Category: Poetry

Memories – good and bad – serve a purpose.
They remind us of times when things were beautiful and we had hope
and they warn us of what could go wrong despite the best intentions in the world.

Here’s a poem about that…

I house memories in my heart
It’s overflowing with some
I should throw away
to make space for ones
that bring me joy
but how do I measure joy
if not against the pain
of heartbreak & angst?
You left but I cling
by a thread I will not cut

I will forgive but not forget…

Every so often I find myself sabotaging my hopes and dreams.
Too ambitious, too new, too unusual, too extravagant, I’ll say,
and I’ll close my mind to what could be.

Here’s poem about that…

Smoke and mirrors
can’t disguise
that the enemy
lies within

Dreams and hopes
cannot abound
in a mind that
won’t call in

A slave to convention,
dare I dare
to give shape
to my heart’s desires?

If I risk the familiar
– in a barrage of self-love –
will I find the friend
within my skin?

Sounds sinister, doesn’t it?
Well, I hope you find the following Haikus anything but ominous…

I resolve to love
changing shapes and colors of
my Autumn body

Eyelashes tremble
under the delightful weight
of early snowflakes

The pitter patter
of a lonely cloud’s anguish
a broken heart heals

These love stories are thanks to the #VSS365 daily word prompt given by uber creative hosts over the last few days on Twitter…

Our love lights up
the night sky
The moon, abashed,
hides behind propitious clouds…
It’s all the prompting we need
to steal
long-denied, lingering
kisses

My love’s beauty is rare
yet when the sun and the moon duel
she is eclipsed

Your love
snakes around
my freedoms
and liberates me
from their
anfractuous coils

Breeze on skin,
green grass, winter canopy,
a kiss adds spice…

Now that the monsoon season is over for this year, here’s a final poem about storm clouds and the fearsome beauty of a thunderstorm…

Timid strands
of cirrus clouds
flutter shyly
in stutters and starts

They gather covertly
to block out the sun
then rumble and roar
in glittering celebration

The self-adulation
the flashy display
the arrogant deluge
is a recipe for disaster

The silence
speaks to me
of things long gone
of times past recalling
of words spoken in a careless rush
to win, to hurt, to acquire

Aloud, so loud
the silence hurts my heart
it rakes its unforgiving nails
down an aching void
of regret and yearning
that drips down my face

Those banshee wails?
Is that the silence
full-throated in its censure?
Or is that me
calling for you?

Always so busy, rushing from one thing to another,
when will we ever find the time to just be?

Make every second count, I’m told…

I do
until the clock winds down
and stops…

and I pause
and draw breath
and dream
and think
and smile
and love
and be…

Who am I, really, when no one is looking?

Who am I when I am alone?

Am I one thing or am I many – so many that even I don’t know the pieces of the puzzle that comprise me?

I’m looking for me
in a churning, shimmering ocean
of illusions and mirrors…

Distracted, disoriented,
I settle on a mirage of me
that’s a beguiling chimera…

Dazzled, deluded,
I misguidedly cling to
the me that I’m not…

Too late, I discover
that I let go of the pieces
that authenticate me…

I am forever cast away
in the waters of inattention
…I’m adrift at sea…

In memory of all those who went too soon – claimed by a virus that was as brutal as it was indiscriminate…

Cut adrift from you
buffeted by winds
of a malevolent fate
icicles of fear
pierce a heart
that stuttered
the day they put
a plastic tube
down your throat…

Even the heat
of a fearsome anger
that rages at the edges
of a mind grown numb
cannot warm the emptiness
that I clothe with memories
of a former life
when forever meant
a long, long time…

But for us it ended yesterday
and all I have left
are ashes in an urn;
an agony of disbelief;
roiling oceans of regret;
and a dark despair…

Your walking shoes don’t know yet
they wait by the door
for 6 o’clock.
I try them on…
too big to fill, they don’t fit
but you fit me so well
and now the cavernous cracks
in my being
that you kept from widening
tear me into pieces
of a puzzle that
makes no sense without you
and your pillow
– with memory foam –
barely remembers
the shape of your head
while mine still carries
a stray hair from your tossing and turning
as you strove to find the air
that eluded you
just before
they took you
to the ICU…

I had never imagined
that you’d go in one door
but you’d come out another…

I capture the last bit of your DNA
off my pillow
and add it to my collection
of memories that
– try as they may –
cannot fill the void
in my soul
that should be in your outline
but is now me-shaped.

I hide in the open
letting the rain curtain me
from eyes that probe
for signs that I weep for you

The tears don’t come
for you linger
long after the river
claims your ashes

Fuelled by memories
of a limitless love
I converse with you
in whispers and sighs

Seasons follow seasons
and they vie for my attention…
but our unending farewell
makes time stand still…

A sad poem…or a not-sad poem…
What do you think?