Best Inhabits Poems
Alone the bones of the room
bear no weight of responsibility
nor does it bare its breast of secrets
a broken pane
provides a breath with a pang of lavender
a wistful inhale
inhabits the lungs of this space
as the room tries to embrace...
oh embrace the breathing breeze
to squeeze a semblance of life into this place
but the breeze— a gypsy whisper-warm
needs freedom to come through and sweep-swirl
sun-dust into whirls of pinprick-stars...
then leave softly recede not beholden to bones
stoic and standing still
not beholden to dust stranded midair
only to fall in despair— abandoned
with less a good-bye
as bygone laughter and lullabies
are held on lath-tongues
behind horsehair plaster walls
but mute memories linger
they mingle in fairy dust like fireflies in dusk;
her May-time suckling coos and her mama’s ooohs
the woes and throes of Winter’s rocking chair nights
a weep of April tears and seep of mud puddles thawed
the reborn dust lifted with green summer breezes
—a colored canvas that minions of time
would rather gesso white
in its bones the room
remembers its worth as a womb
nurturing a baby’s breath
beneath blue-skin-skies
where rows of purple spires grow
till Mistral winds blew hard and cold
and flew her lavender soul
far from her earthly home
oh the loss of life
wind-crashing-seas-onto-rocks
loss of life
skeleton-ribs-of-the-crib-stripped
of-her-lavender-sprig
loss of life
What smug pseudomorph
inhabits my reflection,
adroitly mimicking my
every manner and expression,
mercilessly mocking me
with flawless simulation?
She is the great pretender;
a master counterfeiter;
a furtive opportunist;
a thieving imitator.
She is a soul-sucking demon
of the gravest degree;
a brazen parasite
feeding on health and ingeny,
pillaging my youth
with savage gleam and glee;
siphoning my precious hollow
of vitality.
Time ticks across my aging face
while our eyes lock in defiance,
and in the end, my spurious friend
will demand my full compliance.
So, with a twinkling eye I wink
at my mirrored facade,
acknowledging this fearsome foe
with a playful nod.
Respectfully reciprocal,
she gestures back to me in kind,
and we part as esteemed enemies,
to my last breath resigned.
Fluted hands angle on knees as glimpses
sort the knitted threads of a late afternoon
where gathering of blooms abide.
Almost friendless, a man inhabits his space
ready to inhale the waft of new dusk,
of how a world in his inner terrain mirrors
the ceremonials of a mindful passage
upon grasses and half-lit windows
outside the self.
And through a prayerful instance,
he connects with a god hushing the tempo
of sighs mixed with incense blowing, as if
to twirl in an air of breaths cleansing
the scabs of trespasses. Miles of babel words
turn into a different language: quite unknown
and understood only by him who finds
contentment in being unbound ,of gliding
above a haloed sky that reflects the movement
inside his awakened essence.
For the atonement of all misgivings,
he releases his pride in layers
of deep confession to pay for his karmic debt;
that in a warm communion with humility
he makes amends for life's consequences
as stillness becomes his friend.
Anthony Slausen's Karma
I want to break free -
from this confining shell that
my soul inhabits,
warmed by the sun, cooled by winds
beyond the clouds and soaring
Revised for the One Nature Tanka -
Inspired By My Short Poem Posted On Contest Page of Rick Parise
I watched that heavy door begin to close,
all the while the winds above me rose.
The years whisper and whistle back into my ear,
the memories haunted by sorrows and fear.
With a new day it finally dawned on me,
the past needed locking and I had the key.
Leave it behind, leap and fly away free,
let the winds of change blow and carry me.
Feel them lifting my wings now able to soar,
up to an open sky and caged no more.
Flying so fast to where no hurt can find,
a place of peace now inhabits my mind.
This heart full of courage never ceases to beat,
knowing my history is not destined to repeat.
Clear paths now lead me to a new destination,
for my life, my future and the next generation.
Written - March 26th, 2016
Inspired in part by the song, "Winds of Change" by The Scorpions
WHISPER’S
April rain fell like whispers on grass,
Soft and light like a half felt apology.
Dark clouds wafted overhead in shamed silence.
