Poetry | Stories | Photography
Truth be told, the catastrophe began when
I decided to study Law and shun the creative callings.
For sensible people, not fools who cannot get work,
you must study something sensible.
Now, between the desk and the chair, I sit pissed off,
yet grateful to have cats and a roof.
To live within parallel lives.
Working diligently to find a title for a discontinued road
and
thinking about writing poetry about spatulas and kettles.
The expanse between heaven and earth,
whispering trees tell the clouds many secrets.
Twilight shimmers off the pond water,
and poets contemplate the beauty of the sky.
Talking to the trees hoping they’ll respond,
I think of the many ways to describe you.
Your heartstrings knot
for what is left and gone.
In nature, you find peace,
yet the places disappear.
Your helpless hands write
a note to the ones so dear.
With only a bird to love you,
you ponder the tired clouds.
Your pen, who will we become
when the last vine dies?
A shadow behind me, something hidden, travels along.
The constant disappointments, no matter how hard I try. Longing for my hard work to pay off, yet I never fit in.
So close I feel her breath. My evil twin, my doppelgänger, keeps playing cruel games with my life.
Dead eyes see nothing,
for life has gone from their bodies.
Their blood mixes with the dust
as the Earth tries to cover our shame.
The broken bodies of unjust wars,
their silence goes unnoticed by many.
You fear the ghosts of the dead,
yet you turn away as bombs kill the living.
A selective concern for war,
there is always a right side and a wrong side.
Funnelled news distorts your mind,
thinking too deeply cuts into internet shopping.
You curse Russia for the war in Ukraine,
yet you don’t know where Yemen is on a map.
Photos of your world.
You stand in a snow-covered forest,
with a stillness not found in my summer.
In those photos, the kiss of time moves slower,
for the kiss of time moves faster in the heat of summer.
I find myself longing for the winter, yet I need the summer;
without summer, there is no winter; without spring, there is no autumn.
Without the kiss of time, there would be no time for us.
Our impermanence would be permanence.
Our beauty and wonder would never be so lovely.
Our hearts would beat something other than blood,
as we grow colder every hundred years or so.
A friend showed me a photo on Instagram of a tanned person with a dog. The person dressed in Boho clothing with a peace sign and a rainbow painted on her leg.
My friend showed me the image and gave me the words, “A rainbow on your leg but nothing in your heart”, so I could write a poem.
This poem is a collection of my impressions of the image and the quote.
Emotion takes hold.
You linger looking towards the waterless sea.
The sink drain gurgles about your broken heart…You stare.
C & K 