Tag: poets on tumblr

Misty Morns of Autumn

I woke to the fog that lingers still
hanging breathlessly ‘tween earth and sky
a blanket ‘round every leaf and twig
nestling in white-grey as I wish I could into you.

I remember those days and nights.
They haunt me, seep into my skin like this cool, damp air,
clouding my thoughts, moistening my eyes
and I beg for some kind, warm embrace.

“Look nowhere else, but inside of you
for all your heart’s desire”?
I find a flame growing, a raging heat
still and silent as the tangerine leaves.

I remember you; I remember us.
I can feel you still, embracing me
I can feel your blue-white flickering flame
Aching to burn hotter with me.

And still the coolness of now slips round my calves;
still the chilled reality of now sings its resonance.
There is no you in this mulled existence;
there is only this languid persistence.

When, in the night or day, I slip into your mind
Do you yearn, or turn away?
Do you yet slip silently into desire, coach its movements
into regretful, agonized explicatives?

Are we tied, now, by nothing but this creative imagining?
Are we yet tied by nothing but this type of love?
I miss the ripples of your tender skin,
the agonized sensitivity to my energies.

Lift this cloud; help me blow it away
with heat or rain, with tears or love;
or, mind, let me accept this uncomfortable space,
sip it like chilled water on a winter’s day.

-Prologue-

…And then the sun shines through the mist
alighting mist and leaves, alike;
and then, the world is a mystery;
our fantasy begins again.

Dreams of the Mad and Broken-Hearted

…And I can do it, too.

Maybe it is the forte of the dreamers,
Like me, who have lived on the edges of reality since childhood,
Who have lived on the fringes of friendship,
Who have loved deeply and passionately
Without obvious requite,
To find the good in everything
To forget the past that we do not enjoy
To spin the darkness into light
To live quite presently.

Perhaps it is the gift of the broken-hearted
To love and love again,
To find peace after a storm of tears,
To give love throughout so many years.

And maybe it is the virtue of the mad
To find freedom in everything
We have the keys to unlock the doors
That others see as nothing.

Yes, I am a dreamer
And a lover, too;
And I am broken,
And I am mad
And I am ever fond of you.

When Angels Love Devils

Somewhere in me, I’m crying over you.

Your hardened heart and devilish mind say I am not supposed to,

And still, the tears well in my eyes
Because I love you
Because I know you do
Because you do not want to.

Transitions

So,

I am alone.

So,

I choose to be.

So,

My heart aches for you.

So,

I would rather this than confusing pain.

So,

I am alone.

So,

The leaves still tremble on their trees;

And they are not enough for me

‘Til they transform to a pair of butterflies

And one chases the other on an Indian Summer afternoon.

Then,

You are enough for me

And my love is enough for me

And my poetry is enough for me

And the trees are enough for me

Because we are still connected

Like the wasps around the trees

Like the sun and the leaves

And maybe

We are but changing like deciduous leaves:

Dying,

Falling from our native home,

Becoming part of something new…

So,

We are still connected

Though

It may not seem to be

And

We may never speak again

But

Perhaps we will.

Defy Nothing

It is no wonder you struggle with me:

Your life is so many rules,
Never to break.

You would not come back to this place where we met,
Where I am now,

You would be aghast at my sitting so close,
In casual defiance (not “belligerence”),

To your friends.
Do not think that it is in defiance of you,

For you do not embody these rules,
These conventions that say I must not.

I am looking for something,
I realized:

I am looking for me, for my place in this world.
I am looking for my freedom from you.

I am looking for the place where joy exists without your face,
Where my every thought is not consumed by you.

And, yes, as you are in my bloodstream,
I wouldn’t mind seeing you.

But I haunt the places where I’ve loved,
My body an apparition of its own

Seeking solace, seeking reason
Defying death.

We are Phoenix, do you remember?
Dying and living time and again;

We are who we are without each other,
We are who we are with each other;

We are who we are regardless of each other,
In every time and place.

The challenge, my dear, is the remembering –

Not everything else
But ourselves, regardless of everything.

That, my love,
Is The Game:

Remember-and-Forget
Live-and-Die
Love-Others-and-Oneself;

It is The-Impossible-Made-Real,
The-Primordial-Paradox-Eternal…

The thing I love most
That you love most

And that, my dearest one,
Is what drew you to me
Is what pulled me to you
Is the soul-searching habit we always are.

“Sometimes, I can’t believe it,
I’m moving past the feeling
Again…”

We are all homeless, my love,
And carry our home everywhere we go.

We are all loveless, my dear,
And carry all of our love within.

We are all empty, my sweet,
That we may breathe the world every day.

