Sheets of blank paper had yellowed with age
I wielded a pen, but no ink was spilled by my hand,
Memories were left unwritten on every page,
though as many as a beach holds grains of sand
I gave in to my Muse and scrawled line after line
thoughts drawn from my soul, buried fathoms deep
Were all of those sad recollections really mine?
They were flowing as freely as the tears I weep
Reflections of my past in sunlight and ebony night,
refusing to remain entombed, fled from their prison
Strokes from darkness were escaping their plight
Released by my pen, from their sepulcher had risen
There is battle brandishing power in the pen I wield
A weapon I've found useful in place of a silent tongue
It cannot protect me as though suit of armor or shield,
Emotions shouldn't be confined; they should be sung
I polish ghosts into a golden age,
the past appears the way I need.
Where I reside is carved on the page,
walls erected outline my screed.
So many names dissolve into the dust,
a lifetime’s work reduced to yellowed ink.
One path is quietly being discussed,
another burns alone beneath the drink.
Stitched a self from fragments within,
a life becomes the story that remains.
Bus rides through the snow become a hymn,
breathing softly in the smallest pains.
Is artistic dedication noble
or just self-imposed isolation?
The mystery is solved inside the story,
but the mystery itself is an illusion.
The plaster in Rick’s place was always flaking near the doorway,
eaten away by damp heat and cheap tobacco smoke
that hung like dirty lace off the cedar joists.
Back in the corner sat a stunted, yellowed box—
a five-octave upright slapped with salmon and faded gold,
its pedals worn down to raw, scuffed brass.
It wasn’t built for concert halls. Just a pine-cased crate
that smelled of spilled Cointreau and stale olive brine.
Heavy teak doors kept the street noise out,
but couldn’t block the shuffle of black-market transit papers
passing under the low oil lamps.
Then Sam laid his knuckles on the keys,
cracked ivory, half-sticking from the salt air,
and the room went dead quiet.
She stood in the entry, silk coat catching the light,
asking for that song from Paris
before the tanks rolled in.
Rick didn't yell. He just stopped dead in his tracks,
watching the smoke curl off his cigarette
where it rested on the edge of the wood.
“Play it,” he muttered, his voice flat as gravel,
and the little wooden box gave up the only thing it had left.
Poetic breadcrumbs
Tossed into the air
Blown about by errant winds
Pecked at by bloated pigeons
Debated by chattering squirrels
And yet I sit with crumpled bag
Knowing I will return again
Replenishing the hope
That what little I offer
Is a gift for us all
The words are arguing
A mock debate
No rebuttal
A juxtapositional comparison
Of mirrored images
Seeking definition
The days weigh on me
An aged rudder struggles
To maintain a fading course
Yellowed sails doubting the breeze
Tremble as the shallows near
The landmarks seem more distant
The destination less definite
Joy remains
Yawning in the shadows
Sighing as it listens
To the chatter of life
Dancing in its memories
Some are soft and sweet
Others….well….a bit sharper
Colder…edged in frost
There are those that
Turn up the heat
Slowly simmering
The subtlety of satire
Softening the edges
Of the boldly bawdy limerick
There are those that dance
To that different drummer
Scattered alliterative groups
Counting meter’s coup
On a hesitant rhyme.
Ranters, rambling on the
Borders of repetition
Stung by the brevity
Of a well-placed Senryu.
And still the Bard holds favor
As time, in changing costume
Alters allegorical allegiances
Cold youth rebelling
‘gainst the yellowed page
Numerical wizards
Seeking arithmetic advantage
Lover’s dreaming of lust’s long faded scent
Scribbling in strained distress
Whistling amid the gravestones
Of silenced poets
I collect antique embroidery pattern
a handiwork through generations
On yellowed paper
with a few tears and edge wear
A project I pick up when time is quiet
each stitch for relaxation
Grandma’s pattern renewed
- embroidered in monochrome blue
COLOUR PERCEPTIONS
entirely
sympathetically
disposed
&
procuring
propensity
always
in harmony
possibly
surpassing
wonderful
..aesthetic
considerations
often
spoken
&
following
preferences
colourings
of
sea-green
yellowed-red
The air in the basement archives
tasted of rotted velvet and wet
copper.
