You knew me when the world was small,
Before I knew what love meant at all;
Through schoolyard laughter, years gone by,
You were the constant beneath my sky.
They paired our names in childish jest,
Unknowing fate had played its best.
And somewhere 'neath those youthful days,
Your name grew dear in quiet ways.
Then came October, soft and still,
When you confessed your heart's own will.
Four years we wandered, hand in hand,
Through distant roads and dreams unplanned.
But life, alas, grew stern with time,
And stole the sweetness from its prime.
I lost my way, I lost my light,
And held your memory through every night.
Now you call me friend—what bitter art,
To give a common name to a sacred heart.
How can I greet you as though we never knew,
When half my yesterdays belonged to you?
You say no second chance shall be,
Yet hope still keeps its vigil in me.
A wistful heart, though bruised by years,
Still finds your name among its tears.
Perhaps, when seasons turn and skies grow pale,
You'll find our old affection in the tale.
And if you return when all seems through,
I'll know, at once, the boy I knew.
Ah, poetry
The last vestige
Of its vestige
Fragments
Of a shattered love
Broken
By the demands
Of beauty
Showing its age
Metaphor
Lost in its meaning
Metered fences
Challenging the wanderer
Corralling the herd
Nuances lost
In the unplowed fields
A dandelion shunned
For lack of compliance.
Oh, poets,
Would we be led
To worship
At the slaughterhouse
Of free thought
Reshaped words
Rekindled passion
Or stand as one
Alone
Undaunted
Group
Of forever’s rebels
Before the light could find my frame,
A breath of blue became the air.
I waited—not for hope or name—
But for a silence I could bear.
The self withdrew, then disappeared,
No shelter left for soul to keep.
All colors fell, as time grew smeared;
Just blue remained—too vast, too deep.
What burned was not a mortal flame,
But thought encased in frost and skin.
The world collapsed without a claim,
And left a hush that rings within.
if I could I would take a magic wand
to the moon from far beyond
the wildest of dreams in my mind
a constant reminder of immortal
passion and endearment to cast a magical spell
make it the luminous warden of peace
inscribed with words of surrender
squared to the power of infinite love
versed in breathless intimate surrender
enchanted and transfixed forever
may it remove all suffering
as it condenses the meaning of kindness
I lost track of time
Trying to forget while living
I always wonder what could’ve been
But I know I’ll never get an answer
My brain has been empty for so long now
I can’t write any longer
I want to get back how easy it was
But I can’t seem to find any inspiration
Even in the sad days when I usually have a head on
Time went by so fast
Yet it feels like it’s still yesterday
I don’t know how I am anymore
I can’t even answer their “how are you’s”
Waking up at 2am just to stare blankly at the ceiling
Feeling completely shallow
It’s become a normal thing
But I know that it shouldn’t
Perhaps this will still go a long way for years to come
I’m defenceless with the things that can’t be undone
As it continues to swallow my colour
I’m working on with what’s left inside
Barely breathing
I’ll just wait until I get back with having a grip of my life
vestige of summer
suntan lines
fake spaghetti straps
AP: 1st place 2021
THE TIDE CAME IN
SWIFT AND FURIOUS
BESIDE US
THE OCEAN
CARRIED YOU AWAY
A WAVE OF SADNESS
THE MOON
PULLING YOU FURTHER
BLACK AS NIGHT
COVERED IN ASH
YOU LEFT WITH MY HEART
THIS TIME
THERE IS NO TURNING BACK.
The darkness beckons
Steetlights flicker
And slowly die
Breathe in...
Breathe out...
The world goes black
If only for a moment
Then it all turns green
Eyes widen...
Eyes close...
Feel everything at once
A destiny written in stone
No time to atone
Heart thunders...
Heart silences...
In the last moments
Humanity knew a great fear
Before Winter came
Why is this blank paper staring at me?
It’s getting annoying, so I stare back,
but the winner of this contest is already decided.
Why is it getting under my skin?
Possibly because by the 6th line of this verse
I should be 4 stanzas in with its clean white face
tattooed with erase marks, cross-strikes, carrots,
every corner crammed with hastily scribbled paisleys
While I’m still in the past, let me
brandish my pencil, my sword, my key
to awe-inspiring quatrains that would gallantly sing
over the cacophony of world that ceaselessly screams
While I’m still in the past, let me
dive into my notebook after jumping off reality,
sink to the bottom of the pool residing in my reverie
and exhale bubbles of poems from a long gone memory
While I’m still in the past, let me
pen a letter on how flowers and paisleys and haphazard poetry
can reconstruct the architecture behind crumbling synapses
belonging to the nostalgia-devoted author of this eulogy
whose last farewell to herself is a vestige of her legacy
Vestige of light may you often shine
in passages summoned upon thin lines
granted too fast on honor flights
from notes of praise and gratitude
into long love sonnets lost from sight
Above the alter of solemn hymns
where patience runs in hallowed halls
with secrets dark on leaden souls
forgiveness brought with sacred trust
in stained glass windows visions hold
To grasp the word and follow may
to mold your brethren in certain ways
a hand, a heart, a promise true
of mind, of touch, imparts free will
a humble man, a simple role,
a life He gave, to save your soul
In this winter numbness only the snow
angels of ours remember
to our love-making games.
THE LAST VESTIGE
the sky is covered with clothes of
mourning
in sinful array
everything lies contrasting
His
forgiving nature
fortitude remains as
He prepares for His
second coming
knowing without a doubt
that our war
is won
with our personal autonomy
we practise our petitions
awaiting the
restitution of His will
in time for the
last vestige
© Kim van Breda—October 2014
mr. panetta wants the world to know
that the big bully’s gonna finish his last
doughnut &
parade with baton in hand
to the asia-pacific,
where now, he can stand as intimidating as he can
muster,
overlooking the rise of China’s economy &
military,
amidst his own crumbling interior,
with both a domestic population whose pockets are
empty &
the military stretched all over the world to
account for it,
it’s only a matter of time before the complete
irrelevance of the
big bad boogeyman
comes to a hilt---
when mr. panetta tells us all via numerous screens
that the movement of the majority of US warships to
China’s backyard
is for any reason besides the last attempt to
flex the droopy american muscles,
an american citizen has to wonder just how bad
mr. hope & change wants to leave us
when he exits in 2016---
is he trying to top mr. dubya?
who would have thought that was even possible
when people were crying 4 years ago in the streets
over his win against mccain?
nothing makes enemies quicker than
trying to assert force when there was nothing to
instigate it---
great job leon,
great job mr. hope & change---
from one citizen of the empire, right
backatcha.
Racing projectile,
High velocity impact:
Surface impression.
Solvent light diminishes metaphorical seconds,
wiping them with a blur–a stroke–a motion,
challenging the wings of emotion to pulse and live,
To etch and carve something in a flight of furor,
in a whirlwind haze of hapless thoughts in apropos.
A sound made in arresting touches of flesh on plastic
and in the vestige of fifty-five words per minute
I listen to the swift, cool rush of bodiless thoughts;
formed, reformed; given unto the cerulean glow,
like an offering of the internal to the exponential.
Ripped from juxtaposition and highlighted in blue,
a shadow morphs into absently coruscated fog,
crystalized in the act of inciting jubilant ruminations.
A cackle amidst a gaggle of jabbering voices,
and jovial extractions alight succulent glows of nascence.
He is born.
My twin sired with the conscious decision to smile whilst I type
and in the glow, he is pressed–animated–on the wall,
like a moving hypothesis for the enigmatic muse.
Dancing like figments in the light of imagination,
he sits as I do; enfolded in the cerulean glow that refreshes and renews.
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