“I dream of a love that even time will lie down and be still for.”
~Alice Hoffman
The man I love is far away,
does he exist? I cannot say;
perhaps a hope, perhaps a fantasy~
perhaps a fevered dream’s cliche.
If a dream I will stay most happily
beyond the veil in chastity,
the nightmare is the world alluded,
where vaunted knights are garbed in travesty .
The doctors say I am deluded,
that thought processes are occluded
by parabolic stimulations,
and reality has been excluded.
Am I insane to prefer creations
when life is full of corrupt castrations?
The man I love is far away,
can he not see my heart’s pulsations?
The air grows thick with want, a sweet and heavy shroud,
As primal needs escape the clamor of the crowd.
I feel a tremor deep within my bone and skin,
A wicked hunger where all reason wears too thin.
My thoughts, a tangled mess of what could be,
What’s done.
A fevered race to reach the rising of the sun,
Your lips, a whispered lure that pulls me from my place,
To lose myself within the rapture of your grace.
A potent madness takes its hold, and reason fades,
And all that matters is the game our bodies play.
The world recedes, a blur of motion, lost and past,
Until this fire is but an ash that can't be cast.
Pencil drawn spring time
mixed with a shade of unknown;
Fever’s painted blush.
As I walk through life
Into the night
That's where i find
These fevered dreams of mine
I lay in the dark
My mind flies free
In fevered dreams
Im Anyone but me
Fevered dreams
Tearing me apart
In through my soul
And out through my heart.
Fevered dreams
Of my delusions
Bringing me to
Impossible conclusions
Fevered dreams
Haunting my mind
Leaving my secrets
And thoughts Intertwined
I'm burning up
Flying outta my skin
Can't look back
Don't know where to begin
I'm fighting the fire
From these fevered dreams
As flames rise higher
I just wanna be me
I'm a Phoenix rising
Out of its shell
The Sun is shining
Breaking the spell
Born from the flames
As I look to the sky
Im A Phoenix rising
Ready to fly
Comes the fevered dusk
A sultry breeze across skin
banking sun's embers
A brief respite from the heat
of which to sip and gaze stars
7/11/2011
Paula Swanson
For the contest, Tanka You
Sponsored by Francine Roberts
Placement: 1st
In the wee, wee hours when all is still
You can feel your blood athrill
When you hear the ghostly sounds
Of whispered words and baying hounds.
Who is it that speaks so low
That the distant mooing of a cow
Sounds like the plaintive cry of a soul
Echoing from the depths of an abyssal hole?
You give a silent, terror-stricken scream!
Are you in a surrealist dream?
Or is it due to the daily grind
You’re left with only a fevered mind?
The sounds you hear at the midnight hour
Your sanity will neither make nor mar,
For there’s enough cause for you to sorrow -
Your eyes will never, ever see a morrow!
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.