A low, wet breathing synchronized
perfectly with the rhythm of your
own pulse.
Skin-bound ledgers bled dark,
viscous oil onto the warped oak
on the floorboards.
The whispers began, raspy
and toothless chanting your
true name from the shadows.
You looked down to find your
own fingers drying, flattering,
and turning into yellowed
parchment.
The emergency exit signs bled
into a deep, sickening crimson
that cast no light.
Something tall, loose- limbed,
and blind crawled upside down
across the ceiling timbers.
Every exit had vanished, replaced
by endless, towering stacks of
blank, waiting tombstones.
Needle-sharp, paper -thin claws
drove deep into your shoulders
from behind.
The entity peeled back your chest
to index your beating heart under
CLASSIFIED!.
Ever wonder if rats
Wonder about
Why they are so disliked
Or why we care
Where the rain falls
In Spain
Pondered questions
Such as
How many….
Of anything
Are in the jar
Answer is always
……All of them
Ever wander
Into a conversation
….Unprepared
Shuffle through
The yellowed pages
Of a younger poets
…………dreams
Unfaded, though yellowed
Paper wrote on
Love's clear mention.
As fragrant, though musty
The box found in
Love's sweet meaning.
Fridged, bleached tiles underfoot,
icicles wicking warmth.
A shiver quivers,
spine stiffens--
Bellows bound,
cracked mirror,
s a e
h k s
Yellowed walls listen,
boards beneath
breathe cre--ek...
Thunderous footsteps
fall, echoed hallways
r v r e a e-
e e b r t
doorframe quakes,
breaks underweight.
The clock's black hand, a surgeon's knife,
Slices the present from the past.
This singular, particular life
Is made of moments that don't last.
The way the light fell on the wall,
A certain slant of afternoon,
The sound of nothing, and then all
The quiet rising of the moon.
The coffee's steam, a spiral drawn
Between your fingers and your lips,
Before the fragile thread is gone,
Before the final, cooling sips.
The laughter that we cannot hold,
That spills like coins from a ripped purse,
A story someone briefly told,
For better, or for worse.
We try to trap it, press it flat
In photographs or yellowed pages,
A captured fly in amber, that
Defies the turning of the ages.
But it's a ghost, a mimicry,
A hollow where the sound has fled.
The only truth is: this, for me,
For you, for now. Then gone. Then dead.
So let the unrepeatable be
A sharp and startling, sweet surprise.
Not something to be caught, but see
With full acceptance in your eyes.
And then release it, let it flow
Back to the river it came from.
The only way to keep it? Know
Its beauty is it will not come
Again.
When the forget me not fades
it is caught in a soft valley wind like a sparrow
When the forget me not blooms
it rides the hard wind like a circling hawk
When the forget me not fades
it drifts free like a thin breeze
When the forget me not blooms
it is bound within a thickened wind
Murmuring the blurred and wavering nature of the forget me not
a yellowed reed releases a dark cry
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
At first, it was the small things~
a button loose on his coat,
the way the kettle whistled
but no one came.
Then the clock stopped,
not abruptly, but slow,
as if time itself had grown tired
of counting.
The wallpaper remembered
patterns they’d long forgotten,
peeling itself back
to reveal older bruises~
yellowed glue, pencil marks
where someone once measured
a child against the doorframe.
One evening, the sofa exhaled,
sagging into the shape of absence.
The windows fogged with breath
that wasn’t theirs.
And when the last light bulb dimmed,
they didn’t replace it.
They sat in the thickening dark,
listening to the house
unbuild itself around them.
*You may read the companion memoir vignette at poetrysoup.com/short_stories/ill_be_seeing_you_13598
The last drop of ink
Smeared
Across a thought
Soaked
Into a yellowed page
Nestled
Unwanted
In an old
Hand written poem
Dried
In the crease
Of forgotten
Forever’s
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