Best Touchstone Poems
(This a new Version created using many editing suggestions from Linda:)
I picked you up
like a “shiny” newly minted copper penny
it was your kitten fur voice
O how you would hate that...
the avocado texture of it
with which
no matter what wild wicked hour I would call you
you would answer
You shimmered like sunlight
on the forest floor of my needles of neediness
glinted off the shiny chrome and twilight blinders of my
“made to order” searcher’s soul
You were the perfect portent
with your torrents of torment
to wash clean my jet and emerald caves
Or was it you who found me?
a white gem
silent, hidden behind my poetry
sitting in a seat in that Inn
listening to the hues of blues
stenciling the deep red shards of my heart
onto the unlined pages
of a blank black journal
I wore cool light blue and soft sheet cotton
like a cloud-kissed sky
I was light as air and as deep as “a thousand leagues under the sea”
You became my heroic touchstone,
my one true thing sapphire-sparked rock of glory
I hung you around my neck
oxen yoked myself with the weight of you
I hung myself
faithfully -to “my cross to bear”
your endless denial of our love.
You were lithe…thin as a straw… tall as a poplar
white as ash and grey as coal
except for the orange hot fire in the center ring
....of your cigarette
I mistook it for the flames of our unearthly love
It was just the firmament of your eternal coolness reflecting back
the stars of my own piercing need
Yoked by my own wanton weave … I drove on blindly
mind spider webbed
the ghost of your emotion-less carcass draped around my neck
“Leave no man behind”
I know you laughed and told them
that it was just a fire pit left in a cave
by the Queens of the Stone Age -Some loud, angry band you loved
Less real to you
by far more ethereal and ever lost in time to me
than the new found “writing on the wall”
You crush to dust, my walls to see, the measure of my cold ennui,
Though I, a dilettante supreme, am bearing brash, a barren scheme -
Consign my love for HER, to you, so sweet you'll swear it's deja vu ...
Drenched in such elan and chic, that lust alone will blush your cheek.
Baroque and lush, that gilded lie, refurbished for a choice goodbye,
Oh, I have chiseled, fine and hard, to make deception avante-garde.
I'm faced now with anomaly, as YOU have turned the tide on me ...
In younger years, I spun my web, carte blanche as fit me, flow and ebb,
But now your virtues, bona fide, have plucked a touchstone deep inside ...
My pulse-less, pitied myths shall be, my justice ... guilt's cacophony.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Reformations amities amid poetics tour de force overture within, virtuoso's....
Fatalisms exuberant pas de deux; foreordained this ballet in exquisites verse
To cross dimensions of spatial extent; the new promised frontier?!
Paragons quintessential interludes gracing the paramouric stages
Amid divinities design a birth, borne upon the canvas of touchstone time....
Fantastic phenomena; parting these cosmic curtains in yesteryears ambivalence
Watersheds cardinal red moment in predestined manifestations crossing thresholds
Parallel spheres once bound by catharsises hand crafted crucibles reasons!?
Eclipsed, from limbo to be carried unto Eden; loves, eternal cats cradle palms....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
.... * “Imagine” ~
Love is my passion
Love is my creed
Love is my touchstone
Love is all that I need.
Without love there is no reason
for each new day, new year, new season.
From the day we are born
Till the day we depart
Love is there buried deep in our hearts.
So starting today, lets make a pact
That love will decide the way that we act.
Give love to your neighbors, brother and kin
And then maybe more love will start to come in.
Slowly, I draw a deep breath before closing my eyes,
then picture I am floating on a white wispy cloud.
In my nebulous vision, I am not veiled in disguise,
for I've no need when riding high above the crowd.
Is there a touchstone on which my alignment is founded?
And is my mind too inundated with life's trivial details?
Sometimes I'm uncertain if my thoughts are grounded.
When traveling forward or backward, often serenity derails.
I debate myself over goals with serious contention,
and it's an ongoing battle, trying to decide... yes or no
to questions I don't want to answer. I need an intervention
about my dueling opinions. Neither of them will let it go.
Is it possible I can just continue gliding along above it all?
I'm not interested in chasing rainbows to find a pot of gold,
or losing what's important, if from this cloud I should fall.
If so, I'd enjoy blissful contentment every day, tenfold.
Sonnet #1
A cloying scent this unrequited love
sad saccharine denial of its roots
harsh coo – the chortle of a fleeing dove
escaping from the nest of passion’s truths.
