"a heartbeat pulsating as living light
free from each and every limitation
I Am that dwelling in unbound delight
the source wherefrom arises creation"
I study the void
conclude it is light it craves
become lost within my calculations
dimensions unspurl
spirals catastrophise
until
spinning
cancels
itself out
and I am still
within my stillness I seek
seeing no ground
having no anchor
it is me that craves
I fear I am the void
should I internalise the vortex
walk the line dizzy
with hand unheld
gamble on transformation
to the entirety of light
see myself
reflected on the outer edges
not through another lens
let the doppelganger
drop away
what if that
It began as tone—
no origin,
no end—
a chord mistaken for a world made whole.
A held vibration gathered into shape;
harmonics thickened into edges felt,
and silence filled with structures made of sound.
A pattern looping through a field of noise,
hoping repetition made it true.
Desire tuned the body into pitch,
insisted on a key, a fixed resolve,
refusing dissonance its right to pass.
But slowly, the will releases intervals;
resolutions drift without a home, and rhythm slips its measure into air.
Overtones collapse to quieter threads;
no struck glass shivering into light,
no instrument remains to house the sound.
No echo left to gather into form
only the unheard,
unstruck,
unheld
a silence
prior to all music,
where nothing ever
needed
to be shaped.
I wish to breathe in ~
lose myself, as my head tilts back
and I fill with fragrance
be lost upon lost, flowing, fleeing
invisibly within layers, locked in
bound to perfumed memories
that I return to unaccompanied
a ghost within their harmless essence
you are one deep inhalation away
I stop before my lungs are full
still able to tell dreams from reality
I hold three thoughts
three notes that detail my existence
I am the rose, delphinium blue & lily white
evaporative unless curated
an apparition, unheld, unholdable
recalled only to mind
redolent and intoxicated
by lingering base notes
unforgettable
but distinguished by the fact
you remain
the unforgiven
Inspired by The Three Perfumes by Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh
Before It Becomes Then
Maybe we’re all just passing through dreams,
wanting the versions we’ve already been.
I wanted more than I had back then,
now I want back what I had then.
We stand at the edge of “almost” and “when,”
trading our now for a distant “then.”
Time slips soft through unheld air,
gone before we know it’s there.
And maybe this second, quiet and small,
is someone else’s dream after all.
So before it softens into “when,”
stay here a while—again, again
sleeps
in the curve of hollowed rock
we
forget its name
until it speaks
in mirrors
in pulses
murmuring down spine
all we are
returns
in ripples
memory breaks
and reforms
like light
under eyelids
sinking
into
once-blue
a tide forgets its edge
and so do I
what doesn’t flow
calcifies—
drip
drip
a vein
of sky
left
unheld
...
Is there happiness in the finite?
Of course not.
How could there be?
Like a cup too small for the ocean,
like a clock chasing its own hands,
like love letters
crumpling at the edges,
their ink fading into longing.
Happiness—
if we must name it—
lives in the spaces between words,
in the breath before speaking,
in the silence between arguments
where something endless seeps in.
It is not in holding tight,
but in letting go.
Not in keeping,
but in losing.
Not in the answer,
but in the ache of the question.
And if you still seek it,
do not look outside—
go inward.
Happiness is not in your title,
not in your house,
not in your body or mind.
It does not wait in grand achievements,
but in small, quiet moments—
in a thank you whispered to the breeze,
in sunlight warming your skin,
in water slipping through your fingers.
It is there—
in the unmeasured,
the unheld,
the undone.
In knowing who you are
beneath all the names
you have been given.
On a frosty opaque day in windy winter
I, an old defoliated tree denied the sky and the soil
by the young aggressive ones spreading branches,
walk out of the green forest in sheer desperation.
Crossing the contorted contours of the barren badlands,
I go across the pallid plateau to a city quite far,
where I could see no sun shining with survival panacea,
so I couldn’t soak the rays to get my lost foliage back.
I could neither find sustaining soil of bonding sympathy,
so I couldn’t stand upright in the storm of strife.
Dejected, I then morph into a human figure without roots
in the remote corner of the concrete forest.
In dismal unkind desolateness my heart soon breaks,
and the forsaken fragile hands hang unheld,
picking up pining the strewn shards abandoned,
from the cauldron of a smoldering summer day.
