Details |
Nikki Maxwell Poem
I want to tell you about my day,
My day of fun and flight,
But I'm worried that if I say
My say, I'll keep you until night.
So I'll settle for leaving hasty words
As words scrawled by the door,
And hope you read my scribbled thoughts
As signs of something more.
Copyright © Nikki Maxwell | Year Posted 2025
|
Details |
Nikki Maxwell Poem
Snowflakes flutter to frosted earth
On a perfect winter day.
They glide through frigid wind,
Refracting whatever threads of light
Peek through the sky's soft gray quilt.
I stand on snow-crusted ground,
Craving my neck in awe
Of the chandelier of quartz drifting down.
My boots leave indents in an ever-growing cushion.
I want to let one settle on my hand.
So I can run my fingernail across
One of its many crystalline branches.
So I may feel just how smooth
A rigid structure could ever be.
So I will know that something as grand
As the smoky giants that sleep
Lazily above the horizon
Can craft something as intricate as it.
But I worry that the heat from my hands
Will melt and do away its delicate form.
If I were to tap it, even with the
Weakest edge of my nail,
I fear I would cleave it,
Between the roots of its symmetrical beauty,
In two.
Copyright © Nikki Maxwell | Year Posted 2025
|
Details |
Nikki Maxwell Poem
That hazy space you find yourself wandering to between blinks,
It is not fog between your ears.
You will not get lost in it,
Become stuck in it as a fly
Is caught in a spider's pale lair.
As boots are buried in a sudden quicksand.
It is not your damnation,
Not an indication that this is as far as you go.
That the footsteps behind you mark both
Your past and future, and in front
Of you is all cliff and no ground.
It is your playground
It is your arcade
It is clouds soaring above a gray globe.
It is a symbol for pen on paper.
It is ink on canvas.
So embrace it.
Twirl your fingers in it.
Feel its grainy texture run between your palms.
Let yourself wander in it.
Copyright © Nikki Maxwell | Year Posted 2025
|
Details |
Nikki Maxwell Poem
The glossy midnight blue
we observe within the folds of our galaxies
when we chart maps
and connect constellations.
The hue that encompasses luminous stars
with azure veils sailing well into
eternal night on the seas of space-time.
The shade synonymous with
the vastness of the universe,
whose very name recognizes
that infinite possibilities lie
beyond our marble's glass dome.
But I hesitate to label
this shape of blue my favourite,
because it doesn't truly exist.
Its light is from
somewhere between gamma and radio waves,
but someplace beyond the visible spectrum.
Even if I were to gaze into the body of space
and check between each of night's sparkling eyes,
I would go blind,
and become nothing more
than old dirt on older ground
before I ever glimpsed this colour.
Copyright © Nikki Maxwell | Year Posted 2025
|
Details |
Nikki Maxwell Poem
You slice through wind and rain
Like raven shaded sickles.
My ebony gargoyles,
Yet there is nothing monstrous
About the fine arc you follow as
You flare out into a flattering skirt.
Know that when you're final hour arrives,
And you fall onto my cheek
Like the hand of a gentle lover, your
Departure will be met with elegy.
Copyright © Nikki Maxwell | Year Posted 2025
|
Details |
Nikki Maxwell Poem
What will become of future days,
after Time’s hourglass evens out?
When his ticking hands fall still in praise
will we collapse in clamor, or drown devout?
Will memory fade into the dust
like crystal webs now yellowed thread?
Will love decay, or does it just
lie sleeping with our dreams long dead?
Cities carved from noise and flame—
their names we etched in gold—
will they remain, or end the same:
grand columns cracked and split alone?
And if some wind still sweeps the land
unmoved by dusk or birth,
will it recall our trembling hands,
palms that once kissed the earth?
Copyright © Nikki Maxwell | Year Posted 2025
|
Details |
Nikki Maxwell Poem
I don't want to be sad,
Because when I'm sad
There are clouds in the sky,
And clouds always bring rain.
Maybe not today.
Maybe today will be sunny,
And maybe tomorrow will too.
But eventually those pearly clouds
Will turn into treacherous tempests
That rain lightning, and flash floods,
And hail thunder that booms
Like cannons in my ears,
Until my ears hum songs
About sunken voyages
That met a watery tomb before
Land could be glimpsed
Upon the crows nest.
I'd rather be happy.
Happy as a clam
So that there are no clouds in the sky.
And if there are any, they'll whisk by
As wisps of cotton or incense
Only recognized by
The faint scent of metal it leaves
When it is somewhere else,
But not here.
Copyright © Nikki Maxwell | Year Posted 2025
|
Details |
Nikki Maxwell Poem
The autumn leaf curls within tree tops.
Fresh off the frost-lined arm of oak,
vibrant as the sweetest of tangerines.
It passes its crinkly brethren,
trekking through those yet to venture to roots,
gliding by ghosts of the already travelled.
Branches glare with eagle-eyes,
gnarled limbs twisting,
plotting to capture the leaf
with wooden talons and bramble nets.
The vengeful wind,
jaws at the ready,
wishes to shred the traveller in two
with crooked wrenches in all directions.
But the leaf dances around the branches,
and tucks its corners away from the breeze.
It whistles along with a playful tune.
Forever elusive.
Forever free.
Copyright © Nikki Maxwell | Year Posted 2025
|
Details |
Nikki Maxwell Poem
On morning's rise
A knight did ride
Into our side of town.
With his radiant stride,
And pearl armor which shined,
Our gaze was his golden crown.
He graced us with death-defying tales.
Of dark chasms he nearly fell.
And spoke of caves and coves,
The which, night's fiends surely hailed.
And in the midst of his vivid ballads,
He asked for some silver.
For his steed had suffered blindness
"From brutal war," he addressed
To any who'd lend their ear.
"Of course," we cried!
"Anything for a hero of mine!"
We gave him half our coin.
But it was only after he glided
Through noon's set did I realize:
That when he turned to wink goodbye
His horse had two full eyes.
Copyright © Nikki Maxwell | Year Posted 2026
|
Details |
Nikki Maxwell Poem
Sleeping inside three oak walls and a creaky double door
Is something that hasn't glimpsed the sun
Since I first hid it from my pupils.
I've taken great care in decorating the sides of the wardrobe
With carvings of flowers and horses,
And everything else one would expect
From an old closet such as it.
I've stacked my plump balls of mismatched yarn
On the tippy top of its dusty roof,
so that when people ask me why I have such an old closet
In my new room, I can tell them it's for storage.
I've also locked the door with a little something I call
Omission and deflection, two very useful tools
I keep in the tool box under my bed,
Also not in view of any shafts of light that may trespass
Into the room through the bedroom window.
Copyright © Nikki Maxwell | Year Posted 2025
|