It is not the beard you crave
But the lips behind it,
The kiss
It shook empires
In its youth, bitter thing
Rendered golden in that
Midas way where
Men breathe
Never seeing a
Kiss is never just a kiss
It knows not the contours
Flesh bone and blood
The Sin
One weary heart
Coaxes from quivering walls.
Claudio Mufarrege's "The Arrow Shot"
You bind me
But your walls, your halls they cannot hold me
Body broken but the spirit
Rise, swimming in the deep
Recesses of the forgotten—
Mind: sole reality of prison
You forget, but this soul knows,
It reaches through your gray decay
And in the darkness spring forth wings
To flight, unknown, and I am nothing and no one
But here I am,
These halls
Are mine.
* Photography by Claudio Mufarrege, from her gorgeous photos and interview I conducted with her, as featured on One Stop Poetry.
Writhing serpent of my dissolution
No solution
To your pollution
Of my ever-yearning soul
No more grim atoll
Might ever seize upon my whole—
My life, my life!
They call upon the fife
Thrusting its notes upon the edge of a knife
No travail
Might ever prevail
Above the madness that assail
My spirit wails, unfit
To persevere and to submit
To all the hopes that you have writ.
* My latest contribution to the wonderful One Shot Poetry Wednesdays! Once you’ve had a look, check out some of the other One Shot Poets as well– they’re a skilled bunch of poets, looking to form a community and support one another. Enjoy!
There is a ghost in the system
Everywhere I look
Eyes, following
Faceless arbitrary
Being
It walks the lines that blur
Humanity from itself
Wears our skin, but
The mind is pure
Know the spy
That lurks
Behind
Surround yourself with empathy
Strictly emotionally speaking
It won’t know the difference
Creatures not withstanding
Between you and I, two in
One, imitation profound
They may take our
Bodies but they
Can never take
The Soul.
* My latest contribution to the wonderful One Shot Poetry Wednesdays! Once you’ve had a look, check out some of the other One Shot Poets as well– they’re a skilled bunch of poets, looking to form a community and support one another. Enjoy!
Existential elation
The night’s revelation
Soul’s sweetest evocation
Mind longs to improvise
To sleep, yet rise
Above the lies
Until we admit
The body is unfit—
Do not think to hear it
To bear the broken madness
Never fail to aggress
This fairest stress
To break the blind
That stalks the mind
May yet free mankind.
* For the first Monday Poetry Potluck!
Today, and to start off this week, as I find myself in something more of a reflective mood, I leave you with a few quotes from someone I personally admire very much: the Dalai Lama. May you all have a wonderful week to come!
“I believe that the very purpose of life is to be happy. From the very core of our being, we desire contentment. In my own limited experience I have found that the more we care for the happiness of others, the greater is our own sense of well-being. Cultivating a close, warmhearted feeling for others automatically puts the mind at ease. It helps remove whatever fears or insecurities we may have and gives us the strength to cope with any obstacles we encounter. It is the principal source of success in life. Since we are not solely material creatures, it is a mistake to place all our hopes for happiness on external development alone. The key is to develop inner peace.”
“We can live without religion and meditation, but we cannot survive without human affection.”
“Peace does not come through prayer, we human beings must create peace.”
Eyes open to the brink
I stand
Broken upon the edge
And though the sky is beating down
You are still above me
Always looking down.
Stretching for the dreams
Beyond your clouds
I burned within the strain
This arrogance has wrought,
And as the fire surged
I took it for desire
Obsession blinds
Focus the mind, focus the soul
Too late
All crumbling down,
The earth races
The sky screams
And I am tumbling through
This dear embrace
To something far more real.
Set me off into the Black
far beyond the stars
set me off into the Wild
far beyond the wilderness.
Set me free of mortal hearts
and weighted thoughts,
so low, so low,
and break these chains that
bind me to this coil—
what life,
what prison
now is this?
Press the suit and
straighten up that tie,
you are a man, it says
but you are just a boy
playing at a world of
mysterium and drama that has
devoided itself of plot.
–
There is a key
to thee and thine and mine,
and nestled just behind that door
is freedom yet incarnate.
In a breath, breathe—
so few have ever tasted
the freshness of the air—
recycled reconfigurations of reality—
that will be your paycheck please—
and this feeling is not falsified,
unbound, unguarded it yearns
for the taking—just breathe—
and feel the air,
feels, felt, feeling
this momentary being—
all I want is to breathe
and to feel, yet to be,
to stretch beyond perception
and feel the days beyond
that calendar—no shifts scheduled here.
–
No vacancy,
sincerest apologies
this mind is mine and yet
one waits beyond, yet yours—
this mirror of a soul you grasp
what a reflection is it not?
There is the dawning,
the rain is falling down
and through the swirl of purple haze,
these diamonds dribble through the
emerald leaves, like tiny lovers—
in your caress, this breath unbidden
slithers through my chest
and down into my roots—
I am born again, stretching
for the clouds.
Air, give me air,
Prayer and dream and reverie
are forever in the field—
give me space to work.
My latest contribution to the wonderful One Shot Poetry Wednesdays! Once you’ve had a look, check out some of the other One Shot Poets as well– they’re a skilled bunch of poets, looking to form a community and support one another. Enjoy!
Bated breaths beget
the faintest smiles–
Caresses on the back
Coax featherlight illuminations
of rasping heat
Winding in the darkest places
of the Mind.
Illusory Ecstasy
Lies locked behind
the Pleasures of the Soul.
Such devious ruminations
on the Nature of Expectation.
My latest contribution to the wonderful One Shot Poetry Wednesdays! Once you’ve had a look, check out some of the other One Shot Poets, as well– they’re a skilled bunch of poets, looking to form a community and support one another. Enjoy!
Star-crossed lovers lie
Snoring in the sand
Waiting on the rose-tipped caress
Of dawn’s fair light,
But the sun catches like
Little crystals in the waters
And they are sleeping through
The glitter and the glare.
The runner’s smile
Warms the streets as they rise
Amidst the shadows of red glare—
Early to rise
And early to rest,
Not like the frantic typing around
Those battered tables—
Early to rise
And early to work,
A desperate cry for more coffee is
As much a sign as these
Gleaming starlets
Carried in the sunlight,
Shimmering in the haze.
Dew drops beneath the leaves,
The covers dip beneath the waves
Of majesty and trees
Swaying in the breeze.
Birdsong, so ponderous in sleep
Uplifted in the daylight—
Just keep away those woodpeckers.
The body screams,
The mind elates
To greet this
Morning Elegance.
The Waking Den 