The fetid feel of limply touching hand
upon the fevered brow of stricken foe
erasing lovers footprints from the sand
believing that all tides must come and go.
Thus did the fever break, and I awake
alone upon the cold and sweat stained sheets
believing that all love is naught but fake
a masquerade of liar’s texts and tweets.
Has passion but succumbed to passion’s heat
or must all passions suffer such defeat?
11/5/2016
lines 3,4 and 13 have 10 syllables by my count
and 11 syllables by howmanysyllables.com count
Sonnet #2
And yet the heart of passion stilled will beat
upon the very walls that bid it flee
steadfastly stand and rally in retreat
a love that waits where passion went to sea
Lone footprints sadly circling tideless pools
scanning the silent surf for distant flame
passion in lustful search for passions fools
must meet a passion’s passion with the same
For pain is but the touchstone of this ruse
sweet proof that what was held was passion pure
dark pain that animates the passions muse
to bite the bloodied lip that must endure.
So does the sunrise climb to heat of day
while sunset in its cooling slips away.
11/6/2016
line 8 counted as 11 syllables by howmanysyllables
counted as 10 by me
//howmanysyllable seems to think that every apostrophe (‘s) adds a syllable//
To glance at the jagged hill is a dream
Just as I yearn to amble over its magma flow
Like a million salmon swimming up my bloodstream
I will see the Soufriere Hills, I just know
As the earth vented its seismic frustrations
many fled its tectonic conniption
That migration woke me from deep sedation
And my restless soul underwent a great decryption
There's a certain lure to a place with an "exclusion zone"
That makes me abjure my embrace of an old touchstone
There's a beguiling seduction to unremitting eruption
A smiling effluxion causing me to submit to its disruption
I've been a wayward wanderer
And a sojourner on a quest
I've been a perennial ponderer
And interminably, a seeker suppressed
But the moment I saw Montserrat
even only in a photographic image
I knew this was the place I had sought
to make my greatest pilgrimage
Amidst a cacophony of sounds, discordant they're not
Through progressive ears we're internally sought
We, well we await, we await black drapes
Lights are our signal, to enjoy their create
Strobes through mists, signal our time
Silhouetted shadows appear, it's now just after nine
In Ballerina stance, proud like she poses
Arms outstretched like petals of roses
She, Kim, of Touchstone effect
Through their music her voice, such melodic select
Prelude now generates as we await corded streams
Receivers we are, appreciating their musical dreams
Spotlights in sporadic dance, like silent sirens in the dark
In seconds they soon touch, we the Blacktide no longer stark
On this night in concert, we became one and all
Strobe lights show their appreciation, bowing when shadows fall
.
Sadly Kim has had to take a break from the band due to illness, hence re-post.
HEALING RUNES
…………………
----------------------------
Of all the stones that are stately mesmerizing
None can heal like my combined, energized hues
How through my iridescent rock I work wonders abating
Stress and strife clear muddy clouds of hardened blues,
Take my carnelian streaks, they are life’s reverberations…
Opening a shut and confused heart,
Nestle me on your lower spine, I’ll balance bodily vibrations
While making all your dark moods depart.
And since your heavy load weighs while walking
Through tranquil oaks; I have seen your view,
My moss agate upon your chest will come rolling
Upon your verdant slope, fresh forest calm rises true…
Like a rune that balances your chakras realigning
Please know this scared chunk can cleanse the scene;
Here are my jasper ringlets, no other gem can be pacifying…
Small or ridged, this is the power of my pink, yellow, green
Through ancient rites, my jewel is rarest, glistening
An ageless touchstone made also from malachite,
A leafy inner vein that restores deep spiritual calming
This shape rustling on snowflakes and splendor of sunlight…
That now, I gaze into ponds of your eyes bent while kneeling
My sphere of aura circles around bases of energy ‘s sheen
And know , no other gem or stone can help with healing…
Then take me in peace, your soul’s clear- quartz crystal beam.
© 2011 reserved
*Chakras: the major centers of spiritual power in the human body
and are circles of energy which balance the vortex of life
------------------------------
For: Catie Lindsey
GEMS
In this world
with changing masks on
all measured, with a touchstone
People judges
and are judged
on mere words, mugged
I am no saint
nor a devil
a mere human, being civil
How i yearn
and burn
to be free and just be me!!!
