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 Apr 2017 Just Me R
L Seagull
'All they who thoughtless are, nor heed,
What timeDeath's messengers appear,
Must long the pangs of suffering feel
In some base body habiting.
But all those good and holy men,
What time they see Death's messengers,
Behave not thoughtless, but give heed
To what the Noble Doctrine says;
And in attachment frighted see
Of birth and death the fertile source,
And from attachment free themselves,
Thus birth and death extinguishing.
Secure and happy ones are they,
Released from all this fleeting show;
Exempted from all sin and fear,
All misery have they overcome.'
Anguttara-Nkaya, iii.35
From the Tibetan Book of The Dead
 Apr 2017 Just Me R
Mary-Eliz
Sometimes
I think I'll stop
writing...
that lasts
a moment or two

until

my thoughts begin to form
into some force that builds
until
it has no place to go
but
down my arm
      through my wrist
          into my fingers and
              out through their ends

into the pen
         flowing from it
            onto the page

in black ink or blue
          in pencil or green marker
               pink crayon or highlighter

onto backs of bills
           old letters or jagged-edged envelopes...

any empty spot looking lonely
            and in need of being stroked

my pen strokes it and coos to it
              giving it life, giving it meaning
                                                       (I hope)
                   making it a page in my book,
                        my scattered book that may

never be bound

do I want it to be?
or
do I want it free, floating, scattered to the wind

like black birds leaving a tree
              shooting out in all directions, writing
                   their book, their black ink making a deep
                       impression in the pale blue sky, cursive writing
                            with frills and dips and curves

watch how they move, how they write it all down
                 in the heavens for all to read like books on a library's
                    shelves holding themselves out, offering their very souls

to the loving hands of all who pass by, bound pages waiting to be freed
                  to fly across our minds like blackbirds across the sky,

writing
                        
a new page there
Someone's poem...I should have written it down...reminded me of this one.
 Apr 2017 Just Me R
Mary-Eliz
I have a story to tell
It’s spiritual, poignant
and real

a young man, my son,
Fought a brave battle
No, not on some foreign soil
Right here inside his head
A seizure…

Oh god, what’s happening?
Briefly, I feared he was dead

Waiting…scared…what to do
What to think…
Tests of all sorts…

cancer

A brain tumor
They said

Go home, enjoy Christmas
Then surgery
We’ll open his head

We tried to enjoy the season
With a sword hanging over
Us all
Though each of us
All five…
secretly
wept at times
Knowing it was going
To fall
 Apr 2017 Just Me R
David Noonan
I wake in this city
This city that didn't bear me
This city that didn't raise me
And yet it's this city that i seek to find something of me
Not in the pubs or the clubs or the karaoke bars
Where revelers conspire to dream and drink to the stars
Nor the cafes where poets and artists in a foreign language create.
Pass the market stalls where secondhand books and vinyls are stacked like freight
It is to the quietened streets of the old town I go
Where i long for the walls to speak once more
To reveal their hidden histories
To help fashion some sense of a man
One unknownst to me, my fathers father whose name I share
A fine skilled seamster, thus a tailor by trade
Not arriving to this city for work on fabrics of nylon and silk
But to stitch and sew the flesh of limbs in a paramedic corps
Another pawn of the Great War under King George's command
Driven only by economic necessity from a penal homeland
Not of conscription, politics or some moral conviction at play
For the price of neutrality is one that poverty simply refuses to pay
Returning home to an Ireland of hostility or silence at best
Medals now lying deep in pockets not proudly pinned to chests
Irish heroes don't fight in a British war for a King's crown
No such stories from father to son shall ever pass down
And now, a grainy photograph, three medals for a sons son to take
A dog tag that bears my name, a number and RC to depict a faith
From a man exiled in his home as a forgotten prisoner of war
To honour a legacy i find myself in this city afar
Asking the same questions of him as to me
Is this city the last place he truly felt free?
*for my grandfather that I never knew and this, his story that is new to me*
 Apr 2017 Just Me R
Mary-Eliz
I see you
          falling
               through
                   the purple air
                       eyes bulging              
                          teeth showing
                              like a blind, hungry tiger
                                      without a sun to guide
                                             without a son to follow
                                                  without day or night
                                                       to know the alligators
                                                        on the black river
                                                       in the jungle
                                                   where the russet snakes
                                                  wrap themselves
                                                 around your mind
                                              squeezing seeds from it
                                                      
I see you falling from
     the emerald tree, first
           clinging sanguinely
               then giving in to wind
                     and gravity, toppling
                      dropping like ripe fruit
                    splitting open spilling
                   your tawny seeds sharing
                your succulent flesh, flesh
               which feeds succeeding
             trees, trees where you can

sit to watch
             the tiger
                   and
                      the
                      alligator
                        struggle
                           struggle for
                              a place to be
                                     before they fall
                                          through
                                             the purple air
                                                air that forces
                                                 out the seeds
                                           seeds spewed
                                       on the green
                                    granite mountain
                                under the sizzling
                              saffron sun.
 Apr 2017 Just Me R
grumpy thumb
You can have such a true love
one you love complete,
but the one you love the most
Won't always know what you mean.
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