Sharp, Bright

 

Fluttering thoughts Are sweeping whirlwinds

Mundane scenes become Leech-dark memories

The laugh of another Can but be ridicule

Every hurt stings Scorching injury

Sharp, bright feelings cut

but

But a common wildflower Sings like precious rose

The gentle touch of other Caresses endless courage

A palmful of love clasps An eternity of together-joy

Sharp, bright feelings cut

but

In between spacious atoms Colour becomes ultraviolet A blessed world awakens Sharp, bright, gilded grandeur Sharp, bright, intimate pain

The Path

 

I soar above seeking a path Fingers gripping meshing cords

The infinite made finite

Far below, another’s pain burns

I tug a rope, and offer salve

The fire soothed, higher I soar

When new hurt calls, I respond

Again, and again, not to rise

But that the path is clear, and the sky is bright

Fickle luck brooks no calm

Electric arcs cut a strange, dark sky

The fire is lance-sharp, the pain now mine

Far above, another soars free

Their white, bright sky is a cocoon

My grey presses, presses heavy

The other sees, eyes hard and true

And turns away towards pleasure

The storm passes, and I continue

Only the wind steers mindless ropes

The path is plain but it is mine

Mine and mine alone

The call of another hurt grows

But each refusal softens the next

My path and mine alone

My heart soon begins to grow cold

Colder than the mindless wind and mesh

Squeezes tight until there is only darkness

The path is plain but I cannot see.

I reach out for a different rope

Pulling at new possibility

The call of another is a sum

Hero or villain, friend or foe

I heed only those whom I owe

Like the one now slumped in grey

A common grey face that adds up

The fire soothed, higher I soar

Not quite to heaven, not quite so high

But the heart is still for now.

Nervous time brooks no calm

Unheard pain adds to unwanted sums

The heart is gnawed and weary

I tug the forgotten first

Into the murk I sink, the salvebringer

But my heart is full and I soar again.

Crests and troughs bring clarity

That a steady path never showed

Truth lies in jarring motion

To seek the path is the path.

I Am Me

Silence

You and I

Failure

Does it hurt because of the fall?
  Does it hurt not knowing to stand?

Does it hurt because I'm too proud?
  Does it hurt because I'm not proud enough?

Does it hurt that my best wasn't enough?
  Does it hurt because it might never be?

Does it hurt because I have no answers?
  Does it hurt because I might not want them?

Webs

By a trick of golden light shines
A fine pattern of webs in still air
Million threads locked in soft embrace
A fragile snapshot of surreal truth.

Another trick folds into grey gloom
Musty cobwebs of now dark threads
Until the world is as it was
Still and black and unchanging dull.

But a strand of gossamer vein
Slips and floats to a gentle death
Glowing fire-bright with each moment
Blazing star-like closer to the end.

(The new old silence bodes heavy
Sad butterfly wisps sway in tune
To the fickle call of not there breeze.)

Webs like fingerprints catch the light
Webs too frayed, webs remade by will
But webs that gleam, webs that glitter
Webs that make the pattern of life -
No tricks can blacken their skin.

Too varied to be, too fine to survive
The cost of beauty trumps its worth?
The dark hurt yet remains where
A golden thread faded to vapour.

Now a gentle whisper signals hope
A new thread spins into life
Delicate tips probe and seek
And touch and make new and old
Until the hurt heals and all is whole.

Dream

I slip into a dream and feel alive
Rushing torrents of things that could be.
Wakeful reality wipes the edge away
Off memory poisoned into child's fantasy.
I wish to hold on a little bit longer
Make cold fact of dregs of dream.
Open eyes limit you to a grey prison
And weak limbs refuse to soar
Heart that shrivels, and mind that cowers.
I seek the switch that makes reality fog
And beautiful dream magical truth.

Metamorphosis

A performer who has finally realized her dream slips momentarily into regret - recalling the time lost working a despised job - but then realizes that, like with the ugly caterpillar that is broken and remade as a butterfly, it's perhaps all a necessary part of the eventual metamorphosis.


Thunder crack applause reminds
The butterfly of time and death
Stings away the painted smiles
The sleeping hours thorn the rose.

Mindless drone, that caterpillar!
It grovels, scrabbling filthy grub
Madly crawls in blind pursuit
Of greed and sloth, amalgam vile.

Stately limbs the air they slice
To portals with forgotten tongues
Perfect electric mudras speak
Unknowing joy, a gift divine.

Thrumming ducts of air freeze time
The eyes are near, the mind afar
Simple charm in loveless toil
The screen of hate becomes the seed.