Disillusioned, I walk back to the forest I once left,
and burn the essence of humanity in the forest fire.
January 29, 2021
Title used : If I Were A Tree
Contest : If I Were A?
Sponsor : Mysytic Rose Rose
Splinters of unheld memory
Swirling in a tsunami of letters
and hidden shames
Chessboards with whites replaced with space
Creatures formed without a face
touch replacing taste
magic with wonder
taking centre stage
Smurfs with white bruises
Chairs without base
Aliens reaching hands across the universe
and moons and planets race
Lying in the grass
as i crowd surf over loving blades
or would the darkness
take its place
and simmer in the lights embrace
fearful of its final disgrace
Splinters of unheld memory
Swirling in a tsunami of letters
and hidden shames
Chessboards with whites replaced with space
Creatures formed without a face
touch replacing taste
magic with wonder
taking centre stage
Smurfs with white bruises
Chairs without base
Aliens reaching hands across the universe
and moons and planets race
Lying in the grass
as i crowd surf over loving blades
or would the darkness
take its place
and simmer in the lights embrace
fearful of its final disgrace
No one hears my silences
none seen beyond my mask
pain hidden by laughter's task
sadness pulls at either corner of my mouth
cottoned coughs explain
the unheld tears
hold on tight to fears
as self just disappears
and blank shadow
takes its place
just behind my face
the last single trace
No Imposter, I
Should I once ignore your smile
Call the undertaker
For I be dead unless I be
Imposter fraud or faker
Yet should I be, blind to thee
Even should a fraud I be
Interloper still would see
The beauty that resides in thee
Never shall I stay your kiss
Nor from your hug extract
Nor fail to stroke your flaxen strands
Never shall do that
Should we walk with hands unheld
Call the lawmen in
Tis not I you walk beside
But someone in my skin
Never shall I aim to roam
Nor draw another's eye
Change not I, lest I die
No Imposter, I
19 November 2018
A Numberless Dream
Today while walking together with reverent hands
there are many unheld books with my unkempt dreams
To the wonderful man, who bestows my passions worn
we walk with harmonious tunes on dove gray sands
Within our heartfelt love, we never feel so forlorn
years to come we are filled with heated fires of times
Till we walk in rhythmic tune of a numberless dream
I'll always bring you my passionate verses in rhyme.
03/22/2017
Evelyn Knight
On a frosty day in winter an old defoliated tree
denied the sky and the soil by the younger ones
walks out of the green forest in sheer desperation.
Crossing barren lands goes to a modern city quite far
But could see no sun of hope to get the foliage back
And could find no soil of compassion to stand erect.
It becomes a human without roots in concrete forest
Its heart soon breaks and forsaken hands hang unheld.
It picks up its broken heart on a burning day in summer
Walks back to the forest and burns humanity in forest fire.
September 14, 2017.
The poet had said :
The world is a stage.
The stage
First Scene
Flood of spotlights
The actor in centre-stage, walks straight
The eyes looking up to the sky
The hands intimately hold, and held
The footsteps close, walk alongside
The figures liked, stay on
Others float around unwanted
The breath strong
The presence demanding
Cares for none.
Middle Scene
The actor runs around
A clock in hand
Pushes people on the ground
The stage is small.
Hits the wall, waits
The prompter says,
Say the line : 'time is short'.
The actor throws the clock
Doesn't care.
Last Scene
The spotlights dim
The actor bent, alone in the back of stage
A stick in hand
The eyes fixed on the ground
The hands don't hold, and hang unheld
The footsteps walk out of sight
The figures fade out.
The breath weak
The presence desolate
Searches for care.
The curtain drops
I enter the stage
The actor on the knees
Rises, and becomes my shadow.
July 14, 2017
Contest : All Yours (Jan 22)
Sponsor : Brian Strand
Today while walking together with reverent hands
There are so many unheld books within my unkempt dreams
to the wonderful man that bestows my passions has worn
as we walk together holding hands, in the dove-gray sands
Within our heartfelt love we will never feel so, so forlorn
Years to come, we'll be filled with the heated fires of time
till then we'll never be able to be within a numberless dream
I will always bring you my passionate verses in poetic rhyme.
03/22/2017
Erin A.Charles
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