In the beginning, we played musical parts
singing the script with free-spirited hearts
Adlibbing lines without rehearsing a word.
As absurd as it sounds, quite profound
that our threads were a woven tapestry
without eyes meeting and voices never heard.
We danced, swaying like palms in the wind
Our dance steps were always in sync.
We were Fred and Ginger,
turquoise and silver... p b and j
until the day the music stopped...
In the realm where light and dark merge,
that shadowed place where docile dreams
and hellacious nightmares converge,
we found ourselves worlds apart.
Our Utopian haven had been storm tossed
and left us swirling on a dystopian plain,
a deserted land where painful silence rules
for those who played the game of fools.
For days I've been hearing piano notes
that seem to float from memory's core.
A chance encounter, a phone call,
familiar lyrics to a musical score...
a romance rekindled?
His music once filled my head,
but I don't dance to his songs anymore.
There's never a happy ending
when nothing is left to be said.
There's no point lingering in thoughts
over a broken heart when it's mending.
Quiet pleasures in
A sounding fury.
I'm sworn to there. Through whom stilled
Is by stream, gushy.
And here, more staggering yet
For unlikeliness
Through my own at the window
Contemplative knacks.
A thunderous rain nigh cracks!
Storm-tossed. A treed mess.
You were a remnant
from the hurricane,
blowing into my life
suddenly,
like a refugee
on storm~tossed
waves of destruction.
Flooding my life
with category five
winds of desire,
leaving me wrecked,
naked and bare,
like old driftwood
on the beach of despair.
The world was glass and sudden shadow,
a swift descent from perch to ground.
Not a storm-tossed twig, but domestic claw
that brought the bruised bird down.
Cheesesteak, a mouthful of soft plumage,
a white and black parakeet's brief, bright life,
ending in a velvet rage.
?Stella's darkness, elegant and deep,
four times a hunter in two years' sleep.
But this one, the last, this delicate jewel,
his suffering was a lesson, sharp and cruel.
The existence of a simple, chirping thing,
and the final, silent, battered wing.
We are asked to write from that demise,
to find the truth behind the hollow cries.
And so we write the bruise, the tear,
the memory of flight that ended here.
WORDS
I have accumulating wealth for I have the gift of words.
They're a treasure unto myself in my expanding universe.
Words have the power to wound or heal; it is a well-known fact.
They determine how we think and feel, then finally how we act.
There's a huge supply and a great demand
For words of hope in our storm-tossed land.
People are searching for a reason to live.
Have we comforting words to give?
Whatever you believe then speak with your mouth
Will come to pass, without a doubt.
Your words determine your destiny.
So, speak words of life and be blessed indeed!
(c) L. Gayle Carter
The sky is a cloudless crystal blue
with a breeze to chap your lips
I’m grateful for it, it’s heaven-sent
the dawn was a celestially stamped, angry red
sailors take warning
It’s going to get feisty cold,
I’m told
about the time we go back to school.
A polar-bear vortex with all its features
will spread its icy paws
What jumps out at me first
is how it could be worse.
if unapologetic nature
pounced sans disclaimers
with a cold worth semi-Shakespearean verse
What follows, star-crossed
is a week storm-tossed
a winter holocaust
with heaven-kissed frost
that only madness would call a judgement
We’re steered from harm
by precision alarms
stay warm
sweet friends
wrap up, stay in
.
.
Songs for this:
Come In from the Cold by Marc Broussard
World's A Changing by The Bingtones
I have never been so tired, not of flesh but of soul,
The years have whipped me like a storm-tossed scroll,
The sea is dark, the winds howl with blame,
Falsely accused, yet I bear the shame.
They said I sinned whence I was pure,
My words turned eyes, my art unsure,
The chains they placed were made of air,
But still they bound me—was it fair?
I once loved the sea, its wild embrace,
Now it mocks me, cold and chast.
The waves, they crash like judgment's hand,
And force me from my loved homeland.
What freedom once was mine, now lost,
The storm of life has claimed its cost.
I leave this world, its cruel design,
Like her, I fade—no longer mine.
It doesn't hurt, this final fall,
No tears, no cries, no pleading call.
The sea will keep my secrets deep,
And in its arms, I'll softly sleep.
A lonely life it’s not easy being a fisher’s wife
but loneliness can be a compassionate companion
unbridled spite of bucking boss-mare-waves followed you ashore
her turmoil roiled the blood in your veins
and no amount of vodka
could flatline her seething heartbeat inside you
I saw her in your storm-full eyes eyes the color of stormy seas
you wore your hair in dark waves like hers a windblown tangle
I saw her in your storm-full eyes spindrift and steel blue —
rage of the Bering Sea against a canvas-sky the portrait of your eyes
your tongue-shard slashed at me like a broken bottle in hand
word-squalls blew and fist-storms
flew like splintered glass
piercing me to my marrow till I glistened
but… I could never glisten like her unblemished face at dawn
years of boss-mare-waves ground you down – razor edges worn smooth
your storm-tossed-heart now floats.. a lost raft on a tamed tsunami
your flat-sea-eyes the ancient blue of glacier ice
frosted over dull yet with a faint glow of stories you can’t tell
as you search a cognitive wasteland for words as harmless as sea glass
Whatever happens on the storm-tossed way,
Whatever happens to cloud up the day,
Whatever happens to cause me dismay~
I have Jesus.