Fragile moth, or Monarch, see!
The time is right, a wonder's born
Motley hues in dazzling 'bows[1]
Belie the tireless worm that dreamed.

Halogen floods into painted smiles
The sound of countless cheers
Gently laps each Varnam's shore
Away she soars on wings of light!

Notes

[1] - Rainbows

I've made quite an effort to get some kind of metre going. Most lines have a perfect sequence of iambs, but the first and third lines in each stanza start with a non-standard stressed syllable which I'm hoping adds a kind of forcefulness that sets them apart from the other lines. If you've no idea what all that means, but you find that there's a nice rhythm to the words in the poem, then something worked for me :)

Terracotta Woman

Inspired by an amazing woman who doesn't know her own strength, and dedicated to all the strong women I know.

I am a Terracotta woman, but was not always so.

Motley red dirt, dispersed by the merest breeze,
Fighting an implacable foe to just be me.
Wind - moody, flighty, mercurial, evil puppeteer!
Who am I? Lifeless dust dancing on strings.

The Sun is no friend, relentless like a disease.
Virulent rays wear away, chip away, gnaw away,
Sear my will away, as my form blows away into nothing,
Until the clay I am burns to a deathly still.

Time marks only the slow crawl of desolation
Feebly I clutch at identity, and fail, and fail.
Enemies that never tire dissolve me into chaos,
So I become one with the faceless mud around me.

Who am I? Nothing, and no one, forevermore.

A trickle of Water now, but is the change welcome?
Is this yet another foe to paralyze me into despair?
Hope springs unbidden as liquid life fills my veins,
Where there once were motes, there is a Me.

Who am I? I don't know yet, but it is not nothing.
Scorching sunbeams cut me up like many daggers,
What once oozed blood, only shapes earthen sinew.
Weakness is strength, old foe a nurturing womb.

Now there's a breeze, now there's a gale, and again,
Gentle susurrations tickle, heavy tempests topple,
Try, try, they fail, becoming instead the chisel,
That fortifies, sculpting a skeleton of Terracotta.

Like a solitary dam against an onrushing torrent,
I am strength itself, a sum of parts, but so much more.
The Wind dies, The Water slows, The Sun sleeps,
Whole of mind, sturdy of form, I will not yield.


I am a Terracotta woman, and I will endure.

The Tale of Four Assignments, Three Score Sheets and Lots and Lots of Pain

Alright, the inspiration for this poem is an insanely painful experience I had recently writing down sixty pages worth of assignments in one day. (I'll probably write down the anecdote on my personal blog sometime.) So, I decided to try my hand at a poetic metre called 'iambic tetrameter' - briefly, it means that every line in the poem is comprised of four pairs of alternating unstressed and stressed syllables. Notice how it lends a sing-song quality to the lines below? Try to read the poem aloud stressing and unstressing naturally and see if you enjoy it. :)

Here's a reading of the poem. Sorry, I might have got carried away with some of the enunciations.

Oh there was once a mighty man
He’d wrestle lions to the floor
He, faster than a cheetah, ran
And had a mind as sharp as four.

But ev’n the keenest spear it’s told –
Shall meet a shield too firm and break.
And so it proved, the hero bold
“Oh God I’m great, but this – can’t take!”

“Assignments four, and sheets three score,
A day is all is giv’n myself.”
He wailed and cried for time some more
Until enraged was God himself.

“Your star is nothing save a  ball - 
Of dust, and lost to wind in flow.”
These words that stung our hero’s gall
Inspired him like a wicked blow.

His weap’n the pen, his music hard
A sheet he turned and so began
The finest penwork since the Bard.
From page to page it spanned.

But hold! Two pairs of hours passed;
And only but a fifth was done.
Appeared spent, our hero – lost –
In pain, his arm and leg as one.

A tiny rest, and crack of light
The monster, will he rise to face?
Of course, it’s only fair to right
A losing war by changing place.

Each page he filled was foes he slew
All fair was foul, as art turned scrawl
As noon emerged, he forged on true
To see a third was left in all!

And now, with victory close away
Awoke his pride, en masse, and swelled
He drank and ate and made his hay
Until the close of day was felt.

The Devil’s whisper now in ear
“Come on, it’s done, your name is made
This final battle’s nought to fear
The war is won, so let’s parade!”

He laughed and cried as ag’ny spread
From limb to limb, from flesh to brain
In time, as fell the last, he said,
(to God and Devil) “Never again!”