the weight of tears leaves no traces. apparently. pain has no axis of symmetry, but petrifying meanings. everybody must be afraid. there is no point. there is no point in the scream of windows, in the continuity of doors.
in a turbulent ray of light. this destructive force, the orphan desire of a child. its autistic strife. pain, the silent witness of unlived lives. streets keep their rhythm and pretend all is forgiven. rarely is. there are more pains than people. hear the steps in the geometry of desire.  reinvented desire to love. to let live.

every full stop is an abyss of breath.

I am asking you again why there are no shortcuts
When your heart is breaking,
An electric current pulsates through every vein in my body,
Untouched darkness in my brain, good and bad, is sparked,
There are no detours offered,
My pain is drowning me out
And I am sinking, so fast.

Look through the window where waves are crashing against the shore,
This morning there was a girl cast out at sea,
Her fears had driven her out into the deepest depths
She wasn’t even making a sound.

I am asking you the same question again
My soul is laid out naked in front of you,
Ropes are tied to my wrists and ankles,
I’m being drawn as the horse rode by you pulls me
Stretched until my body rips, tears, splits like my heart.

Someone is trying to rescue her,
It is what you tried to do for me,
You told me there are no shortcuts with heartbreak
(As you dragged me from the ocean)
And I believe what we have is rare and beautiful
(As you remind me no love is in perpetuity).

© Sia Jane

I dusted off some dreams
and shot them in the sky
I was short on shooting stars
and starved for higher light
My box of fire seems empty now
my ride is low on fuel
But I will tread on comet trails
and drink the milk of moons

I am determine to be with you forever Lord.
No matter how much I may fail you here God.
For as long as I keep getting up from failures.
I still have a chance of being one of your people.
It's only after giving up do I fail you the most.
Because our salvation is not in us but through you.
Only by hanging onto you and your truths here.
May your Salvation keep growing within me daily.
So I shall continue reading your words and praying.
For others as well as praying for myself as well here.
So that I may grow in your truths as well my Savior.

My first sense of the aversion raised by Frost,
Walls swelled under, yet, I could not exhaust
The barriers confronted on life's twisted path.
Too enervating loosing one's sole ****** wrath,
I pierce the wall that poets have not crossed
And speak to you, my audience, in verse,
Trusting the directed words that I asperse
Will convey the meaning hoped to impart,
Even more, some verbal beauty from my art,
Into which, fair reader, you elatedly immerse.
Gratified, I, the poet, have but you to thank,
The wall of separation loses one more plank,
Between us communication is not lost,
Better that understanding be dispersed.

We speak and therefore are, Descartes,
Worth much more than gold or any cost.

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.

For once on the face of the earth,
let's not speak in any language;
let's stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.

Fishermen in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would look at his hurt hands.

Those who prepare green wars,'
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victories with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.

What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.

If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.

Now I'll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.

from **Extravagaria

"thank you, my heart:
time after time
you pluck me, separate even in sleep,
out of the whole.”*

were I to perform
an autopsy of that morning
no verdict would be self-sufficient:
Love
bursting like a sudden dancefall
in my veins
your voice imparts shivering
to my plugged shadow
and the day goes offline
I offer my skin as a battlefield
for whispers
I wouldn’t compromise with
birds on wire
or diagnose my boundaries
when time is turned into gold dust
among your empty shirts
lodging the imploded silence
and your shaved smile
like a hurricane lamp

the word I hate most is
Love
it says nothing
nothing at all
about you
the hidden dimension
in my flesh
the shape of us
without mercy

I was born for Nebraska
I was born for the Massif Central
I was born for the mountain top shrine
with nothing but the music of nature
to distract me
I was born for the weekly news
on some sleepy island in the Pacific
I was born for Covent Garden
The Pangea of Culture
New Orleans trumpets;
the flamenco player
twisting lime into his drink
I was born for the cotton fields
I was born for the salt marsh
for the tug-boat all out of fresh water
I was born for the Ganges
I was born in the shadow of the Hajj
I was born for the G-dless land
of Death Valley
the streets of Harlem
I was born into the spirit
of old Afghanistan
I was born on the false strings
of liberated women-

I was born on a stage of puppets
a backdrop of Glaswegian tenements
or of fjords unvisited
beside Scandinavian seas
I was born for Rugby Cement
I was born to be fixed in place
This wandering mind
These restless legs
I was born with a travelling soul
in a town where I can barely walk

montana yellow dress, the highway looked bitter sunday fit.
she knew the land given,
land taken,
thunder walking west.
met a friend. stopped to talk.
he was a holy kid or dog, both songs of kindness.
trickster cool mountain calf
waiting for the water promenade.
deep creek good old boy swimming smiles,
rose up
and shot like bang with the buzzard sioux feathers.
truth is low clouds flashing, dreams burst
in the earth room.
doused sheets of chaparral and canyon grass
a pretty laughing bird.
wet things watch the water-log, and a frog spits whiskey.
charter bus barefoot leather and a father says kids, smell the hammer,
see the hammer touch its words into the world.
work-tale living, fools bled.
river gal cut, oh
fishing.

To my fellow Artist tonight , a final word on the rhapsody of beautiful sentiments expressed regarding love , the human condition and hope written by skilled , emotionally charged men and women today ! With dignity , grace , and passion throughout today you have once again charged and reminded a humble colleague on the power of poetry forged by fierce imagination and forethought ! Thank you and good night !

We are the terraced women
piled row on row on the sagging, slipping hillsides of our
                                                                                               lives.
We tug reluctant children up slanting streets
the push chair wheels wedging in the ruts
breathless and bad tempered we shift the Tesco carrier bags
                                                                          from hand to hand
and stop to watch the town

The hill tops creep away like children playing games

our other children shriek against the school yard rails
‘there’s Mandy’s mum, John’s mum, Dave’s mum,
Kate’s mum, Ceri’s mother, Tracey’s mummy’
we wave with hands scarred by groceries and too much
                                                                                   washing up
catching echoes as we pass of old wild games

after lunch, more bread and butter, tea
we dress in blue and white and pink and white checked
                                                                                          overalls
and do the house and scrub the porch and sweep the street
and clean all the little terraces
up and down and up and down and up and down the hill

later, before the end-of-school bell rings
all the babies are asleep
Mandy’s mum joins Ceri’s mum across the street
running to avoid the rain
and Dave’s mum and John’s mum – the others too – stop
                                                                                                for tea
and briefly we are wild women
girls with secrets, travellers, engineers, courtesans, and stars
                                                                                 of fiction, films
plotting our escape like jail birds
terraced, tescoed prisoners rising from the household dust
like heroines.

Pennyanne Windsor, from *Poetry 1900-2000 One hundred poets from Wales