there is nothing to absorb
when taken outside of scale
on the inside
feeling a vacuum of temporality
forgetting, the salve
fast-track in slow-mo
undulation of gossamer breathing
stroking the skin
inhabiting bone
I feel you - feeling
fractals flip on their sharp edges
carving particles
form is spliced
remains are in rapturous form
a mass exhale
pulls out my lungs
whilst you bathe
exposure
separates the silt
succumbed to sedation -
lilting sound becomes tonal, flat
choices tilt
.choke on thought.
sighs cannot wash away
I could flail - let me flail -
yet my core is made of lead
this world is in quicksand
a held centre
a spiral
scratch the walls
beneath the flow
scratch the walls
cling to
time... . .
Inspired by 'universe of water particles' by Teamlab
The peace they display is a ripe fruit from thousands of battles,
They walk among us, in a silence that intrigues and soothes,
We think they have always been this way, under a benevolent star,
But this peace vibrates like metal hammered a thousand times,
It resonates with the memory of blows and raw wounds.
A hundred years of inner war means demons faced,
The fear of not being enough, doubt like a splinter under the skin,
Anger burning inside, more than any enemy,
It's a hundred years of learning: forgiveness frees oneself,
That falling matters less than refusing to rise.
Their peace is a silent victory, a fortress without walls, light,
It's not forgetfulness, but a comforted memory, inhabiting the cracks,
It does not fear the storm, knowing that at the end the sky is washed clean,
And when their eyes meet yours, you feel the humility,
Of those who have walked through fire and found themselves undefeated.
Our gifts boxed up
Pitched across the horizon
Such sweet things
The elegant simplicity of us
You wrap yourself around me
Reaching through my chest
Your soft hands cup my heart
Love is the air you breathe
I am consumed by you
Inhabiting my thoughts, my will
Filling me with your breath
Lifting the birdwing of my soul
Dancing eyes and golden tresses
Shimmering in foxglint
A vaccine against my darkness
Scattering my wraiths
My taut pen scratched paper on
paper--- speaking to you among
tangles of weeds, a wailing through
love-filled notes kneading pain and longing;
Envelopes devoid of a zip code, of
stamps, rimmed by spider webs.
Tell me now , can I bear the weight
pinned by unfinished drafts
inhabiting our room?
Your wool jacket dangles tonight
on a hook accumulating debris
and stale mint,
while spring floods our garden
with radiant foliage--
Papyrus of my ardorous thoughts
lay on deserted tables,
and I'm orphaned...alone by myself.
We fall in love with angels inhabiting a person,
The heartstrings that are pulled in a stare,
Through the eyes and into the soul,
We recognise them as our own,
A piece that fills the void,
Our own,
Some stay,
Some leave us behind...
And when they leave, a part of us leaves with them,
A silent change in the soul,
Corrupt, selfish and rots like a stage of death,
Merciless,
Brutal, as it is beautiful,
Upon that departure, you will never be the same,
Never the same,
Yes, We fall in love with angels,
Alas! Angels don't belong on earth,
However, if fortune favours our stars,
We meet them again in another body,
To pick up where they left off.
I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers
teach us at odd moments, when they aren’t trying to teach us.
We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.
Umberto Eco, Foucoult’s Pendulum
LIFE
Living on road, once a week.
Inhabiting Dad’s kitchen.
Food for two with leftovers.
Every subject chewed o’er
Breathe Again
Did I truly accumulate years of experience, or were they merely years of monotonous repetition? The echoes of my past reverberate, etching pain into the fabric of my love life and work. As time advances, I find myself embracing a newfound indifference—a defiance against the judgments of others. That perennial question about my funeral guest list—whose presence matters, whose absence stings—loses its grip on my thoughts. Let them bury me beneath the ancient mahogany tree my father planted long ago. There, sheltered from life’s harsh winds, I’ll find my final repose.
Love and loss intertwine, their dance a testament to human resilience. Can love truly conquer the most relentless hardships? Or does fate hold us captive, binding us to our own narratives? My ex, who departed last February, lingers in the shadows. Does he know he left us behind? Could he return, inhabiting another vessel, weaving a fresh tapestry of mishaps and lost chances?
The best storytellers are keen observers, attuned to life’s ebb and flow. Like a river, I carry within me a multitude of stories—of sadness and fleeting happiness. These currents shape my existence, etching their marks upon my soul.
Sometimes, in uncertain outcomes, as life agitates,
It can sway either way, maneuvering on the edge,
For a difference rather modest, makes the final call,
When a narrow margin determines a win or a loss.
If a win we choose to celebrate, or defeat we deride,
Prudent to bear in mind, that it wasn’t a landslide;
When results are so close, why not cheer them all,
Cognizant to recognize~ distinction is awfully small.
