Your words dance
Landing perfectly
Upon my heart
Like a slow motion glide
The ballet begins
Raising the rate
With each breath
Commanding the stage
Demanding an audience
From a simple Plie'
Stretching, pushing, pressing
To the long awaited
Yet under rated Pirouette
Your words land
Holding life in your hands
Capturing me
K.Turnage
5-8-15
May 8, 2015
May 8, 2015 at 10:22 PM UTC
Silence rages
Like the perfect storm
Ceasing breath, sound and substance
Yet, even the silence can't stop
The heart from beating
Nor the weight of hurt felt
Wish to God silence could cease
The sound of words wielded
As weapons, piercing tips,
Tongues heavy anvils...drop
Sinew torn with intent,
Hopes even, to crush bone
Quiet sad the state of things when
Pleasure is derived from open mockery
Exposure of faults, failings and wrongs
I never was one for
Modern day entertainment
Arrogance paraded on a
Foundation built on self alone
Simply thought a semblance of comfort
Would be found in seeing her words
Her thoughts, a window to her world
Alas, again I'll put pen to paper
Baring my soul, setting free the burden
Eliminating the presence
That sparked it all...mine
Knowing some amends can't be made
I welcome the silence and pray to forget
Erasing it completely...delete
K. Turnage
K.Turnage
3-4-2015
Mar 4, 2015
Mar 4, 2015 at 10:58 PM UTC
Chartreuse light bleeds through
Dated blinds from yester-years
Giving sight to evenings demise
While giving birth to a new beginning
Starting with a single touch
One hand sliding into another, fingers intertwined
The simplest of acts, but in that moment
The earth moved and time,
It ceased to exist, revealing a love that began before words were formed or lines penned.
A start to something only she
Could sense the importance of, and even to her the understanding only came in part
Swept up in its forward motion of emotion
Left them basking in dawns light.
K.Turnage
3-2-2015
Mar 3, 2015
Mar 3, 2015 at 11:55 AM UTC
winter's after-the-noon shadow lights,
fused-tinged with early-onset grays,
harbinger of one for whom death
detaches the answer from that question
too soon asked, so long unanswered,
why me?
those gray lights, a violin accompaniment,
mourning pitched wailings unasked for,
yet always in attendance, court courtiers,
feelings of insufficiency, angry angst insects
envy days when simplistic unknown fears
were the worst enemy, never lingering,
for unknowns have no answers and
cannot obtain permanent resident visas
but reality, another matter, mad hatter,
asking repeating what is this, why is this,
even comprehension partial gives
no comforting answer satisfactory logical
envy innocence past, for newer questions now *****
comfort by the lies in the essaying, trialling,
if, but, for, the distractions most affordable,
so grasp the pen that is the envy of thy companions
let the ink wail louder than you,
make paper shed what you have used up,
let envy of lost and found, found, yet still lost,
salve, but not solve, soothe, but not save
in the winter afternoons, those shortest days
of indeterminable longevity, words received,
offer little, but words self-conscripted,
a mortal transcript of pain immortalized by pen, relief will yet be,
for the pen is the envy of all
Mar 2, 2015
Mar 2, 2015 at 8:58 PM UTC
Feb. 2015
this writ,
content so obvious,
it begs,
why even bother...
Pen Man Ship
this is who you are,
this is your scent, scripted,
the parfume that memory triggers
declarative self-examination passing grades
if pen and paper
are your skin and blood,
then you, man,
ship to shore,
skinned alive,
in poems verbose spill all
ship in ship out,
the glories and the dreads,
expel ink oceans glorious India blue,
rivulets of tributaries,
spillages of what~where,
you are pen
you are man
you are ship
where intersect these routed things,
one is voyage~bound
for parts unknown
the pen be the oar,
and the man, the ship,
and when the sails raised,
the wind never fails,
only there is no
dead reckoning -
for there are no
landmarks observable
when sit~stand
to commence sail~writing
each writ a latitude recorded,
each poem a longitude drawn,
all together, a
body of work,
all together,
your life's coursework
is the captain's log
Pen is the Man is the Ship
in everyday words
he answers
the questions life poses,
in everyday words,
he realizes
the answers he (doesn't) posses,
with each passing poem
the ship, righted,
though the heading
remans unknown
Mar 2, 2015
Mar 2, 2015 at 8:49 PM UTC
XLIII
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
Oct 12, 2014
Oct 12, 2014 at 8:54 AM UTC
XIV
If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love’s sake only. Do not say
‘I love her for her smile—her look—her way
Of speaking gently,—for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day’—
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee,—and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry,—
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love’s sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, through love’s eternity.
Oct 12, 2014
Oct 12, 2014 at 8:52 AM UTC
XLII
‘My future will not copy fair my past’—
I wrote that once; and thinking at my side
My ministering life-angel justified
The word by his appealing look upcast
To the white throne of God, I turned at last,
And there, instead, saw thee, not unallied
To angels in thy soul! Then I, long tried
By natural ills, received the comfort fast,
While budding, at thy sight, my pilgrim’s staff
Gave out green leaves with morning dews impearled.
I seek no copy now of life’s first half:
Leave here the pages with long musing curled,
And write me new my future’s epigraph,
New angel mine, unhoped for in the world!
Oct 12, 2014
Oct 12, 2014 at 8:51 AM UTC
They are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens,
And along the trampled edges of the street
I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids
Sprouting despondently at area gates.
The brown waves of fog toss up to me
Twisted faces from the bottom of the street,
And tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts
An aimless smile that hovers in the air
And vanishes along the level of the roofs.
Oct 12, 2014
Oct 12, 2014 at 8:42 AM UTC