Best Fainter Poems
Heart's memory of sun grows fainter,
What now? Darkness?
Perhaps! This very night unfolds
the winter.
-- Anna Akhmatova
I remember the summer
of yesterdays, folded neatly
like little leaves just waking up to life.
Ours were colored, all the days
hanging together on one twig,
glistening amidst the morning dew
like love's own eyes waking
beneath the passion of dawn.
The redness, so we thought,
could never fade to colder days,
nor leave us chafed from winter's wind.
We were the only breath of air
shared within the expansion of dreams.
We never dreamt of sunset skies,
yet, we watch it now, fading slowly
across the horizon of night's rise,
questioning eye's own darkness,
wondering, what does the truth behold?
Not Again! six inches on top of the snow we already had! This started out to be a blank verse sonnet, but it didn't turn out that way.
The snow has smothered life tonight
Our world now gleams in flawless white
Below the earth, the bulbs’ low whine
impatient with delay of time.
Their voice is faint and fainter still
the cry of birds in fluffed-up chill
so hunger thinned in winter snap
with hidden food beneath its wrap.
Yet seed thrown out on top of snow
and cooked with peanut butter, slow
then shaped in cakes with honey glue
has brought to us a checkered queue
As daylight hails, we watch to see
this comic scene of feathered spree.
our doubts fade away
when our focal point becomes
positivity
©142011082013
An empty trace – part 8
The shaman held the vial near
it trickled slow into the glass
A shimmering this welcomed tear
as precious moments came to pass
He shook it slow with tempered stroke,
the gem, his staff, once more did glare
Again the incantation spoke,
an emerald glow was everywhere
“Return this beauty to her form
of daisy rush and willow feel
To cleanse the soul of poisoned storm
and sorrows cast as to reveal”
The sun now but an empty trace,
a fainter amber light is found
As nightfall rushes to the place
above horizon’s silent ground
Another drop, his fingertips,
then quickly to her mouth did lean
To place upon the tender lips
of this, the kingdom’s precious queen
He feared this might have come too late
as others in the room agreed
Yet not with words, but quiet wait
their silence floats on hoped for deed
This staff, its light begins to dim,
the healer breathes in heavy sighs
“I fear, I fear, we have lost him,
indeed our king this hour dies”
When then a flickered lash does flow,
another comes as if to thrive
As now her eyes they open slow,
once more, their queen has come alive
The crescent moon overlooks
The pink taffy sky as it melds
With the grey mist that rises
From the creeks and gently rolling hills
I read a long time ago
To avoid criticism one should
Say nothing, do nothing, be nothing
But even in doing that one gets criticised
Many politicians say a lot
Buttering everyones' toast
But when it comes down
To doing anything worthwhile
They are like a phantom, ghost, or apparition
That disappears at first light or close observation
They have to hide in shadows
So that their half-truths, lies, straddling of the fence is not found out
So how can we learn from this
What can we do with our lives
What can we be, say, write
If we say, be, write then can we
Follow through with action
Moon is getting fainter just a bare
Silver almost hair
Against the very gray-blue sky that mixed
With the mist of the earth two have combined
Seemingly forming one body
Duty has called me from the carefree moments
That exist out on the porch as the roosters begin
Their crowing, the crickets have quietened,
And the birds have begun their morning chirping
And life calls me away to do the responsibilities of day
I speak my thoughts...you do not hear. I reach to touch...you are not near.
I matter not to you, nor to any other. I am invisible...you do not see me.
I have no face; I have no substance. I try to speak, there are no words...you took my voice! So, now I huddle, fetal form. I strain to hear the dullness of my heart as its beat slows and fainter gets. Now even I can no longer see a speck, a shadow left of me. I am void.
This house has been set ablaze; ashes rain like snow,
covering what has become my deathbed.
A weighted blanket of ruins lies heavy upon my chest.
Laboured breaths and the taste of soot coat the back of my throat,
stifling oxygen from reaching the whites of enervated eyes.
Blue-tinted lips incoherently whisper, flirting with my demons,
living in purgatorial gloaming
whilst my spirit hovers between diminishing light and shadows.
Reality blurs, amalgamating with hallucinations
where demons dance in a macabre ballet,
reenacting repressed sorrows,
torturing an undead heart to the brink of insanity.
