Consoling the Sky - Hello Poetry

Nov 2016

Aeerdna

I am full of memories
painted on our ceiling
when we were just two kids
and the rain wasn't hurting anyone

do you remember the smell of smoke
coming from the leaves our mother used to set fire to?
remember the November sunsets
when we'd play stupid games
and none of us was a winner?

remember how we used to sit in front of the fire
playing cards and drinking wine
we thought our lives would be like a smooth sailing on the ocean
yet here we are
miles away from each other
and the music doesn't sound the same
and our cards are missing
still no one is a winner

still
the smell of burning leaves wakes me up at night
still
we are apart
and the wine we drink daily
has no taste
and we keep on playing
even though our lives are like a wrecked ship
in the middle of an ocean that's always dark
we are still lying to ourselves
but deep inside we do know
the wine has changed its colour

and so did our eyes.

much darker they are
much clumsier our fingers
much number the feelings

and
somewhere,
the leaves are falling
and they are burning
we just can't smell them
anymore.

Nov 2016

r

Seclusion

Solitude I wear
      like a second skin
my biggest weakness
       my greatest strength
   wading through
quiet and tired
    in seclusion
as dawn draws
    her arms around me
cold       and damp
    like the sea
           with no oil
for my lamp
       to light my way
through another
    dark    and lonely
November day.

Nov 2016

JRF

I Write

I write
from all the corners of my heart.
I write from every chamber,
from every ventricle that pumps the blood
that circulates throughout my soul.
I write
when I am succeeding as a human being
and I write
when I fail,
and sometimes,
I fail on a grand scale,
but at least I write.
I write.

...and don't we all, Poetry Friends?

Nov 2016

Pradip Chattopadhyay

Baul

Huddled in the lantern light
they sing of life and death
of love long lost but living
in the ashes of time
a yearning for home
walking the long roads sunburnt
in blistered feet
in the knowledge
healing of pain
is only a rain away
and life is too short
but never too short
to bathe in the power of god
that makes a pauper
be a king
under the canopy of stars.

Night with them under the stars, November 12, 8.30pm.
Bauls: Rural folk singers of Bengal, the mystic minstrels.

Nov 2016

Mysidian Bard

Nightfall (Haiku #31)

Our shadows soon fade
Here beneath the dying sun
When the day is done

#haiku #dark #light #nightfall #nickdrake

Nov 2016

r

Drinking from the blue jar of time

Some nights
the moon throws its light
like an old man
who can't hold his liquor in
and spits blood in the morning

Someone ought to kick some sense
into me, if they did I'd hum
like the body of a fiddle

I propose we all strip down
and take a swim with my friends
the dragonflies, but no one will listen
to what I have to say when I throw my voice
like an empty bottle deep in the forest

When I think of all the dark
and swift things of my rivers,
I wonder why time the old boot -
legger hides his maps and goes
on traveling the low roads

Alone I can tell you there is so much
beside the point of the thorn of the rose
and why the moon is with me always
whenever i choose to go it alone

I drink from that blue jar of time
and breathe the breath of sweet infants

Believe you me the dead shepherd
we sent up the river in a faraway land
in a time so long ago still holds us
all by the holes in his hands

You can see the dark clouds up ahead,
my cloisters I am always walking through them
with you children of the lost dreams,
and with you fifty-something snow-headed men

We have just collided with our lost sons
on the high road of morning, we are rising
dust like the dirt on our children's graves
saying nothing to our brothers the stones.

Nov 2016

SE Reimer

before and after

~

“i’m loosing my before,”
she says as she peers
o’er her morning cup,
she struggles to recall,
to separate before and aft,
it's a place where blurring lines,
become blurred memories.
where BC and AD intersect;
that place within her mind,
where she drew a line
’cross sands of time,
’til the winds of living
blew her line away.
of life before this Cancer,
living before this Cost;
of silence 'fore the Call,
that told her all was lost.
his voice no longer lingers,
in her dreams he used to come;
now he's just a vapor,
but a ghost of what he was.
for now it's only after
Dreariness, Decay and Death;
now it’s sleepless nights,
while in picture books he rests.
his footsteps all but gone,
and only cards and photographs
to remind of seasons once upon,
a time of laughter and rejoicing,
replaced by cup of bitter tears.
the after-date of endings,
of after-hearts were pierced;
after-leaves have all decayed,
the after-disappearance,
of joy that he defined.
these the after-leavings,
the dregs from life distilled;
left to wonder, life to ponder,
the “why” a heart stood still.
of a BC and an AD,
a BC time, Before the Call;
when life was torn in two,
leaving shredded remnants;
and now the AD, After Daniel,
a time to pick up tattered pieces,
to find the peace in what remains;
this the place where legends born,
when all that’s left is but a name.

~

*post script.

there are few events in one’s lifetime that mark time, a before and after, like loss. whether death, divorce, or deep disappointment... each a BC/AD moment that our human condition can so easily let define what remains; our after. yet too, if we do not rush it, there can come a time when we are able to redefine our losses into legend... an AD that is an after-definition of sorts; where a crown of beauty replaces ashes and the oil of joy is exchanged for the bitter wine of mourning. (Isaiah 61:3)

to my sweet wife and to each of you, my friends who grieve, whatever your “AD”, know this... while the heart beats, there is yet hope! hugs, hope and health to each, to all!!
your poet friend and lover of your posts,
(: Steve