From time to time a poem

Above the Tideline

When storms had tossed their last
When shifting sands had settled
In between frosting glass
And shards of salt-rust metal
Our driftwood bed awoke
Brushing seaweed from our eyes
No longer afloat, here
Above the sweeping tide

Each current, every squall
Every wind which skewed our course
Those times we risked it all
Never hoping for a shore
Across these silent dunes
Look long into my eyes
I will return your gaze, because
We lived; we have survived.

A creative... half story half poem.

Jump us out of here mr hopper.

Jump us out of here mr hopper. Quick as a fiddle, jump us out.
Scramble out of here mr hopper. Scramble away- Get, Go... Ha.
Hop.

A moment of mindless opposite of feeling- oh how delightful my mr hopper!
A fleeting change of gravity- oh how exciting my mr hopper!

.........

I need you here now Mr hopper. I'll never be enough alone, and i need you.
I can do it Now Mr hopper...

... Breathe, oh breathebreathe in...

But oh stay with me my Mr hopper, just in case I fall...

I'll Abandon my dear words for you Mr hopper. Let go of sweet melodies for you Mr hopper.
How [strike]cursed and [/strike] blessed I am to love [strike]and need [/strike] you my Mr hopper.

......

Mr hopper, where have you gone? I miss the land you took me to. Mr hopper, Mr Hopper, I'd love to fly away with you.
Where have you gone oh my Mr Hopper?

Am I so sodden Mr Hopper with such weighty tears that your wings will not lift us off?
Is my shadow Mr Hopper so sewn, to a heavy ground so that I cannot fly with you?

...

Mr Hopper... I can't bear to look at you now. You disgust me. You... are foul, revolting, cruel.
It's your fault Mr Hopper. Yours. Sincerely... Mr Bloody. Hopping. F**king. Hopper.

.

To know Mr Hopper is to fail Mr hopper so theres hope mr hopper in not knowing.
But to fail Mr Hopper is to not know Mr hopper so theres chance I too am failing mr hopper.



Jump away from here Mr Hopper, whenever it's time, you can jump away.
It's okay Mr hopper. Go gently your way mr hopper.

Go, and hop, and smile.

elizabeth wrote: Drip...
So heavy my limbs,
So tired, such an effort to rise up from the comfort blanketness the warm doziness that has fastened me securely to the darkness behind my eyes,
Drip...drip
Yet it disturbs me,
Like an echo that swirls slowly around,
That sound,
Drip.....drip
It calls to me with shattered teeth,
Painful stiring within my bones,
Wounds the silence with its sharp breath,
Drip.......drip,
I am falling into myself,
With sweet abandonment,
Gently darkness caresses' each curve and I am melting into familiar feelings,
Yet....
Drip.........drip
Such a battle just to turn my head,
My cheek resting against the soothing marble,
Eyes flutter like dying wings,
Drip..............drip
There is a pattern of life that smears the reality of the surface it barely touches,
It spreads,
A flow that leaks into each line,
Reflecting surrender,
Drip.........................drip,
I am undone,
I cant turn back, too many steps along this path,
Barely a choice, more a natural feature of the stumble across what holds us here,
And what are we?
If unable to be?
If it slips away, as a wave will flow back into the ocean,
And you cannot bear the uncovered bleakness?
Drip..
Welcomed into the eternity of nothing and nowhere
That reaches eagerly to taste the last memory of what is.
And........
Silence so deep you can taste the metallic flavour....

...

The Door and the Darkness

I followed you down
Lower, towards the treeline
Where, deep in opaque shadow
We found an old house
Crouched beneath the twilit dawn
Wooden steps dark with dew
You turn a handle, step through
Into darkness, utter black
A silence like the dying night

On the steps, and though I
Never see your face, I know
Like the trees, the house
The door and the darkness,
You are another me.

Sonnet 73

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see’st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the deathbed whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourished by.
This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

-William Shakespeare

Take me to the place
Where through pink morning light
Frost blossoms from power lines
And windows mist with thin sheets of ice
The bonfire fragrance of November
Meeting harsh breaths, clouding through
Silent streets. The crunch of impatient
Feet, not walking, just stirring
The white place where pavement was.

Take me to the place
Where birds have a red cheeked hue
Their fairweather friends taken flight
On feathers too fine for the dark season
Of endless twilight, a veil of silence
Which sways the shivering sleepers
In too-thin bedsheets, and rocks
The alert and waking summer
Into uneasy dreams.

Take me to the place
Where the gentle river becomes a sheet
Of metal, of glass, of bedrock
The foundation of
A silent world.

If you cut enough times with words do you imagine I will feel your pain?
Will the guilt for being a cause of your turmoil close the distance between us?
Will it change how I feel?
Give me a new perspective?
No.
It raises defenses and rages, burns out all that was ever there.
It furthers the distance until I no longer see.
Clouds the reality
Destroy everything and when its spent nothing has changed.
Except..
Except I no longer wish to try, I have no empathy because, my love
Words are hollow and meaningless and like the weapons you choose to wield them as,
Sadness and love are passing storms and they destroy not build.

Death hangs a long way off. Do I just wait
And pass my youth through to my greying days
In petty pastimes, and misery for ways
Of life I dare not hope to live? My gait
Is twisted and my speech uncouth. I hate
The pity and the distance set around
By those who see and dare not know, so bound
By other’s expectations. Am I too late
To live; to study how to learn; to try
And fail yet seek another way to give,
To gain myself? In this exchange the dry
Desert of my poverty may flower – live
In ways undreamed – and the pain of fading
Hopes will disappear in life’s rich trading.