With each twirl, each act, tales of desperation are etched onto flesh.
Riverlets of blood stain the sheets bright red,
as tourniquets are nowhere to be found.
There is no way to halt the flow;
emotional instability will be my bloodletting.
Every second ticks by a little quicker
until each heartbeat grows fainter.
A clenched jaw relents,
eyes roll backwards,
and a damaged soul is severed from its mortal coil,
yet its fate is left undetermined,
flailing in the in-between forevermore.
Evenings have become colder as autumn leaves change and become bolder.
Summer songs are fainter as leaves fall and the trees are another year older.
Leaves carpet our path with hues of red and yellow as we continue our walk.
We watch each leaf fall as the trees are becoming silent, soon unable to talk.
Once majestic and proud the leaves are looking up at where they once aglow.
The sadness that life once ran through their veins, now waits for winter snow.
In remembrance of their season, we acknowledge the leaves in life had a reason.
Edward J Ebbs - 09/06/2014
Written for a Contest, One Autumn Night (in just 7 lines)
Be like arundathi-vashista;
Single soul adhering two bodies;
An ideal couple, epitome of the marriage life;
Travel together in the troubles and strifes;
says a priest after a marriage ceremony
Mizar and Alcor,
always seen together
are twin stars of the big dipper constellation,
Unique twin stars which revolve around each other,
rotate in synchrony in the sky forever
Note:
In Indian during the marriage ceremonies of the hindus, the priests used to show the twin stars after the marriage and educate the newly married couples about this immortal ideal couple. Now it has just become the ritual without knowing the reasons.
Vashista the vedic sage one of the sapta rishi(Seven Great rishis)married arundathi, an epitome of wifely devotion, who never wanted to seperate from her husband and stays with him in saptarishi mandala
Wikipedia:
SaptaRishis, are the seven great sages in Indian Mythology. They have attained a semi-immortal status.Arundhati is the wife of the sage Vashistha, one of the seven sages (Saptarshi) who is identified with the star Alcor which forms a double star with Mizar (identified as Vashista) in Ursa Major
In the most twin stars system, one star is stationary and other rotates around it, while Arundhati and Vashishtha both rotate synchronously.
The Big Dipper or the Plough is an asterism consisting of seven bright stars of the constellation Ursa Major; Mizar is perhaps the Big Dipper’s most famous star, glorified in the annals of astronomy many times over. Apart from Alcor, Mizar in itself became known a double star in 1650. In fact, it was the first double star to be seen through a telescope.Mizar and its fainter companion star Alcor are one of the most famous double stars in the sky
Behind your earlobe there was a birthmark that had the shape of palestine
But they taught you in there that it was called israel
In the hearth of your chest lied a heart full of vitriol
Out of your choice they altered your pulse, degraded your work
they treated your sixty beats as the clock ticking away sixty seconds
They manifested you as a clockwork
You sought the sabbath like a reaper
sought the harvest
All of your zest was sucked out
To fuel their comedown machine with it
They enforced you to live behind the doors
To love a country that was never yours
Ought to learn the rules of a game you loathe
Ought to learn crescendo and decrescendo , both
On a monday , i peered through my window and found you burning your paintings , your art
The art that made me fall for you like the snow fell on everest , didnt they teach you that too?
Snow fell on the havocked cielings of the kids of indochina too ,yet you never knew
The next week you were hypnotised by your mother's gramaphone's blues
Immobilized in your second prison awaiting divine intervention or cues
On wednesday clamor rose in your cell and into your cells
Both of your parents , ignited coals but luckily cathedral bells
Covered your yelps
I saw you from a nigh distance
As the one between helsinki and tallin you knew from the geography book you were blandly eyeing
You had a globe but your thoughts were never airborne
You had a soul but you deemed it way fainter than the infamous coals you stared at
Thursday morning i resumed my ritual but you changed your entire course , mine aswell
Your books towered beneath your feet
Which hung limply in the air
Your birthmark was covered with the noose you tied around your head
The geography book became your execution platform
The thing was , i had the exact same book
And im about to ensue you but first let me burn my poems.
A wound trying to heal.
I pick at grief,
like a child digs at a scab.
I'm leaving a dark dance
that winds into a night
that never ends.