We are all unsure, my darling,
And learn forever as we go.

We are all shy, my eternal one,
Kissed by the world for reaching out.

We are always together, always apart,
‘Tis the paradox of life, made whole by love.

I have found myself again, in my defiance.

May you find yourself wherever,
However you go.

*Credit to Arcade Fire for lyrics from The Suburbs

Song for a Sultan

So,

You think that it is ended,
That it is all my fault.

I can bear the weight of our responsibilities,
I can bear the weight of the pain of our unborn affair,
Trapped within my belly like this wound that now ails me.

I can absorb it,
Heal these wounds in me
Because I still love.

I walk around our city,
Streets from where we met and fell in love –
Whether you choose to acknowledge the truth of that or not –

And I still fall in love –
But not with you –
With city streets and the dim grey light of an autumn day

Upon tall brick walls holding in the greenery, the ancient stones of the dead;
With the tall spires of obelisks and mirrored skyscrapers miles beyond;
With the kindness of strangers who, in an innocence you covet, connect.

I can fall in love with everything,
Remaining lovely through waves of quiet grief that spill my loss…
Yet you, in handsome suit and cuff links,

Cannot admit the truth of yours,
Cannot admit the truth of ours,
Cannot admit the truth of us;

Your face, your eyes darkened in unclaimed grief;
Your lips snarled in bitter, unspoken and mis-directed self-reproach;
Your fingers curled in hated agony that I yet see…

Can you not?
Will you deny what is so obvious to me?
Will you continue to believe your mass of Sultan’s Men and Girls

Who bow so eagerly before their master,
And call them “friend” who abets your lies?
I am the child who is too innocent to lie;

I am the child who cares not for your throne;
I am the child who points, incredulous, and cries:
“The man wears nothing but skin upon his bones!”

Will you banish me from your sight, ashamed to admit
That you were not even duped, but did cowardly concede
To ideas sold at the price of life and love and dreams;

Will you ask me to pluck my own eyes out so I may never see?
The pain I bear of My Love’s distance,
Of unjust banishment hanging upon his brow

And he pays, though I would not have it,
With his beauty even, with his consciousness,
And calls it “progress,” thereby forsakes his very name.

Woe does not become you, my dear; you wear it poorly.
For me, it is a veil I must occasionally wear.
I fear it not: I love too well beneath;

It guards love, beauty and my life
As your ways, you – and others – would try as well to do
Yet fail, so terribly, and miserably too.

You do not look. You will not see:
Not me; not yourself, your friends, anything.
You will not love, and cannot, thus, connect with reality.

Be true, my love.
Rest, breathe, connect.
Become yourself, and swim back to me.

I have not left your lands,
Have not left you,
Have not left me;

Connect with me, not after another year,
But now, and soon,
Before your guilt catches and strangles your given name.

You have not wronged me, my love.
Your lies do not wrestle me.
I only miss you, as I’ve always said,

And your heart knows you love me.
Why else the greyed face?
Why else the sunken cheeks and blackened eyes?

Live, my love.
Forgive yourself; let go of me.
See, then, if we are drawn still –

As we still are, through our own friends and chance acquaintances;
As we still are, through our respective lives;
As we still are, through promises once made

From your heart and soul to mine
From my heart and soul to yours
When we were He and She, in flesh, for some few days.

Still Saturday

I don’t know why you had to leave

But you left.

I can’t believe the words you spoke,
Except as filtered flickers of the truth.

It’s ok.

The rain still falls and the leaves still wave on a Saturday.

The music we love still plays,
Still stirs my heart on a lazy day

Even if you are not here,

Even if you are somewhere miles away.

I will not follow anyone’s rules on love.
I will not follow anyone else’s heart.

I will lay here and heal

I will remember you, feel you here

I’ll let the stealthy rain cry my eyes’ tears
Imagine they kiss your lips, cheeks, hands, hair

As I still wish to do,

As I still love you.

Take pictures for me, okay? Wherever you are, I want to know what the sky looks like.

I’ll take them for you too; of the streets, of the clouds; of the people who smile and frown as they walk. I’ll capture freeze frames of stray cats and pruned dogs and monkeys at the zoo. And the sunset, and the sunrise, and the rain as it falls and makes the ground shiny and wet.

Take pictures of your hands, the veins in your arms, like blue railway lines. Take me to your heart and don’t ever let me leave. Photograph that sapling tree, and the cherry blossoms that float down past your window. Show me the mess that the petals make on the pavement, like a crime scene in the park. Mother nature can be deadly too.

Some wise guy once said that a picture was worth a thousand words, and I know that you’re not much into poetry. So I’ll get started on a sonnet, and pick up metaphors and diction and syntax as I go.