Distressed by a cold winter’s return.
Daffodils wept and bowed in fading despair,
My Father’s favourite plant was slipping away.
As my Father had done and now my Mother too
Lost to a world of cold whispers and sorrow.
Dead flowers I had placed on their grave so light
Were fading like a memory, a star un-bright.
Still the rain whispered but failed to cleanse,
The grit of sorrow that inhabits my heart.
She looks into the mirror, and sees what she is.
A beautiful, bubbly little girl.
Heart opened to the world, trusting everyone who inhabits it.
The corners of her mouth turned upward, her cheeks tinted pink.
She looks at her mirror image and laughs, sticking out her tongue and scrunching up her face.
She goes to bed.
She looks into the mirror, and sees what she is.
A brilliant, creative young girl.
Her face is laced with imperfections, but her mom told her no one is perfect.
Her smile is crooked, her eyebrows are hard to see, and her face is covered in little red demons.
She looks at her mirror image and smiles anyway, not caring about her appearance.
She goes to bed.
She looks into the mirror, and sees what she is told.
An unattractive, bland girl.
Her face has countless flaws, but everyone else looks perfect.
Her smile is crooked, her face is chubby, her acne has taken over, and her eyebrows aren't slim.
She looks at her mirror image with a ghost of a smile, doubt showing through her eyes.
She pushes them away and she goes to bed.
She looks in the mirror, and sees what she thinks is there.
A fat, ugly teen girl.
Body littered with the unattractiveness that defines her existence.
Her heart's shield has come up, preventing the hurt she knows will come.
She looks at her mirror image, mouth pinched in disgust.
Hugging her pillow tightly, she goes to bed.
She looks in the mirror, and sees what she's certain is there.
An unloved husk of a human being.
Her mind now resembles her body, scarred from her own criticism.
Her heart is cracked, her soul broken, her mind tired.
She looks at her mirror image with a huge smile on her face, knowing it will be her last.
She lets go of her life and for the first time in a long time,
She happily goes to bed.
I recently found this poem that I had written. I had written it when I was 13 years old...
Colors dance on the canvass of my life
In an intricate interplay of hues
Intensifying and weakening at different stages
Fluid colors in constant motion
As I age, different colors take precedence
While others slowly recede
Still present, yet less visible
Some colors are all time favorites
Ever strong, ever making their presence seen
The color of Beauty forever captivates me
I immerse myself in this hue
Letting its brilliance ravish my thoughts
Beautifying my life in every way
Truth is another color that graces this canvas
For without it, I cannot live
I need to see broad strokes of this hue
For it revives my heart
The brilliance of the color of Compassion
Pulsating with emotions of oneness...
With the world, with all that inhabits it
It ever moves me to reach, to feel, to belong
Hope, the color of dreams
For my dreams are saturated
In this vivid color
That makes the canvass spring to life
Hope, for a masterpiece to be
Passion, the most prominent color
Seen splashed everywhere on my canvass
The color deepening, ever deepening
Dark and rich, drawing the observing eye
To the wet colors that never dry
Always freshly painted
Bold, brash, audacious, alluring
Pronounced color overpowering every other shade
Passion, shows off her true self
Confident that she is the artist's most loved color
And then there is the color of Love
Capricious
Flitting
Transient
Erratic
Inconstant
Gracing the canvass now and then
Lightly splaying itself across the painting
Bright splashes of rich Gold
I try to focus my eyes on this hue
Wanting it to be evident
In every single image
In every single stroke
A tinge of gold
And yet I know
I know
The color of gold
Is “the hardest hue to hold”
I know this to be true
For my eyes brimming with tears have seen
The “dawn...[of love go]...down to day.”
On this canvass of my life
This truth is clearly displayed....
“Nothing gold can stay.”
Eileen Manassian Ghali
A variation on the poem by Robert Frost, Nothing Gold can Stay
It is the pure mystery of amethyst
that inhabits my world
It glows in dawn light along
receding shadows.
Cool, enticing it embraces my soul
Adds those fresh dimensions to trees
in rain-swept meadows.