Slender is the layer between eve’s dusk and twilight,
Between dark of dawn, and luminance of sunrise;
Between safe and danger, there lies a narrow divide,
Where, between cliff and fall, life’s border resides.
Mementos of love embraced, and love sadly repelled,
In albums of beloved, or memories forlorn dwell,
Clamoring from corridors of good or bad choices made,
Between narrow margins of hope, and contours of fate.
O, a narrow margin can be of mighty consequence
Inhabiting elation of success, or anguish of regrets,
When death lingers in the clutches of final moments
Stilled between breath inhaled, and breath exhaled.
I'm a guest in this earthly tomb, just one of many
inhabiting fleshly rooms
We've come to a place where the flesh is doomed
until our ascension when the soul's exhumed
We're consumed by earthly things but don't realize
that we're used for food
Some are confused by material dues but the All
protects both wise & fool
Applying pressure only builds the ladder that can
surely be used to rise above
Manipulation of this pliable matter is easy to see
but only viewed once you've unplugged
Some struggle to see even though eyes are clear
as blinders were added to obscure the view
Understand these blocks are a series of boxes that
are meant to contain the whole of you
Since the day you were born, they've had a hold of
you & stay attached with invisible chains
Once you see that binding can be easily broken
the way you see life will quickly change
Life is a song,
incomplete, yet soothing—
lullabies lulling the world to sleep
with its balladic lilt, gently swaying
to the depths of its nomadic
syncopation.
Where I can subdue archaic
hieroglyphics in hues of
rose gold notes, invading my
tentative aura, glistening upon
tragic horizons,
for the wandering seekers,
freely waltzing to arias of the moon,
escaping unsung passages to
desolate wastelands,
where fiends roam in spite;
surviving the clusters of
rain drenched clouds,
draining the life out of
sunken nocturnes,
lost in cataclysmic paradoxes
overshadowed by waves of
monotonous soliloquy.
Yet I crave the aphotic harmonies of
its flesh and bones,
cocooned in the stillness of
shadows that align,
stonewalling the
world so bent on exposing me—
finding my true element,
inhabiting where life meets its end credits,
resuscitating sentiments long forgotten,
enabling me to breathe.
RELISH THE RICHNESS
luscious
notions
attempt
to demonstrate
vibrancy
touchingly subdued
original
precisely
endured
refashioned
fulsomely
in
gorgeous
desired
voluptuousness
feminine
apparent nonchalance
inhabiting
&evoking
sevelteness
semi-revealed
conscious
twinned
with entitlement
intriguingly
sensuous
stunningly
nurturing
the surreal
Aloneness
metamorphosizes
into isolating loneliness
with haunting banshee-like screams;
daily caged inside
perennially mute
four walls,
a divorced empty nester.
Inhabiting
a home
once filled
with mirth and chatter.
In much happier times,
his refuge;
now a lonely prison,
Until he steps out
the front door
to plenary freedom.
Critics Beware!
Poets are vulnerable no less than anyone,
when fallen victim to outrageous critics.
As Shelley wrote, critics' darts struck Keats,
who blindly, cruelly, mocked 'Endymion.'
Lethal no less the heady potion fame.
Some drowned, took poison, died paupers or insane.
Yet poet-baiters must themselves take warning,
wrote Heine in his 'Winter Fairy Tale.'
Eternal lines, if barbed, outdo Hell's fierce burning.
'Time shall not heal when poets wield the flail.'
Our foes, wrote Paul, are not of flesh and blood
but powers of evil inhabiting high places.
Promethean fire consumes the evil and the good,
Iniquities have many masks and faces.
Alone the Word that spares the infant's life
to wrong proves mightier than every art of strife.
I lately wrote some poems to declare
my joy to be inhabiting this earth.
I found my words, if numerous or spare,
inadequate to capture living's worth.
I chose the rondeau and the triolet,
appealing forms to help me speak my heart
on love of life with clarity and wit
in phrases neither syrupy nor tart.
When efforts failed, I tried the villanelle
and then the kyrielle to help me say
how much I care for those with whom I dwell
and know I'm blessed to waken here each day.
In striving to express the depths we feel,
it's at the throne of language we must kneel.
May 19, 2023
Sponsor: Sotto Poet
Contest Name: Sonnet
p a u s e s
spaces in your words like notches on wood
endearing stillness
till a sprawl of irregular "I love you's" spill truth like a stream
run full
a tear-choked gaze in a sighing-room
tugging us to earthy touching
our commitment
inhabiting green-garden parts of a world
tireless in its defining
pushing past preconceptions
snared by the peace of pressing one to one
fluorescent part of gifted chemistry,
claimed
no soft need to nudge it
no drift to sullen limbs
a saga of expansion
like a coal mine burning underground
where we live
an intimacy even in small tallk
truthfulness finding its bounce, prized like existence
still shaping days in words we share
and heed
in words that pull r e c o v e r y
Poem composed May 10/2023
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