© Nadiya (17 Jan '15)
I picked you up like a “shiny”…newly minted copper penny
(How cliché)
it was your kitten fur voice (O how you would hate that)
the avocado texture
with which …no matter what wild wicked hour I would call you...
you would answer
You shimmered like sunlight on the forest floor of my needles of neediness
glinted off the shiny chrome and twilight blinders of my made to order
searing searcher’s soul
You were the perfect portent…with your torrents of torment
to wash clean my jet and emerald caves
Or was it you who found me?
White gem silent…hidden behind my poetry in a seat in that Inn
I was listening to the hues of blues
stenciling the deep red shards of my heart on the unlined pages
of a blank black journal
I wore cool light blue and soft sheet cotton…like a cloud kissed sky
I was... light as air and deep as the sea
You became my heroic touchstone…my one true thing sapphire sparked rock of glory
I hung you around my neck
I yoked myself with the weight of you
I hung myself…faithfully to my “cross to bear” -your endless denial of our love
You were lithe…thin as a straw…tall as a poplar...white as ash and grey as coal except for the orange hot fire in the center ring
…of your cigarette
I mistook it for the flames of our unearthly love
In truth...it was just the firmament of your eternal coolness reflecting back the stars
of my own piercing need
so yoked by my own wanton weave …I drove on blindly
the ghost of your emotionless carcass still draped around my neck
“Leave no man behind”
I know you laughed and told them
that it was just a fire pit left in the cave
by the Queens of the Stone Age
(Some loud angry band you loved)
less real (to you)
but far more ethereal bubble dreamy and ever lost in time (to me)
than the newly discovered “writing on the wall”
*POP*
Upon said corridors heard
Within these walls, stirred
Throw them to the sky
Good Boy Psycho dead
Corridors Epiphany, no dread
Shine horizons, on Half Moon Meadow
Eventual be
Sleeping Giants
When Shadows Fall
The City Sleeps.
For Moo xx
Without Touchstone, I just couldn't xx
"Stay alive for my sake!"
I need you to try
and understand together,
why plates are crashing.
And hair is being pulled
out in clumps.
"Stay alive for my sake!"
From Mum and Dad
I have learned to fight.
I need to fight with you.
Because you are smaller
than our two big brothers.
"Stay alive for my sake!"
We are at boarding school now.
I love you, but my jealously
makes me want to hurt you.
so, when there are screams
on your first night....
I pretend that's normal.
"Stay alive for my sake!"
I realise at last
how much you love me.
And I want to love you back.
Also, I am getting married now,
and need a beautiful bridesmaid.
"Stay alive for my sake!"
We need each other
more than ever,
to see us through
this scary place
called marriage.
"Stay alive for my sake!"
I know what you
have lived through.
More than the children
you suffered so much for.
"Stay alive for my sake!"
I love you! I love you!!
I am your mother.
I am your sister.
I am your best friend.
I am your touchstone.
I see the light
that shines in you
while others are blind.
Beyond the sky, she spreads her wings to fly
Soaring freely within this sanctuary of desire
Gracefully gliding through space – she’s sensually enlightened!
But through treachery, a touchstone of humankind, she sighs,
As humanity again, betrays her, extinguishing soul’s fire
in life’s archetype, like a loss of gravity – her eyes haunted!
Hearkening to violent talk, see vexed fury within her eye
Wings so tattered & torn, and splattered with mire
She plummets, aimlessly through belief – she's near defeated!
Sceptics pollute her mind with doubts so sly
but a belief so fervent, sceptics become the subject of satire
A surge of hope and compelled to conviction – she is inspired!
And although a lingering state of sadness, always nigh
- calamities of sceptics so near and familiar,
but no situation greater than she, she’s in control – she’s strengthened!
Hale and hearty, she can laugh and she can cry
but vanquish must the injections of sceptics to aspire,
because through these woes, she is her dream – she has, survived!
Oh! Patience, My Love.
Have hit both my eyes an unknown storm --
the undoer of my marry Spring,
is beneath my brow a gushing form,
does a drench'd cheek to a yearner bring.
My auguries, that once blessed with love,
have gales become, for a trial of
the touchstone of my faithful shape,
loyal shadows that the future rake;
does my pain emit a cunning drape,
that when praise of love, the evils shake;
still, endure this, to a phase submit,
but, wit, my wit --is my patience fit,
are my gardens, for these storms to reave,
the fruits to come of better degree;
Or will steadfast be love, if believe,
in shade of the fruitless, standing tree.
Maybe, the grandeur of love is not grand
unless we bear our share of pains at hand.
R.N.Khan, © 2012