they are submerged in the solitude of silent surrender
6/26/20 contest Sensuality
I am at a wedding
in Iowa.
She called to tell me
that the orange afterimage
from that afternoon five years ago
has filled her brain for the first time
in years.
I don’t have the heart
to tell her I am at a wedding
in Iowa
& that the memory of her sits
in the front of my mind each day
like a scarecrow in a corn field.
It wouldn’t break her heart
or anything—nothing would,
but I can’t bring myself to tell her that I
have stolen her likeness,
I have hired a gardener, someone to tend
the apricot trees she planted,
someone to prune the ashen dust
from the perennial flowers
that grow in her stead.
Each day I pick one,
and her hips move through the grocery store,
her laugh echoes in a vinyl booth,
her hand moves a pawn one square forward.
I stick it in the windowsill, right
behind my eyelids and slake my thirst
on tepid water.
None of this would break her heart, of course—
nothing would.
I don’t tell her about the wedding, the one
in Iowa, just in case.