Best Labyrinths Poems
Once agone moments in time
she was poetry in motion,
'til she pirouetted herself
onto dusty versed shelves
midst old clouded rhymes
& recollected love notes
yet, there lingered echoes
glistening 'tween strands
of web's interlacing design,
meshing her finessed
past within gossamer's
complexed entanglements
beyond labyrinths of
anciently grand symphonies
she dances, still ~
silently in her head
flirting with destiny
albeit, not quite as opulently
(Author's note: Traditions of walking a labyrinth as a form of meditation go back many centuries. Labyrinths in Christian contexts usually have a single, winding path instead of a maze’s many possible dead-end paths. Mazes are puzzles to be solved. Labyrinths are tools for meditation.)
Life Labyrinths
By Mark D. Stucky
Nothing frightful lurks in sacred labyrinths.
No Minotaur inside waits to devour us.
No complex branches exist to confuse us.
Only a single, circular path,
winding back and forth,
silently invites us.
A path sketched on the ground.
A path for prayerful healing
of any monsters in our minds.
A path intended for mindfulness,
peace, and private pilgrimage
toward contemplative centeredness.
As in life, our path curves
and endures sudden detours
and substantial reversals.
Our goal comes closer to us
but then recedes from us
over and over again.
But we can be certain
we’ll eventually enter
that elusive center.
(Originally published on Amethyst Review, 1 July 2022.)
(Photo by Erez Attias on Unsplash.com.)
Baggage within
trappings of illusions,
love packed away
in neat little compartments
gathering cobwebs at
makeshift improvisations,
dusting intermittently
if by chance a light
should shine,
never wholly untangling
the snare
mid a labyrinth of
transparent entrapment,
as violin strings continue
to unlatch the same old key
Strained eyes are lost, smouldering ash.
Transparent silver glazed skin.
Limbs as rigid as bone.
Voices speak to me, voices of sin.
Iced breath rises like steam.
A deathly grip, locking flesh tight.
A wildfire alights my chest.
This insomnia’s lustful whim is with night.
Thoughts recycled, not nearly new.
Lost in the labyrinths of time.
The prism of light disperses,
But I am still colour-blind.
wandering labyrinths of light
leading to dead-end darkness
feeling the cold walls of fright
turning to a hushed silence
finding love gives way to life
transforming through my essence
holding her close in my night
filling it with her presence
Wormhole labyrinths
bored beneath congested streets
where trains ferry poor people
into the dark abyss,
time weighing heavy on their minds.
(Wayra)
08,16, 2019
SECOND EDITION OF WAYRA Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: nette onclaud
From the ramparts of a castle
a wallflower jumps.
A lynch mob discovers a prehistoric sex.
Silent roots crossing the deniability
endorse a fluid dynamics
of a scandal.
The fascination of a fairy tale makes
a lover seek the revenge.
He hates, he strikes, but fails to impress
the horizon beyond the galaxies.
Black laughters of fake seers
make an entry to plunder the stars.
A tremor in the voice betrays
the ambushed faith.
Now where to go, find the peace of death?
Time’s white hands are snarled in pain;
cannot write the elegant script
of surrender.
SATISH VERMA
From the ramparts of a castle
a wallflower jumps.
A lynch mob discovers a prehistoric sex.
Silent roots crossing the deniability
endorse a fluid dynamics
of a scandal.
The fascination of a fairy tale makes
a lover seek the revenge.
He hates, he strikes, but fails to impress
the horizon beyond the galaxies.
Black laughters of fake seers
make an entry to plunder the stars.
A tremor in the voice betrays
the ambushed faith.
Now where to go, find the peace of death?
Time’s white hands are snarled in pain;
cannot write the elegant script
of surrender.
SATISH VERMA
Form:
In labyrinths, shadows dance and flicker, a chessboard of time unfolds,
Where dreams, like pawns, march solemnly through mist and silent groves,
And every queen, crowned with sorrow or with joy, knows the ancient moves,
For life, the hidden grandmaster, preordains each step our spirit beholds.
Under the canopy of night, constellations carve uncharted designs,
A chess game enshrined in cosmic dust, with destinies intertwined,
One soul, lost in the ebb of thought, whispers to the winds resigned,
Checkmate, a dance of fate, their paths through stars defined.
Melancholy, a silken web, ensnares the heart in threads of gold and grey,
As if the earth itself hums a mournful tune, weaving tales of yesterday,
And every sigh, a rook’s lone cry, echoing through the endless fray,
Knowing well that every piece plays part in life’s eternal play.
Thus, beneath the moon’s pale glow, we find ourselves in quiet trance,
Murmuring secrets to the night, longing for a fleeting chance,
To break free from the scripted game, and against the odds, advance,
Yet knowing life, the unseen hand, has choreographed our dance.
And in this subtle reverie, where every thought is like a tide,
Waves of fate and free-will clash in the ocean of the mind,
We wander through the checkered field, with hope and loss entwined,
Chessmen of ephemeral dreams, in the grand design confined.
For life’s a sage, unseen but felt, a sculptor of our paths and pain,
Carving with unseen chisel strokes, the joy, the grief, the gain,
So heed these whispered warnings well, in the calm or in the rain,
To play or not, the game of life, where the end is yet the same.
In an old book, with torn pages, my soul navigates through labyrinths of dreams,
seeking the hidden story in the silence between the lines, where words were never written,
I try to fill the gaps with the silence of stars dancing on the sky of oblivion,
believing I understand the story that flows like an unseen river through the swamp of lost time.
But with every page turned, I discover a world unraveling before my eyes,
the story rewrites itself in shadows and lights, a kaleidoscope of memories and broken desires,
and so I met you, an entire universe hidden behind an enigmatic smile,
you seemed a complete book, yet within you lay chapters erased by the winds of life.
I try to decipher the echoes resonating through the voids in your crystal heart,
you, the one without answers, didn't know which parts of you were missing, what the storms had taken,
you only felt the absence like a silent melody resonating in the depths of your being,
you smiled like a sun hidden behind clouds, laughed like rain falling on the earth’s silence.
I, a sculptor of love, tried to shape with light what was missing,
to fill with love those empty spaces in your soul lost in starless nights,
but I was only a painter without colors, guessing the shapes of an uncreated world,
you, a survivor of your own story, navigating through the ocean of solitude.
Thus, our story remains written on pages of wind, in books with dream covers,
two souls seeking to bring meaning to a world where words don’t connect,
for love and understanding are sometimes just ghosts of our hidden desires,
and we, only travelers on realms of shadow and light, weaving dreams from eternity.