And while I’m doing all that, send me a picture, okay? I’d like to see the sky, and the bakery at the end of your road. Show me everything, or anything. I want to see it all. I want to see it wherever you are.

S.Z. // Excerpt from a book I’ll never write #187 // A picture a day. Send me a picture a day. (via blossomfully)

Moi aussi.

Please, this is why I beg you,

Why I’ve begged you
Always

To take pictures for me.

And you take pictures for you,

For your vanity,
For your myriad of friends and lovers and adoring fans;

But I alone

Love you.

A way

How many ways can I tell you
I’m missing you?

How many times must I say the words
To make them real for you,

Real enough to feel me
Real enough to see me
Real enough to hear me
Real enough to be with me?

How many days must I be alone
Before you come to take my hand

Not for forever,
Not for a day,
Not for a moment,
But for always?

How can I be away from you
When being with you feels like being with me…?

Secrets

We all have secrets we don’t tell each other:

Mine usually start with “I love you”
And spill like starlight from my eyes;

Yours usually start with “I want you”
And spill like the tides from your skin.

Maybe, One Day

I love you more than you think is proper.

I’ve been loved the same way,
By someone whom I did not find adequate,
Whom I did not think appropriate.

But I tried to love him.

You have not tried to love me.

At least I gain this insight into my friend
That I can relate with his disappointment
That I can be compassionate to his discomfort
That I can be compassionate to yours.

And, maybe, one day, you’ll love me;
Maybe, one day, you’ll embrace me
And I’ll be loved the way I love, by you,
With all the truth and dreaminess,
With all the hope and longing,
With all the romance and beauty
That I see in you…

That I live in me.

You Know, Don’t You…?

Don’t you know that my heart aches for you?
For the way you smile,
For the way you dress,
For the way you hold yourself in a chair,
So gallantly,
So arrogantly,
So nonchalantly?

Don’t you know that my eyes ache to see you?
To spy the drink you choose,
To watch you lift it to your lips,
To see you shift in your chair uncomfortably,
To watch you laugh mirthfully at yourself,
At me?

Don’t you know that my ears pine to hear you?
To find the timbre of your voice sink deep within my stomach,
To listen for all of the things you say that make no sense, and so much,
To hear your body speak so loudly in all of your small movements,
To wait for the silence of your breath as you hold me close to you?

Don’t you know how much I see in everything you do?

Don’t you know how very deeply I love everything in you?

I ache for your unkindness, even when it hurts.

I ache for your sweetness, spilling meaningless promises upon me.

I pine for your lips to come anywhere in my vicinity.

I ache for your breath, for your taste, for your fingers, for your skin…

I long for your responses, so immediate, so intense, so deep, to my every word and touch…

And yet, I would love nothing more than to watch you, forever, in your nativity…

To pine for you forever…

And find, one day, again, your thoughtful gaze upon me,

Knowing I was watching you.

When Connections Cease To Fade

Resist me, if you will:

Your fight reveals you,

Betrays your desire,

Demands my attention,

Commands my response.

Be silent, if you must:

Your vibration pulsates stronger,

Reaches farther,

Throbs within me,

Speaks more truth.

Remain away, while you can:

Your heart protects me,

Encourages all you love in me,

Strengthens what is weak in me,

Purifies what is best in me.

Release all of your negativity:

I will remain, in love, through time,

I will remain, in love, through peace,

I will remain, in love, through life,

I will remain, in love, with you.

And there is nothing anyone can do.

A Break From Insanity

Remember the days of blue skies and sweltering heat

when your love clung to me like the humid air

when your arms found their way around me

when your head rested upon me

when my love surrounded you in unspoken words

when you were everything to me

when I was so new and precious to you?

 

Remember the nights in dark places

when your hands and mine found each other

when we relaxed in small spaces

when your eyes stole into mine

when our presence was real

when all else was unreal

when our deep possession burned and pressed,

aching to escape?

 

Remember me?

If all the world surrenders

If all the world will die

If all inside me crumbles

If my body and mind disguise me

If my flesh grows old and thin

If my fears render my thoughts riddled and incontinent

 

Remember me:

I’m right here

I haven’t changed

I always love you

I always know you

I always remember you

I’ll always wait for you.

If I Cannot Love You

If I cannot love you
I will love the trees;
They do not judge my intensity.

If I cannot kiss you,
I will kiss the clouds;
They do not ask me to withhold my tears.

If I cannot touch you
I will touch the sky;
He does not fear the vibrations of my heart.

If I cannot lay with you
I will lay with the earth;
She does not restrain my release to her.

If I cannot scream with you
I will scream with the world;
My agony gets lost in the crowd.

