Wild Irish sea pounds spray ashore,
its white teeth gnaw the stone down,
each tide returns, bites as before
wearing away the brown cliffs.
The wind flattens salted bluegrass,
while gulls wheel up in the sky
soaring as on an overpass
hang gliding over the crags.
Breaking waves surge up the sandstone
Falling back as white foam veils
stroking the old wounds to atone
for the endless scouring blows.
The strong swells drum through sea caverns,
blow-holes spray up in the sky
bringing cheers to seaside taverns
for the pipe, fiddle, drum songs.
Irish seals dive through kelp seaweed
silver backs, flash through foam spray,
twisting and turning at high-speed
laughing at angry sea grasps.
O Irish sea, carve deep tonight,
let your foam and surge shape me
for rugged crags are a highlight
on our weathered skin and shores.
O Irish sea, carve deep tonight,
let your foam and surge shape me
for rugged crags are a highlight
on our weathered skin and shores.
Perhaps I had done the gods wrong in my past life
Such that love was wielded to me as a knife
Maybe I’m confused, too young, and too naive
But isn’t it love if it destroys you when it leaves?
The eyes plead when your words escape you
They betray me when I say I’m done and through
For this feeling never truly disappeared, even if I deny
It’s hidden under a mountain of hurt, happiness, and lies
One could say it’s love in its purest and best form
It never even started, so why worry about the storm
It pushes all the limits and breaks all the rules
It ruins you and turns even scholars into fools
I was hopelessly hoping for a flicker or a spark
But I burned in your flames that lit up the dark
The days turned into months of wearing away
And the scars made me see stars in the light of day
It hurts too much to be given any other name
I was drawn to you like a moth to a burning flame
I tried to make you stay, but it was all for naught
For you were mine in all the ways you were not.
stepping
I skid
to my lips
I sip
on my boat
I skip
from my arms
I drip
I dive through
I zip
my hands grasp
I slip
bucket with leak
won't fill
my story
doesn't hold water
truth that's weak
leaks out.
water like time,
slips, slides away, can't be held
makes its way through cracks.
with drips and drops
it wears away a stone.
wily water has a will of its own
its goes where it wants to.
you need water most
when its gone
when the well is dry
you'll know
how much its worth
when it slips, slides,
flows away
with its drips and drops
relentless
singing along
with time's
ticks and tocks,
counting and
wearing away at life.
I’m so scared of losing myself.
I’ve switched between so many faces
That I don’t know which one is real.
I keep bending to what others need.
The only thing I recognize is this feeling.
Chasing after some kind of love.
It’s been etched into me so deeply
That it’s wearing away my sense of self.
I made love my entire identity,
Yet I don’t even know what it is.
I just want to be held, what’s wrong with that?
Is it a sin to chase what I want?
I’m tired of writing love songs.
Tired of stories that always end in ruin.
They tell me to find myself, but where do I start,
If a part of me was never there to begin with?
I go to bed trying to cry,
But no tears ever come.
I feel like an empty husk,
Moving to the will of others.
How do I take my life back?
When do I get my happiness?
the chaffing entropy
of self-maintenance
combing human features
into land-slips
predestined by its engineering
an electric screwdriver
skitters away
from its moving parts
dishes in the sink
soap suds wearing away
willow patterns
a domestic maintenance
erodes ceramic bones
they grow thin and break
replaced by tougher plastic bandages
we dry our hands
notice it is evening
turn on a vintage
hundred year old lamp
few things live longer
than times short shelf-life
The Past
Our world is beautiful.
It is old, and it is young.
The difference between...
immortality and humanity.
Giants of enormous size, and strength,
titans mentioned, in the great Book.
Unicorns and talking donkeys,
dinosaurs, and a jabberwocky.
Dragons, and even great whales...
used by the hand of the Lord.
Written about, written down...
to be read again and again,
to know the wonders of our yesterday.
Pyramids, massive statues to lesser-thans,
destroyed and disassembled into dust.
Years wearing away what was,
to leave behind only what is,
or what is left,
to tease us,
and appease our sense of adventure,
and our lust for treasure.
Libraries burned to the ground,
or great arts stolen from their rightful places,
taken to hidden rooms,
coveted by shades that can not use them,
or remember why...
they wanted them at all?
We go to school,
and learn what is given to us.
Yet the truth is bleeding out, all around.
It is like water, seeking every level...
from the Arctic Circle,
to the content of Antarctica.
Science and religion attempting to describe...
what can not be explained,
without faith.
The stone.
Plain, Dusty, Worn. Full of holes and shortcomings.
Like me.
A droplet of water.
Changing, transforming.
Washing away the dirt, grime, muck.
Leaving behind a metamorphosized canvas of color.
The stone.
Altered forever. Carved and painted by the presence of water.
The water, falling, flowing, changing, forming.
A drip. Droplet.
Rain, Pouring down on me. On the stone.
Amending. Smoothing away the flaws.
The water of life, cleansing.
The stone.
Mended.
Turned from a pebble - like any other - to a unique fragment.
Smoothed over.
Remade.
The droplet, driplet.
Changing, moving me, like Him.
Wearing away my imperfections and sins.
Smooth, like the rock. Beautiful.
His.
People fed you with enough
Lies already, and now I think they’ve
Enlightened you on my the traits.
Although some of them are true,
Some just hurt and break me like shards of glass,
Entirely because you’ve not bothered sharing it with me.