A dance where pain circles,
and weaves it's seeds
into a hilly landscape,
that lives behind my eyes.
Memories of tangled beauty
like silken grass
knot in the breath of the wind.
I pull and I push.
Like Chinese handcuffs,
I won't let go.
Dusk lights a path
that beckons me to follow
to a darkness so deep
I know it would blind me.
Lost, I listen for dawn.
A bath of morning light
so lovely, so caring
washes over me.
Shines while I trace
the path of where I've danced.
A trail of fading steps,
pale bruises imprinted lightly
on the tender earth.
In the wind I now hear music.
It's a beautiful song I hum
while I watch a scar grow fainter.
The ringing of phone awakes,
Out of slumber and causes shakes.
To the hand that finds it in dark,
And the ear where it finds it’s mark.
Eerie silence from other end,
And then at once it all begins…
Terror screams across the line
From victim of a heinous crime.
Begging, pleading emitting
From the speaker without quitting.
The cries forever seem to last
And hold the listener aghast.
Dark visions dance in back of mind
Of rape and murder, nothing kind;
Of knives and guns and chilling thoughts
And ugly acts that man has wrought.
Awareness hits and speak he tries;
But is not heard above the cries
Of accosted caller who in fright
Keeps on yelling with all her might.
Cries now fainter as if dragged away,
And now with earnest begins to pray
The man whose voice could not be heard
To unknown victim who has said no word.
Wanting to assist, but not knowing how;
A furrow of helplessness creases his brow.
Her name or place he did not know
Only that he could hear the blows.
He cringed and winced at every sound,
But hoped that some clue could be found
In the background of the chaotic hell;
That abuser would give up a tell
To indicate where they might be.
But nothing came, except for pleas
For life and mercy were the cries
From weakened lips with crimson tides.
As quiet came he sat perplexed.
Then strange voice boomed and said “Your Next”!!
In fear and panic he tried to shout,
Muted silence was all that fell out.
Then from his dream he awakened,
Drenched in sweat and terribly shaken,
To ringing phone in dead of night
A silent caller, un-nerving fright….
The sparsity of congregants
reminds me of the absence
of jestful boys schooled
in the faux arts
of throwing hymnbooks
across the nave.
The smelters ran two shifts,
fed us beattitudes
of paid mortgages
and Sunday roast beef
as the school teemed every year
with five-year-olds.
Sidewalks buckle
atop the roots of oak canopies,
as the breath of traffic
grows sparer;
the psalms of our minister grow fainter.
In the tart air of early Spring
those sly boys
would cup a book in a palm
and pretend to launch it,
to the mortification of their mothers.
As summer grieves and bids it must go,
Fall burst forth in magnificent show,
Dressing the trees in crimson hued gowns,
‘Til breezes thieve and take their leaves down,
Lacing tapestries over the ground,
While fainter becomes the robin’s sound,
Waiting for winter to come around,
With a blanket of white, so profound,
That melts away to a spring surround,
Of vibrant colors that now abound!
Woke to an empty bed
He wasn't there.
Overwhelmed by a cluttered kitchen
left from the night before
A freshly cut green pepper and lemon
lying on the counter
He's asleep on the sofa
wrapped in the wine-colored robe I had given him.
I crawled into his arms, unwelcomed,
Why didn't you come to bed?
I couldn't sleep, the sleepy reply.
There's the bottle, now nearly empty of its golden liqueur,
the sweet object of his affections through the night.
What are you hiding from
that drives you to drink?
I'm almost afraid to ask.
He sighs, avoids my gaze,
I want to leave, he tells me quietly.
The first awareness of the ache in my heart
Now softened by the passage of time.
The clock radio comes on
with the last passages of Samuel Barber's Adagio,
mirroring a sadness I'd thought was long gone.
Recalling my dream, I touch the ache in my heart
that began some eight years ago now
...and breathe...
It's much fainter now, not nearly so painful.
I contemplate my life
and I am grateful.
Praise God for it all,
Every seeming loss, every apparent gain.
Maybe I'm ready now
...I'd like to think that I am...
To deal with the left overs,
Confront the overwhelm,
Clear out the boxes and the dross
I've been carrying around since that time,
To be more present, more alive,
More available today
To Love.