paul-hansford - Hello Poetry

Your ashes unburied dispersed in the sea dissolved in salt water mixed with sand find a quicker way to nature's recycling. You are not gone simply absent from life and I cannot pull you back. I can only wait helpless as you are.

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Jun 28, 2021

Jun 28, 2021 at 9:16 AM UTC

Unburied

Your ashes unburied dispersed in the sea dissolved in salt water mixed with sand find a quicker way to nature's recycling. You are not gone simply absent from life and I cannot pull you back. I can only wait helpless as you are.

12

These landscapes I have seen; - green hills, a winding river, and beyond, another hill crowned with trees; - a lake among pines where blue jays clamour and a lone gull cries; - the sudden view of a city of golden stone and domes gleaming in the afternoon sun; - an iron bridge in the mist and a train crossing between mountains veiled in layers of pure tones like a Chinese watercolour; - a shore where pelicans dive into ocean rollers before they break, releasing twelve thousand miles of energy; - palaces shimmering in the air as their reflections shimmer in the water they rise from. But in my mind are other landscapes, unseen, hardly even imagined. Come and explore them with me. Who knows what we will find?

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Jun 10, 2021

Jun 10, 2021 at 6:15 AM UTC

Invitation

These landscapes I have seen; - green hills, a winding river, and beyond, another hill crowned with trees; - a lake among pines where blue jays clamour and a lone gull cries; - the sudden view of a city of golden stone and domes gleaming in the afternoon sun; - an iron bridge in the mist and a train crossing between mountains veiled in layers of pure tones like a Chinese watercolour; - a shore where pelicans dive into ocean rollers before they break, releasing twelve thousand miles of energy; - palaces shimmering in the air as their reflections shimmer in the water they rise from. But in my mind are other landscapes, unseen, hardly even imagined. Come and explore them with me. Who knows what we will find?

20

(a "last words" sonnet) I cannot sleep tonight, and you know why. You know how many weary hours I've lain upon my bed and listened to the rain lashing the window, and the mournful sigh the wind makes. You have heard mine in reply. I know you know the reason for my pain. I know you know why, over and again, I've wept out loud. I know you saw me cry as I remembered carving on that tree your name and mine. You were the only one I needed then. You know, just as before, how much I need you yet, but you have gone. Only your spirit now still lives in me, and I can never hope for any more.

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Mar 25, 2021

Mar 25, 2021 at 10:03 AM UTC

Sleepless Night

(a "last words" sonnet) I cannot sleep tonight, and you know why. You know how many weary hours I've lain upon my bed and listened to the rain lashing the window, and the mournful sigh the wind makes. You have heard mine in reply. I know you know the reason for my pain. I know you know why, over and again, I've wept out loud. I know you saw me cry as I remembered carving on that tree your name and mine. You were the only one I needed then. You know, just as before, how much I need you yet, but you have gone. Only your spirit now still lives in me, and I can never hope for any more.

15

There are journeys from which for all practical purposes it is not possible to arrive anywhere except perhaps, after considerable stress, the place where you started from. The value of such journeys is not related to their length, nor even to their difficulty, though they can be very long and extraordinarily difficult. It lies rather in the fact of having set out in the hopeless hope of discovering something, but most of all in what we find on the way, even if it is on the way to nowhere.

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Oct 23, 2020

Oct 23, 2020 at 3:01 PM UTC

Explorers

There are journeys from which for all practical purposes it is not possible to arrive anywhere except perhaps, after considerable stress, the place where you started from. The value of such journeys is not related to their length, nor even to their difficulty, though they can be very long and extraordinarily difficult. It lies rather in the fact of having set out in the hopeless hope of discovering something, but most of all in what we find on the way, even if it is on the way to nowhere.

12

Shall these trees stand forever? and the fields, brown, green, gold, according to the season, shall they remain? But the hills, the hills, they shall be there. Always? No not even those. What then shall stay? Their having been is what shall be left. And when you are gone, and I am no longer here, we too shall have been, and nothing can be quite the same again.

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Oct 23, 2020

Oct 23, 2020 at 10:40 AM UTC

Future Perfect

Shall these trees stand forever? and the fields, brown, green, gold, according to the season, shall they remain? But the hills, the hills, they shall be there. Always? No not even those. What then shall stay? Their having been is what shall be left. And when you are gone, and I am no longer here, we too shall have been, and nothing can be quite the same again.