Everywhere, I see its shades repeat –
in the marbling of shells -sheen on a bird’s wing-
veins in a rock - flower petals -
I wrap myself each morning in its lighter shades-
cool, lavender chiffon, and you come to me
the magic of amethyst in your kiss.
For Frank Herrera's Color Contest
I
A spark is shot
Deftly, from between two fingers.
It sits, wavering on its bed
Like a lone star
Against the black,
Cold coals.
Chuckling, a candle flame shows
Its little golden head.
Sleepily, it reaches for its mother
And she, flickering, crackles her tongue
As the scorching hand upon her breast grows
And spreads.
Curious and hungry,
flamma explorat.
II
A fire is mature, suddenly
Superior. Its arms extend,
It works, briskly it burns.
Like a tiger
It inhabits its cage.
Laughing, a blaze rises
To greet a brittle friend.
For another
And another
Blaze yearns.
Alas! Any tears would hiss
If the glowing cheeks reminisced a kiss.
It is Love The Fuel on which its life depends.
Selfish and beautiful,
flamma vivat!
III
The embers sift, tenderly
Nursing the staggering
Foolish old flame
Who must be coaxed to nibble and feed.
No light livens the hearth, haunted now,
Merely shadows.
In faded fame, amidst dusty fortune
The patient lies.
And it ponders as all its dazzle dies
Who taught me to hate?
Was it lack of love or lack of life
That finally dampened my fanciful play?
Slowly,
Painfully,
The gargoyle face is smothered in ash,
The soft powder of its parents fate.
And death waits
Eerily
Still
Until another is born in the grate.
Tired and lonely,
flamma extinguet.
Distantly wandering ~ a meadow-vast lake
Refusing to let the consumption of my heart break
Icy cold tears frost over my face & cheeks
Being lost for weeks and for weeks
Broken down ambition ~ too weak to fight
Suddenly she appears like an angel in my life
Opening the reality of a bond between girls
Determined to create a relationship that unfurls
Aimlessly waiting for years for her soul
And craving the right girl to rock-n-roll
Possessing her thoughts, body, and mind
I think I found you, baby, this time
Exhausted from search and it be nothing but fight
Finally found a woman as a possible wife
Golden and glowing ~ she inhabits my body
With limitless ways to make her happy and naughty
Be responsible to care for her ~ now that she's mine
It's been an unpleasant search ~ now it is time
To live by my side in a big world of us
Off the bat we've succeeded our series of trust
To hold her naked some days through the night
In my head bursting bright sparks of light
Kissing her lips and holding her waist
Feeling her warmth ~ memorizing her taste
Protection from the unworthy who will try and take my place
So many memories to create ~ not a second to waste
The light
is not its own, but
caught and passed on
to comfort a darkened world.
It inhabits the lonely places
and where absence
has gone unhealed,
becoming a summoner
of dreams and visions
as if seeking a form
to manifest something
of itself in the apparitions
wandering human sleep,
or in a memory
that gently brushes
the mind when still,
or drifting far away,
as the image
of a mother's cooling hand
caressing a child’s
fevered brow, or
comes upon the senses
like a breath
in the soft sweep of hair
across the lips
of a summers evening,
when love, for a moment,
has the power to make
the soul believe
it is not alone.
And there too in a song
surfacing in a few haunting notes
that sets a longing loose
to hear it all.
Faith is a cat, treading softly,
with delicacy, with hesitation,
unlike the dog-like dogma
(so aptly named) which seeks
to hold fast a believer in its
proud, fierce and steel-like jaws.
Yes, faith is beyond reason--
how could it not be when the
mystery is more than any mind
can seize and hold and eat....
And faith is a tease, a hope not
fully formed but heavy, unlike
its correspondent, the soul, so
light no scale can weigh it, no
meter can measure--but faith
sweats and breathes and lives
in fear of its own death like the
fragile body and life it inhabits.
Faith can be mocked so easily
by those resolute like stone
whose hearts are sealed and
walled against wonder, magic--
the magic of the world, of air
and sun and moonlight grace.
The deep, deep magic of two
who meet as strangers, then
meld into friends, then bind in
a power greater than death,
a power cloaked in mystery:
'Why do I love him?' and
'Why do I so long for her?'