Jonathan Griffith

Pacific Womb

by D.A. Bird


Life is cradled, only just.
Life is cradled, not lives.
Footprints heal immediately, the sand
resists any memory of us.
Bitter water roars, swallows every name.

I have seen the ocean breathe the tide,
give birth to foreignness, casually annihilate a body,
swallow the sun without incident.

They have never looked for you before.

I have seen the Gods of Deep Places,
seen Khaos and Kosmos move,

They do not move us.
They move All Things and so we are moved.

I have seen the ocean breathe,
press an empire of original disarray,
places light has never caressed, where
light is not the thing for seeing.

The bellow-breath sends the sea up to my knees,
drowns Leviathan,
fingers the sand from under our feet.

DRINK, oh youth, joy's purest ray
From thy loved one's eyes all day,

And her image paint at night!
Better rule no lover knows,
Yet true rapture greater grows,

When far sever'd from her sight.

Powers eternal, distance, time,
Like the might of stars sublime,

Gently rock the blood to rest,
O'er my senses softness steals,
Yet my bosom lighter feels,

And I daily am more blest.

Though I can forget her ne'er,
Yet my mind is free from care,

I can calmly live and move;
Unperceived infatuation
Longing turns to adoration,

Turns to reverence my love.

Ne'er can cloud, however light,
Float in ether's regions bright,

When drawn upwards by the sun,
As my heart in rapturous calm.

Free from envy and alarm,

Ever love I her alone!

1767-9.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

DREAMS

Trying to recall the plot
And characters we dreamed,
What life was like
Before the morning came,
We are seldom satisfied,
And even then
There is no way of knowing
If what we know is true.
Something nameless
Hums us into sleep,
Withdraws, and leaves us in
A place that seems
Always vaguely familiar.
Perhaps it is because
We take the props
And fixtures of our days
With us into the dark,
Assuring ourselves
We are still alive. And yet
Nothing here is certain;
Landscapes merge
With one another, houses
Are never where they should be,
Doors and windows
Sometimes open out
To other doors and windows,
Even the person
Who seems most like ourselves
Cannot be counted on,
For there have been
Too many times when he,
Like everything else, has done
The unexpected.
And as the night wears on,
The dim allegory of ourselves
Unfolds, and we
Feel dreamed by someone else,
A sleeping counterpart,
Who gathers in
The darkness of his person
Shades of the real world.
Nothing is clear;
We are not ever sure
If the life we live there
Belongs to us.
Each night it is the same;
Just when we’re on the verge
Of catching on,
A sense of our remoteness
Closes in, and the world
So lately seen
Gradually fades from sight.
We wake to find the sleeper
Is ourselves
And the dreamt-of is someone who did
Something we can’t quite put
Our finger on,
But which involved a life
We are always, we feel,
About to discover.

Mark Strand

"So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart.
Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and
Demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life,
Beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and
Its purpose in the service of your people.

Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide.
Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend,
Even a stranger, when in a lonely place. Show respect to all people and
Bow to none. When you arise in the morning, give thanks for the food and
For the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks,
The fault lies only in yourself. Abuse no one and nothing,
For abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision.

When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts
Are filled with fear of death, so that when their time comes
They weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again
In a different way. Sing your death song and die like a hero going home."

~Chief Tecumseh

Follow Your Dreams

If while pursuing distant dreams
Your bright hopes turn to grey.
Don't wait for reassuring words
Or hands to lead the way.

For seldom will you find a soul
With dreams the same as yours.
Not often will another help you
Pass through untried doors.

If inner forces urge you
To take a course unknown,
Be ready to go all the way,
Yes, all the way alone.

That's not to say you shouldn't
Draw lessons from the best;
Just don't depend on lauding words
To spur you on your quest.

Find confidence within your heart
And let it be your guide.
Strive ever harder toward your dreams
And they won't be denied.

-Bruce B. Wilmer

Robert Frost - The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

I read a different interpretation of this poem today and it has completely changed my view of it...

This is my wish for you
Comfort on difficult days
Smiles when sadness intrudes
Rainbows to follow the clouds
Laughter to kiss your lips
Sunsets to warm your heart
Hugs when spirits sag
Beauty for your eyes to see
Friendships to brighten your being
Faith so that you can believe
Confidence for when you doubt
Courage to know yourself
Patience to accept the truth
Love to complete your life

― Ralph Waldo Emerson

A Hero's Atonement
As he lay down
Braced for death
thoughts began then to surround
choking off his final breath
In silent repose the warrior sprawled
Resting now alone
Amongst the gore through which he'd crawled
Seeking vainly to atone
For sins and crimes against his kin
Hand outstreched and bent
In his throes he'd sought to win
The hand of a foe whose life was spent
In those last brief moments
Fighter he had learned the worst
That those he fought and strived to kill
We brothers and grave heroes first.

A little bit of free flow from me..

Sound does not echo in this hall the darkness swallows it along with fear, joy, happiness, melancholy and regret. This space does not judge, condemn nor praise; it is an expanse within as well as without. A light lays rest on a pedestal, on a book bound in leather. The pages are worn, the symbols ancient, but in their obscurity they speak and are understood... their emanations both magical and mundane. You speak my name from the shadow, the old epithet I hold within my heart. I kneel but you beg me stand, embrace me as an equal, whispering words of comfort and encouragement. This place is imbued with your strength and sovereignty and when I close my eyes, I will take it with me.