If I cannot be with you
I will just be with me;
Silence asks nothing else of me.

But, if I cannot hold you
I do not know what else to do.

Unfamiliarity

Who are you
to walk into my life
to stare at me that way
with mesmerizing eyes
with an air of knowing
your body commanding me
your inaction owning me
then walk away from me?

Who are you
to walk back in my life
to stare at me that way
with mesmerizing eyes
with a smile of knowing
your body commanding me
your action owning me
then stroll away from me?

Who are you
to walk into my life
to smile at me that way
with knowing eyes
with embraces dear
your soul commanding me
your body owning me
then pull away from me?

Who are you
to walk into my life
to kiss me that way
with knowing lips
with such responsive skin
your heart commanding me
your hands owning me
then drive away from me?

Who are you
to walk with me in life
to talk to me that way
with knowing words
with embraces sweet
your music commanding me
your soul owning me
then slip away from me?

Who are you
to walk away from me
to then return to me
with my heart sore
with your mind worn
your words confusing me
your inaction demanding me
then ask all to be bound of me?

Who are you
to rule what no man rules
to own what no man owns
with casual intrigue
with remoteness invested
your heart calling to me
your will resisting me
then try to leave me be?

Shall I not cry?
Shall I not be?
Shall I erase all of me?
Shall I fall into misery?
Shall I deny this fate?
Shall I deny my heart?
Shall I become an empty shell
That you’ll not be alone,
Release the Phoenix within me
Release the One inside of you
Consumed by guilt
Consumed by pain
And find each other
In Eternity.

…Who are you…
…to me?

I Am

Call me a fool; I am:
When, remembering your hand
Causes blood to rush
Causes heart to pound
Causes flesh to pale
Erases everything.

Call me a fool; I am:
When your few gentle words
Speak volumes more
Speak depths greater
Speak tenderness sweeter
Than all the talk in me.

Call me a fool; I am:
When every whim in you
Becomes my soul’s demand
Becomes my heart’s wish
Becomes my stream of life
And I a helpless leaf.

Call me a fool; I am:
When I can’t stop fighting for you
I can’t stop loving you
I can’t stop wanting you
I can’t stop living
For the mere breath of you.

Call me a fool; I am:
When life calls to me
And I remember you
And I need you
And I ache for you
And I must love, must live, too.

Call me a fool.
I am a fool
For you
For love
For life
For truth.

Call me a fool; I am:
For all I want
Amidst all this love
And life
Is the end of me,
Is the whole of you.

Your Way

I’ll always love you.

My heart,
Fragile as it is,
Wants to follow you:
Wants to leap into your mind,
Wants to follow your train of thought.
It is how I’ve always loved
It is how I’ve always known
It is how I’ve always gone mad
In the madness of love.
But I will not.

I love you too much.

My mind,
Fragile as it is,
Knows too well,
Knows too much,
Knows too infinitely, undeniably
The intentions of your heart
The intentions of your mind
The intentions of your body
For myself, for you.
And I must observe.

My heart aches for you.
My mind pines for you.
My skin crawls for you.
My lips long for you.
My hands grope for you.
My loins still for you.
My soul waits for you.

I am transformed, by you,
Silently
Helplessly
Inevitably
Transfixedly
Willingly
Deliberately
Vibrantly
Safely

I am myself
And I am yours.

The Ineffectiveness of Transformation

And so,
I must transform my addiction,
Transfuse my heart’s beat
To give words life.

You will not take my love.

And so,
Your intent transforms your words,
Searing your mind’s will
Into my life.

I will not withhold my love.

And so,
Our ways transform each other,
Smiting our egos’ brazenness
Within reality.

We will not bend or break.

Can we return to that Fantasia:
To that world between worlds,
Where everything exists?

To that place of lingering embraces,
To that place of almost-perfect kisses,
To the moments nearly lost in time?

Can we return to Wabi-Sabi
To be
Just you and me?

I still give you everything you ask,
Everything your heart desires
Comes so naturally.

I am still yours…
And in my heart,
You are still mine.

The Will of Love

Your chaos
Is no match
For me

Your terror
Has no bearing
On me

Your fear
Has no strength
With me

Your pain
Has only grief
For me

I may become angry
I may become mad
But madness
In love
Is sanity
And anger
From love
Is truth

“No, I don’t want to leave you
Now, I don’t want to leave you
No, I don’t want to leave you
Now, I don’t want to leave you…”

Your chaos
Will calm

Your terror
Will stop

Your fear
Will fade

Your pain
Will depart

But my love
Never will.

* Song lyrics quoted from “Cold Front” by Laura Welsh