Dim, my feelings seem, nay, have been after that
Ordeal since I’m now the
New laughing-stock of
Town, and my heart is heavy.
Judge me not if I walk away, because you won’t
Understand why I’m
Doing this. It’s because I’ve seen the
Guilt in you wearing away since how I
Extolled you having the most gentle heart was all a waste.
Moving on would seem too genuine to suite your
Expectations but that’s basically what I’m doing.
There are words beneath
what come out at night
you're fast asleep
but for me the time
is a loud machine....
im afraid to dream
because the things i see that are set up by my own mind...
...well they surely don't comfort me
can you come with me
to an open place with a loud machine?
it's taking up the space
but you give me room to breathe.
I think with the radio on,
im starting to wonder if something is wrong
cant seem to distinguish between every song
all playing at once in a loop that goes on
it's wearing away at my foundation,
but you scare it off.
can you come with me
to that open place
with a loud machine?
its taking up the space
but you give me room to breathe
Liquid Poetry
Pure liquid poetry pours out of my head,
Leaving my will and wishes for dead.
Just cannot stop this crazy mind,
From spitting out another rhyme.
Give it a rest!
Brain please hibernate.
Wake up in the morning, if you’re not too late;
But please! For the sake of sanity!
Please give me a break.
I’m wearing away in my dying days,
Just waiting for a future…
Where is she True Love?
You promised me.
It’s time for me to meet her.
This Wife you promised,
In exchange for me being honest.
Where is she? Who is she?
Come on; you promised.
I pledged my destiny to True Love. Remember?
Well? Who is my True Love? What have you done with her?
Is it you? Is it you? This is getting boring…
Or is it just another story?
A tale to tell your kids at night.
Oh yes it’s real; believe in True Love. Goodnight.
It’s real for everyone but me it seems;
For my True Love is still only The Woman of My Dreams.
(C)2011 Aa Harvey. All Rights Reserved.
This fake smile is wearing away,
These happy feelings are beginning to stray
“Stay strong,” is all I’ve been told,
But it’s just not that simple after I lost someone
I rarely got to hold.
This heart of mine is giving way and
Too many emotions are being held at bay;
Please, come back Dad, there’s so many things that
I never got to say.
Thoughts of you constantly drip into my mind
And everyone’s telling me to move on, like it’s easy
To leave your Daddy behind!
It breaks my heart knowing I’ll never hear
“I love you Tristy” be spoken by you again
I can’t accept reality, please Dad,
This can’t be the end
You know not
O my dear soul
How many fragments I had
Of my whole
When you bade me
Just before the goal
Ages have passed
In the effort to collect
All those fragments
Yet alas!
The more I gather
The more they scatter
They have become infinite
Though I wished
I could merge them
Into a bigger whole
So that I had not to bear
The endless torture
Slowly but surely
In the small pieces
The little drops of pain
Give harder stain
Be your mercy on my heart
And help me divert
The bitterness of every grain
As a whole
And save me
From wearing away
In small drops
You are the only one
Who can reassemble
Them again
For, only you know
How you splited them
I want to have
The whole painful slab
To be dropped on me
As forcefully as you can
Then bury me deep
In my solo grave
Under the slab
And engrave on it
Your name in bold
'The World’s Greatest
Assembler of
The Broken Hearts’
I waited for you,
to be here with me.
My comfort. My life.
My everything.
Forever with you,
that is my place.
I am you; you are me.
We are everything.
You live to die.
I die to live.
Lifelessly laying, limp and light.
Your touch, bringing me to life.
Now old, aged and tired.
I am wearing away.
Watching you grow bigger,
I will never grow that way.
My body weak and frail.
Ruby red, delicate, like fine wine.
Brittle with splits and gashes.
Fallen fragments, I could never feel.
But oh, how I love you.
And I know you love me.
Although our visits are brief,
I'll be here waiting.
Loitering lonely in a crowd in London
Separate, apart, different from the rest
Because of change of culture and taste
Can’t relate or fit in their world within.
In the whirlpools I gyrate in the middle
Things required to be finished before dates
For the dead and sick sending courtesy calls
Or Greetings for birthdates and weddings.
Sitting depressed or standing in my balcony
On the ground I see the last year’s leaves
The twigs are black and cold is dry & itchy
Think of failures and not of joy or victories.
In between the average sadness and joys
Only thing remains is solitude to enjoy
Of which I don’t see any remedies or cures
Not even bitter pain pills or lenitive lures.
Loneliness wearing away the idle mind
Like a grain of food a hungry ant finds
Hearing the temple-bells I feel to shout
“Hey I am alive, alive in this my lonely rout.
Our birds have flown away for a better lives
We stare at each other no sex drive but survive.
Dt. 10/10/13
===================================
Dr. Ram Mehta
2nd place win
Contest: Faces of Loneliness by Frank H.
WoodWork
I am going bald,
because summer has come upon me with clippers.
My hair is burning and breaking
like a wasteland.
Spills cover my face,
anointed with hydraulic fluid and oil. I store death in my lungs,
breathing out carbon monoxide.
Don't curse me
when I lose my tenderness,
wearing away each year, bearing neither flower
nor fruit to feed even the flies.
The chainsaw ravages the forest.
If I fall, I will be as good as wood.
~ Uche Chidozie Okorie
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