It pains me
That I’m always at
the dusty corners
Like old, forgotten books
Undusted for many years
So forgotten and unopened
that the pages would
stick together
And it would take a
real curious reader
To carefully
take their time
And unravel the pages
one by one
Without tearing them
And with delicate hands
that would soothe the soul
And bring it to life again

On this day 70 years ago they stormed across the sand
Boys of many nations to remove the tyrants hand
Heros all those boys so young who shed their blood for us
In that ****** fight for freedom

Across the sand they struggled neath a hail of shot and shell
Never glancing backwards as around them comrades fell
Fear was in their eyes, terror in their hearts
Many never made it and twas on foreign sand they died

Yes they died to give us the freedom that we have got this day
They died to free the world, for us they made the play
Boys from ever walk of life crossed the beaches there
Office clerks and farmers and the ones who cut our hair

Yes they were heroes all who gave their lives for us
But lets not forget the few who made it possible
The girls who made the shells, the men who built the tanks
They were the unsung heroes
They have also have earned our thanks

Without their dedication to the task they had in hand
Many more would have lost their lives on that shell torn blood stained sand
They to can hold their heads up high, they knew they did their bit
In bringing freedom to the masses when they broke the tyrants grip

decorated, concealed
whitewashed, peeled
years of little earthquakes
will shake you

she is framed art hung, unsung
unknown to anyone
jilted, wilted
a still life flower
hanging ever crooked
upon the wall

In the night garden, star flowers linger
long before dawn, before the sun
vines climb, with ivory flowers hung
bringing light, where the moon glows pale
flowered jasmine is sweet beneath the air of fire
with lanterns lit in floral scents
glowing through diaphanous petals
here, where the earth shines like heaven
and blooms not unlike the stars.

If I had one long wand
That reached far up to the sky
Would have poked it in the cloudland
Can’t see the earth so dry!

Can’t see the earth so dry
Scarred and deeply hurt
If I had a wand to poke the sky
Would have torn the clouds apart!

The parched earth is crying for rain
The soil is a desert track
Need a long wand to break open
The clouds to heal the crack!

The peasant is waiting on his tilled ground
May not his toil go waste
It’s time for the clouds to be earthbound
Save the season’s harvest!

O god give me a long magic wand
To dispel this summer’s looming curse
Force the stubborn clouds to melt and disband
Come down on earth as showers!

Breath of life, it is a wild ocean
always a tide coming and going
in this place, it does not linger long
never holding on, only drifts quietly into night
into stars, into fleeting sparks of fire flies
or in the night waters, a ghostly glow
of phosphorescence, a transient trail
of luminescence that soon
fades and reappears to light
the deepest depths
of sea

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore--
And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Collages drip unto the new canvas making art.
Where passion and desire become one within perfection.
Strokes of paint that cannot be undone.
Watch the sun fall off of my page.

Do move a inch, stay in place for  while.
I need to blend your colors well.
The ocean likes your color too
Your reflection ripples on her waves.

Light and dark and in-between.
The blood of the sun mixed with the fading blue.
Clouds mop up the residue,
All I can think of is fire and hell.

Low you are going now.
Disappear under the night.
My canvas awaits your return.
My canvas awaits your return.

I want to see you,
But they say love is blind
So I'll have to rely on my other senses.
Heightened because of your absence.

I want to read you
But my only option is braille
So I'll, use my finger tips to trace every detail,
Of your embossed paper mind where your essence is printed.

I want to hold you,
Clutch, onto your heart like a white cane ,
Show you that nothing will ever be the same,
Once you're leading me.

I want to you to know that I need you,
Why can you see that without you,
I'll be lost and blind,
Still searching for a love I'll never find.

© Deneka Thomas . All rights reserved

When I die, dear Mother
don't give my body away
to science.

I'd rather have it given away to poetry.

I want people to cut me open
and observe
how my bones were riddled with
melancholic verses of joyful pasts.

They have to see
the scarlet of my blood was the hue
I stole from the sunsets of
wishful thoughts.

Dear Mother,
give my body away
to the art of writing:
for they have to look past
everything they have ever learned.

They must know
of how much I loved and I lost,
and how that made the twine of my ribs
a story to tell.

I remember that last drunken sundown
when the only way to benumb the pain
is to let ourselves sank in too much whiskey;
unchained those timid unspoken riddles.

I was naïve.
Screamed metaphors into your ears,
thinking you'd craft raging poetry
I always had refused to do myself.

You were full of twists and turns.
Grubbed up burgeoning song at the back of your head:
"Just another deluded heart to stomp on,
just another faked feeling to choke upon."
And just when the melody
began to breathe its last breath,
I saw your wrecked body almost caved in.

I always knew that—
You were so caught up into thinking
you did so much damage
into an already damaged heart
that you refused to lay your hands
on it once more.

You always knew that—
You made me so fearful of losing someone again
that I refused to let anyone else in.

We always knew that—
We might not work out in the real world
but we will, at an alternate nirvana.