Tag: Poetry

Just One

I am but one voice lost in many

I shout when I can

But I doubt that I am

More than a voice in a world of plenty.

The Pond, Part 2

An unexpected visitor

The bird that sat on her window, it looked familiar as if it belonged to a different place

She can see that the city was not his place

Maybe he followed her train to where the trees don’t grow

Where the cars’ noises block the voices in her head

She can no longer hear her best friend—the inspiration

Looking out of her cold studio apartment’s window, she can’t see the stars

Her lover’s words resonate in her ears, he was right—she misses counting the bright pins in the sky

That yellow cheerful bird’s singing covered all the other noises around her

She wondered if he had been a messenger, if he carried a letter from The Pond for her

Although her apartment stood high above the man-made trails beneath

It was no match to the mountain she used to live on,

The broken kitchen counters that he’d promised to fix,

The cotton filled pillows, the wooden chair he proudly carved.

She closes her eyes humming with the bird, harmonies she once knew so well

She can smell it, the pond’s stench—what she hated and loved so much

But it escapes her before she can capture it; she wished to paint it on her pale grey wall

The memories were too old, and the paint has run dry.

Reflections

Occasionally, I see astonishment in her eyes
After hours in front of the mirror
There’s grief in her face and a wilting in her soul
As if she’s met herself for the very first time
She saddens
Loses the words
She loves that one in the mirror—not herself
I want to go into that world, she says
I want to be where this beauty is
There, left is right
There, wrong is right
There, dawn brings comfort
There, everything is changeless
There, silence ceases screaming
And peace is infinite
Now glued to the mirror, her expression changes
Up close, she finds herself
She finds the loneliness that bent her spine
She sees lines of pain on her face
Sadness defines her being
Pulling away, she again sees just a beautiful reflection
And is content to be back—back where others see her
Not so close

Inspiration

Slowly comes

Then all at once

Words run through my brain

As I lay in bed to rest my head

The whole world screams

And I can’t define the feeling, the noise they make

So I rush to find a paper, but my pencils break

And slowly then all at once the voices disappear

Leaving me all alone laying here.

(How I feel right now, midnight thoughts)

The King and the Clown

This time, the King bowed to the crowd
And told them stories of fictional heroes
Of battles fought with the gods
The glorious fictions were beautiful
The horses were flying! No—the men were flying horses!
The exploits of ancient warrior-centaurs gripped the crowd
Then tiny fairies winged their infinitesimal paths
Fixing what the horsemen destroyed
Before the destruction was tallied, it vanished!
As if no battle was fought
As if gods and centaurs never grappled hugely
The King framed his tales in beauty
Standing onstage and seen by young and old
Barking some words powerfully, whispering others softly
Becoming a cast of characters
One moment the handsome hero
The next a filthy beggar
Rapt, the children followed his movements
And the women leaned closer every time he praised them
In those moments, the King spun beautiful words his Kingdom wanted to hear
But then it was over
The man’s creation ended
The curtains closed
Backstage, the King took off his crown
And dressed as a clown and went forth again
When he and his monkeys performed playful tricks
The crowd regathered
Among them, only one child noticed
The king had only been a clown

(written by me, Dec 2009)

Boxes

Take me out of this box you made for me!

“You don’t look like a terrorist” she says to me.

As I take a sip of my drink, I smile, for she thought she complimented me.

I get lost in the ignorance… or maybe it’s innocence that puts me in such a box.

Should I change my name? Maybe dye my hair blond just so you can relate to me?