Jesus, The One Who quiets the sea
Jesus, The One Who makes the clouds flee,
Jesus, The One Who brings hope to me~
I have Jesus.
across storm tossed skies
lightning strikes launched their gauntlets ~
thunder's voice bellowed
Let’s put the title of these thoughts
aside for a while.
None of this is real anyway.
The talk is ghost chatter,
a pitter-patter of escaping images.
The arrangement of these words
claim to be poetic
yet can you hear the uncouth hammering
of blind console keys?
What is thinking now is a passing jiggle
on an oscilloscope attached to your awareness.
What you think when reading this,
even now
is transforming into distant gull cries
strained through a megaphone.
Don't try to make sense of thoughts
and words
your reactions are a part
of the lie we peddle between
ears and mouths.
The poem is done.
It will live now
just as long as it can be contained
in a storm tossed teacup.
Be as reasonable as you can,
move on
read or write,
imagine a day
without you dreaming you.
1 Have you failed in your plan of your storm-tossed life?
Place you hand in the nail-scarred hand;
Are you weary and worn from its toil and strife?
Place your hand in the nail-scarred hand.
Chorus:
Place your hand in the nail-scarred hand,
Place your hand in the nail-scarred hand;
He will keep to the end, He's your dearest friend,
Place your hand in the nail-scarred hand.
2 Are you walking alone through the shadows dim?
Place your hand in the nail-scarred hand;
Christ will comfort your heart, put your trust in Him,
Place your hand in the nail-scarred hand. [Chorus]
3 Would you follow the will of the risen Lord?
Place your hand in the nail-scarred hand;
Would you live in the light of His blessed Word?
Place your hand in the nail-scarred hand. [Chorus]
4 Is your soul burdened down with its load of sin?
Place your hand in the nail-scarred hand;
Throw your heart open wide, let the Savior in,
Place your hand in the nail-scarred hand. [Chorus]
Source: Baptist Hymnal 2008 #513
Copied from the internet. This has been running through my head.
When memories are memories long-lost,
and when infancy's twilight hides what feels
like lifetimes in half-dreamt dreams, sleep storm-tossed
surrenders glimpses of childhood's ideals
now only half-remembered. It is these,
that I dislodge from my still obscure past
(existing despite the present's dis-ease),
before life as an outcast unsurpassed.
Like echoes from out of immortal time,
mnemonic ghosts appear and disappear;
and now are fixed in everlasting rhyme,
writ on earth under this celestial sphere.
And since upon remembrance of things past,
my late innocence returns at long last!
When I begin to feel that all hope has been lost
and I'm treading water on a sea, storm tossed,
that's when I seek solitude in a quiet sanctuary.
The decision to be left alone is never arbitrary.
Sitting in the shade of a tree brings me peace
and stress quickly dissolves with coveted release.
In a place of silence, where no words are spoken,
I'm restored in the part of me that was broken.
My mind drifts in a garden of sweet, scented roses,
and I'm content in a world where no one imposes.
There are no tragic news reports, no mention of war,
and I'm slowly floating along near a tranquil shore.
In this quiet haven, faith and hope begin to rebuild.
It's hard to leave this placid refuge where I'm filled
with only positive thoughts, knowing I can take flight
to unruffled shores when I need to set things right.
July 20, 2022
A Quiet Place Contest
Sponsor: Mystic Rose Rose
Raindrops descend, puddles form,
A stream engulfed, a river is born,
A course is set, the sea to reach,
Meandering ponderously to a far off beach.
The sea reclaims its myriad young,
Kidnapped by clouds, thunder-slung;
The storm is long past with calm all around;
Albatross glide, with a whisper of sound.
Seagulls circle, dogfish sleep,
Gannets dive and dolphins leap,
But black clouds return and lightning flashes
O'er storm-tossed seas, as thunder crashes.
Once more a stealthy cloud abducts infant water,
The sea's own offspring: a son ... a daughter;
The thief sets off at a wind blown pace,
The anguished mother unable to chase.
The criminal finds refuge in a partisan crowd,
A formless body in a vaporous shroud;
The cloud has no guilt, shows no remorse,
But heads inland on a predestined course.
A hill stands guard, like a customs post;
It stabs the guilty, but allows past the host;
The rogue cloud is ruptured, severed seam and pleat,
Releasing its captives and accepting defeat.
Raindrops descend, puddles form,
A stream engulfed, a river is born,
A course is set, the sea to reach,
Meandering ponderously to a far off beach ...
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