A forest is no hiding place,
delusion so macabre,
missing aspect of sentience,
at odds with human quest
Idyllic spot one might crave
that brambled graveyard
self mockery of silence,
mere barren vegetation,
to the weed strewn seeker
none the wiser of themselves
I shall go where all shall sleep,
Where silent winds their counsel keep,
Beyond the edge where sunlight dies,
To walk beneath the endless skies.
Through forest dark, through brambled thorns,
I’ll tread alone in twilight haze,
Each step a whisper, soft, subdued,
The echo of long solitude.
The stars will call with silver light,
The moon will guide my steps through night,
Though they fear it's darkened plains,
I’ll heal their souls, their hope, their pain.
Without regret, my path is clear,
To walk where others quake in fear;
The man I am must face the night,
To show the way, a kinder life.
At journey’s end, my heart will know,
I there will wait, where we shall meet.
I saw you
In the tender birth of a summer’s day
Emerge,
Fragile to a new life,
New freedom,
Feast delights of nectar
On the brambled cliffs.
I saw your fluttered dance of courtship
In the gladed woods
Above the Lyn.
Those crowded flights
Of summer’s quiet agitation
Fade one by one
To loneliness.
I saw those wings
That floated in the easy lightness of an August heat
Falter,
Chill-damped
In a late September mist
Above the bouldered shore.
I saw you
Weary of life once precious,
Hesitate along the edge of the western bay,
Your wings dip to the water’s gentle swell.
You rested brief
As though to rise again,
Gave in to weakness frail,
Surrendered to the ancient sea’s embracing wave,
Pale essence of those cycled ways,
I saw you die.
On holiday in North Devon, watching a tortoiseshell butterfly at Bucks’ Mill as it fluttered along the gentle shore.
A prickly shrub for some, a soothing balm for others
sometimes we forget we are all sisters and brothers.
Some see a scrubby, stunted wood;
the pure heart sees a pond.
A vision cast into the could -
the gift to look beyond…
And though the plan has not converged
quite fully in my head,
I simply can’t resist the urge
to rend, uproot, and shred.
Reclaiming bits of Eden, I
clear out the brambled vines.
Creation and destruction, by
this, briefly are aligned.
Sitting beside a noisy, restless creek,
rushing water over stones and green moss.
Often, these crazy days, thoughts seem to seek
places to hide from life's tumble and toss.
A meadow of wildflowers comes to mind;
running barefoot over non-brambled grass.
Losing burdens of memories confined;
knowing a mountain will give me a pass.
Reading a poem that makes my heart break;
secluded room, music that heals the soul.
Raindrops on roof, their soft music opaque.
These are returning thoughts making me whole.
Daydreams spinning weblike words to begin
Hidden thoughts' whispers, heard only within.
September 25, 2021 (approx.)
Your Favorite Poem of 2021 Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Chantelle Anne Cooke
After breaking his heart,
His love turned into hate,
All that is left is her scent,
He let go of her sweetheart,
Though it's so hard to forget,
A love story came to naught.
Trembling with alot of fear,
While playing truth or dare,
Dreams vanished into thin air,
And left a trail of total despair,
Eyes open he could see clear,
A game that ended their affair.
It was a day the rainbow tumbled,
A time when the heavens rumbled,
The night their lovelight crumbled,
Feeling like his heart was brambled,
After his love letters were scumbled,
Walking home in argony he shambled.
© Kelmwa
Memory Lane
The old dirt track, where, as kids, we’d roam,
Now brambled weeds, so overgrown,
No more gangs playing a noisy game,
Just another memory lane.
The streets, the houses, the corner shop,
Pavements covered in chalked hopscotch,
The field of adventure, where a stream once flowed,
All replaced by the busy road.
The old back yard, the cobbled street,
Secret dens, where we kids would meet
To run around have fun and play,
In the long-lost past before the motorway.
The old dirt track has now long gone,
As have the streets where we all came from,
The road through life never stays the same,
It changes, slowly, into memory lane.
beware the thorny brambled track ~ trespassers risk entanglement
Proverbs 4 verse 14 (New King James)
'Do not enter the path of the wicked, And do not walk in the way of evil.
18.11.19
Proverbial Monoku 2 Poetry Contest - sponsored by Carol Connell
Love still laments, when it was charred into ash
and left to fill the imprints of yesterday's footprints
leaving no tracks to follow
As a soul's heart is thrown into the Cimmerian shade
wandering, unwillingly in forsaken mists of perpetual pain
searching through abandoned brambled reasons...which scar the flesh
still wet from vacant hands which held this love
before its blood spilled upon the sacred floor of trust, staining it for eternity
The soul lingers to collect its pieces before they are carried away
with the windblown desolate days that have deserted tomorrow
where nothing exists...but memories
that cross the night sky, leaving an etched trail
burned into the hollow eyes of loneliness
3/10/19
A twisted mesh of brambled wire,
Crudely knotted around my stomach,
My lungs fill with grief,
I cannot breathe
The nights out here are bright and clear,
Light pollution is not a fear, the North Star
Is unusually bright, while Venus shows its
Distant light.
The nights out here are clear and bright,
The clouds the stewards of the night,
And when the light is proud to dawn,
Comes the hare and spritely fawn
Thunder boxes wooden roofs, rain's
Rivers splatter nests and hooves, while
In the hedgerow’s brambled way, sparrow’s
Hop and dormice play
And as the milky day unfolds, mare’s breasts
Suckle shaky foals, and all lays well till day is
Old, in pastoral scene, spun clear from gold
As light dances red to horizon's end
So do we while approaching last breath
To complete life's arc with its final bend
and contemplate stillness in silent death
How quickly we'll flee from our past design
Find order in reflections we ponder
and struggle with our memory's decline
To lose direction, begin to wander
How fleeting our journey across its space
Through life's brambled meadows of colored days
With smaller shadows and vanishing trace
We cling to days fading of lighter grays
How slow is understanding of our plight
How cold journey's end through darkness and light
This Earth on where life is awakened me
And gave breath to breathless without concern
A cry was heard as a welcomed decree
A precious gift until death I return
While time's quiet shadow circles my eyes
I'll search tomorrow with yesterday's guide
And traverse brambled worlds with all its lies
Curse the internal loneliness I hide
For life's amusement, I'll come and go
To walk its old stage with characters found
And watch these actors explain what they know
The play unfolds while the curtain surrounds
I'll question reasons before I am gone
There will be no answer except the dawn
1/24/14
Icicles frozen on your smile
We speak winter words
From placid hearts; friendship was just a season of your want
The great summer lightning is passed.
It came in the dead of night
Racking me with pain
Your presence would have done so much
To hold my hand back from brink of death
You denied me even the peace to die
The cluttering cobweb of love I swept out
Only a fool thrives on the peril of a lie
I cannot love amidst some doubt.
This is cold season for belief
The self-centered abandonment of friendship
Left here but a brambled tree
The last leaf making fossil in the ice.
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