15

Free spirit, you were never really "my" child, though it pleased me to think of you so. Only for a time you allowed me to be familiar with you, share some of your life, some of your feelings. Now it is time for you to leave, and I must not regret your going, although I love you, not regret the letting go, because I love you. Then the part of you that once, long ago, imperceptibly grew inside my heart will stay forever, and you can always be, in any sense that you ever were, "mine".

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Oct 21, 2020

Oct 21, 2020 at 11:23 AM UTC

On a child leaving home

Free spirit, you were never really "my" child, though it pleased me to think of you so. Only for a time you allowed me to be familiar with you, share some of your life, some of your feelings. Now it is time for you to leave, and I must not regret your going, although I love you, not regret the letting go, because I love you. Then the part of you that once, long ago, imperceptibly grew inside my heart will stay forever, and you can always be, in any sense that you ever were, "mine".

13

There was so much more that we could have said and done, but we said goodbye.

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Oct 21, 2020

Oct 21, 2020 at 11:10 AM UTC

parting

There was so much more that we could have said and done, but we said goodbye.

3

Just as when looking into the sun I am dazzled by pure light, which is invisible, and I only see what is lit by the paler reflections of its rays - or when my mind, refusing to hear a perfect silence, creates its own thundering echo of that silence, so that I may more nearly understand the incomprehensible - your absence also is absolute, and leaves a void in me I cannot come to terms with until it is filled by a memory.

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Oct 21, 2020

Oct 21, 2020 at 11:03 AM UTC

Looking into the sun

Just as when looking into the sun I am dazzled by pure light, which is invisible, and I only see what is lit by the paler reflections of its rays - or when my mind, refusing to hear a perfect silence, creates its own thundering echo of that silence, so that I may more nearly understand the incomprehensible - your absence also is absolute, and leaves a void in me I cannot come to terms with until it is filled by a memory.

9

A body on the line at Basingstoke has caused an inconvenient delay. (Unless it’s just a rather tasteless joke - a body on the line at Basingstoke?) What pain could make an ordinary bloke do himself in? It’s just another day. A body on the line at Basingstoke has caused an inconvenient delay.

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Oct 5, 2020

Oct 5, 2020 at 2:41 PM UTC

Victims (mk. 2) - a triolet

A body on the line at Basingstoke has caused an inconvenient delay. (Unless it’s just a rather tasteless joke - a body on the line at Basingstoke?) What pain could make an ordinary bloke do himself in? It’s just another day. A body on the line at Basingstoke has caused an inconvenient delay.

8

Would it be possible for me to feel friendship for one I had never seen, except in a blurred photo? one whose voice I had never heard, not even a phone-call, not even a recording? Would it be possible for me to love one who had been a true friend, who used to say she loved me, but now felt nothing for me but bitterness and anger? Would it be possible for me to have confidence in one who didn't write to me any more, who would never read what I had written? who never let me read what she had written? Would it be possible for me to trust again one who had told me very firmly that she never lied, but later admitted without shame that she had deceived me, broken that trust, almost as if she were proud of it? Would it be possible for me to understand how she could feel as she did, when she refused to tell me? Would it be possible for me to understand if she did tell me? The answers are Yes No Maybe. But which answer might go with which question I have no way of knowing.

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Sep 23, 2020

Sep 23, 2020 at 11:56 AM UTC

Would it be possible?

Would it be possible for me to feel friendship for one I had never seen, except in a blurred photo? one whose voice I had never heard, not even a phone-call, not even a recording? Would it be possible for me to love one who had been a true friend, who used to say she loved me, but now felt nothing for me but bitterness and anger? Would it be possible for me to have confidence in one who didn't write to me any more, who would never read what I had written? who never let me read what she had written? Would it be possible for me to trust again one who had told me very firmly that she never lied, but later admitted without shame that she had deceived me, broken that trust, almost as if she were proud of it? Would it be possible for me to understand how she could feel as she did, when she refused to tell me? Would it be possible for me to understand if she did tell me? The answers are Yes No Maybe. But which answer might go with which question I have no way of knowing.

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