“Welcome”
a robot effigy of painted aluminium
on its face a vestigial smile
chill, uncharismatic and instant,
voicing through it
like rasping metallic file,
a platinum echo, distant.
Its unmoving countenance
worn like a habit, a shiny mask, ill-fit
the smirk of a smile sewn on,
with crayon drawn on,
it did not move as if to prove
a robotic ability as ventriloquist.
I was transfixed
with words that keenly gnawed:
“You have been thawed.”
I looked around with icy perception,
with roving eye and no movement of limb,
where had I been?
As my body warmed and my limbs gained inflection,
so my mind was pierced with icicles of truth
of a previous existence and a distant youth.
It’s all coming back now,
it had worked somehow:
Cryogenics.
long-locked
door of the coldest of hearts
- a curmudgeon's -
creaks open with a touch
thawed, at last
by the warmth of sunlight
a new puppy brought
My heart was encased in ice.
You left my warm body cold.
It took tender, loving care, from
another, to make my temperature rise.
My heart is beginning to thaw.
My memory of you will drown.
I thought I saw a thaw
Turns out it was naught
This cold can start to gnaw
More than it really ought
The road, with danger fraught
Ice had us in its maw
And travelers got caught
Horrendous pile-ups saw
Would you could
Within your moving prose, suppose
Your line be cast to moor
And words be cast to more
And soul be cast to those
Who truly know
Where you alone
Might have thought to go.
We travel together
A road less known;
Parallel, apart, except
For the line or two
Cast between the soul or two.
And if our vision be our words,
And if our feelings free as birds,
And if our heart and mind and being
Be upon the line, then yes.
And yes and yes and yes,
A thousand more.
For we touched,
Both you and I
The same magnetic North
All souls compass to embark.
And I would know you
As a candle knows another’s spark.
And this must now suffice
For all the world endure;
For this is Love,
The breath of God,
And nothing be more pure.
I ignite in a blur of
Dark charcoal, charred, chiseled into
Gentle locks that wrap around my cold fingers
Like metal curls when heated.
His fresh, baked gingerbread warms my
Crystalized, blue frosting, cool ice in my eyes
And the time frozen in place.
Roasting, red blushes burn passion
And steam frigid air ’til my breath is thawed so
Those who chilled it cannot see,
And the biting winter outside
Cannot faze the hot summer alit in me.
“The best way to predict your future is to create it.”
~ Abraham Lincoln
On this road
Cleared with assumptions
Bedded with expectations
Paved with good intentions
Driven with certainty
As winter comes
Here you find yourself snowed
In somebody else’s dream
American
You’ll never understand what is
Good life
Your ass too used to the soft
Bath tissue and corporate spot
From which you questioned too much of the unquestionable
Spilled too much of the confidential
Revealed too much of the government by and for
People like you if they were lucky
We used to exile and send the rest
On this road
Wearing new face
Bearing new identity
Sharing new name
You needn’t have been driven far
As summer comes
And you return to dream
Whether it’s somebody else’s
Privacy of suburban footage
Just as before
Nobody knows
You after
All
Maybe you’ll understand
Anything can be done again but
What can be undone and
What can be better than this
Good life
~ Thanks Always Returns
In eternal darkness the blue gem chills,
To be thawed and reborn in the fires peaceful light.
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.