This power, this mystery will
never be contained, either by
time or place or memories--
it will transcend even eternity.
Thus faith is the child of love,
real love, love unbounded,
fierce, heedless, far beyond
its greeting card counterfeit.
Faith is found in the cracks,
when reason is overwhelmed
and hope seems near death--
then faith, never easy, never,
never truly simple-- then faith
will be tossed and turned and
sometimes die, but more often
thrive as it makes the soul one.
Across the countryside and into the grassland pastures;
inhabits the battle fields that segregate a Peony Rose.
Such as the gentle beauty of the rose that threatens those,
who are drawn to the undisturbed meadows of the divine,
and become caught in the thorn barb and twisted twine.
Coveted by the splendor of our sight,
we horde the natural beauty as it is our given right.
The Peony Roses are captivated in our possessive might.
The beauty must defend or to shatter and remain in a vibrant tatter.
For each life is to begin in the epoch,
of uncertainty, fruitless, and in a perilous world of bitterness.
As for all the desires to be fulfilled in the end of the epoch;
seeking meaning and clarity as their souls,
reaching for sweet unity.
In the courts,
man throws his mighty stick,
changing the rules, scheming a new trick.
See the weightless power of man
and the fear at hand that he brings.
In the churches,
the prayers of woman
in a quiet peace,
for a faithful praying
as she sings.
A vicious world with beauty,
hiding as a flower.
Attraction to peril in fury,
as we deviate from a greater power.
Was it a Greater Being’s perfect mistake,
or a beautiful mistake by elements of chance?
In the birth of creativity,
allowing mistakes to creep in.
Seeking the perfect form in nature,
while there is no true formality.
Living with these two extremities,
of the hot desert summers days
and the cold arctic winter nights.
The Peony rose hiding away in the sun rays,
and sleeps under the distant star lights.
Vanity or our pride of youth,
we become prisoners of our own devise.
Dreaming of tomorrow as a given truth.
Selfish thoughts we never considered unwise,
we desire for the things we can never own.
We covet what we see
The beauty we can never be.
The danger of the rose.
The aggressions of a Man
and the tenderness of a Woman
can be read by the hardness of his hands
and the softness of her touch.
Is it the end of a gentle beauty of the rose,
To look at her pedals, smell her sent,
feel her touch,
and still be pained by his thorns in the stem?
With your love, you
love me, with your
strength, you Lord,
Strengthen me
By your living word I am
Given wisdom, faith, and
Knowledge with which to
Guide my ways
I have need of your love
Every moment where sin
Has a chance to enter,
Where worldly lust has
A chance to rise
I need your living word to
Guide my feet, for your word,
Is surely an illuminating
light for my path
For alone, I will fall alone,
I will stumble alone, and
My life would be given into
Worldly sin
Without you, my mind might
seek To do the evil which
might breed in a lustful heart
I cannot stand alone without
Your power, your grace, your
Love, and wisdom to guide me
My bones would become brittle
As a result of sin, and my body
Would become sickly falling prey
To worldly decay
My youthfulness might disappear
Enabling sin to have its way
with me, if you are not near me
I shall age before those who
Are older in years, for I will
Become old and disabled, my eyes
Blind and my hands feeble
I will be lost in the worlds
Darkness, and madness of sin,
If you, my Lord are, not my rock,
my sure foundation…
For only through you can one
Gain eternal life, an eternal
Gift Which shall endure forever
Only in you is paradise found
For your love is the one true
love which inhabits heavens
paradise forever within itself
I have such a great need for you
To be my God, my Lord and my
Master, to supplement me all of
My days spiritually
I beg for the crumbs from your
Table of life, so that my spirit
May have Its hunger filled…
That I may always be a part of you
My master, as you are inside of me
Filling me with your lasting love
So that you will never say to me
Again, If you love me, you will
Do all my commands…
And I will reply gratefully to you
Lord, “I will do as you command and
even more.”
So that when my restoration is made
Complete, you will seat me in the
Presence of my brothers and sisters…
Where together we will praise you, Lord,
Morning, noon, and evening with Joyful
Psalms of praise.
(Written, October 1976)