Poets Soul - Hello Poetry

Aug 2015

Cellar D'or

Answers were the scarce currency
But generous open-palms once held
Me, became deft with fierce urgency
Those bruises were not yours to withheld.

Aug 2015

Joshua Haines

Ashland

The sky looks like cigarette ashes in a puddle of milk,
and I, almost 22, am unsatisfied that I have not won a Pulitzer.

And I, on the borderline of delusion and confidence, am unsatisfied I am not crazy or cocky enough to submit to The New Yorker.

I hear the voices of the pastors,
telling me that God heals all.

They say 'He' is the only absolute.

The people raise their hands towards the water-stained ceiling,
as if He'll push his arms through the copper-colored scabs and save them.

Grabbing their wrists and cooing,
I am the remedy to the anxiety of death.

I am six foot one and French, Irish, Cherokee,
some sort of Anglo-Saxon,
and a lost **** in a drowning garden.

I think about all those who had to ****,
in order to make my cheekbones,
eyebrows, lips, and ****.

I think about how I'm good at *** and bad when it comes to forgiving too easily.

I wonder how I can sweat on another body,
but only feel naked when I have to be myself.

I watch the elderly chant words:
******, ******, ****, and Half-Breed.
I study if their dry lips reflect the hate in their eyes.

Not all are like this,
but I am surrounded by tables of them,
as I pretend to be Christian,
just to get ahead.

I don't speak,
just sit like an unfilled bubble,
waiting to be marked out by graphite.
I feel like a *******,
I wish I had a Pulitzer.

The sky looks like a stretched grape,
covered in kisses of ******.
And I, white American conformist,
am unsatisfied
that I have succumbed to the American Dream.

I wish I had a Pulitzer,
I wish I had my mom and dad.

Ashland, Wisconsin

Aug 2015

Kelly Anne

Let Your Words Leave a Trail Along My Skin

Tell me a story.

Of two young people,
a nondescript guy and girl,
crossing paths yet again for only a short time.

Tell me a story
where he found a reason to stop
and look, really look,
before cautiously reaching out.

And she,
in search of that recognition
that once came with glances in the mirror,
found what she was looking for
and even more than that.

Tell me a story
of infinite blue eyed stares,
interlocked fingers,
midnight embraces
and rainfall on locked lips.

Of a stack of scribbled notes
stored on the stand next to the bed
and so many secretive smiles,

the calming of a storm
and a home, finally,
a home within encircled arms.

Of bringing to life
the fire inside
that had for years been nothing
but submissive embers,

of lives gone from a simple
Hello
to I miss you; don't let go.

Where he taught her to love
first herself,
and then another.

Tell me a story
of happiness
that has no ending.

Tell me the story of us.

#words #home #story #her #him #us #found

Aug 2015

Oscar Prince

Black Wolf

Black Wolf is no pale sheep
He hunts on his own and chooses who he meets
He has no family nor friends to share
They nurtured him and turned death at Frozen Lake
The ice was too thin for it not to brake

Black Wolf stands out
He has no control of how it come out
Not because he has the gift of the growl
Or the raunchy moan of an infamous howl

Black Wolf against the snow white sharp he is
A brilliant beacon marauding over mountain caps
Any lady or foe knows no way to know
How or why he became so black against the snow

Black Wolf respects the old
The tender the wise
But spots the fool and the teenager trying ever so hard to be cool

Black Wolf has no pack
He's not one for looking back
He seeks no attention
But knows where he came from
A wolf mother wise and tender

Black Wolf died in his sleep
In a blizzard that berried him ten feet deep
No funeral was felt nor body skinned for pelt
Just the drift of the snow
As his body let him go
And the call from afar said "come, its time for you to go"

#life #death #nature #fun #animals

Aug 2015

SG Holter

Angry at Trees

Legs tired from running
On fumes, hands from the

Weight of band aids,
Blisters and splinters.

Busy bird building nests,
Chipped beak, fading feathers.

Angry at trees for asking me
To make

Them into
Houses.

Aug 2015

betterdays

lightbulb

perched,
on a tendril whisp,
of a synaptic vine.
the half formed
thought,
chirped and chirked,
as it chipped away
at the ovipidal embrace of
sleepy, slothfulness....
sublime.

it wanted freedom,
to fly and sing....
no longer,
sleeping or,
being held within...
no longer,
hiding away
from the sun.
no longer,
fearful of becoming...
undone.
influencing,
nada and no-one.

just happy to be,
a small, but clear...
clarion call.

now, standing strong
singing out it's
life embracing, life renewing
song.....
this thought, now has,
substance ....
bright coloured wings
and pride....
in the joy, it brings.
it has grace and grattitude.
a name so wonderful....
to go with,
this bright and energetic
attitude...

meet my new, paridigm...
all bursting with love.

his name..... brio

and he is the bringer
of my new zest, zing
and vivacity......

Aug 2015

Nat Lipstadt

suffused

~~~

it as if I am blinded
by the perfection
of the moment

all sensors singly loaded,
yet interacting,
in a buckshot of common cause

my eyes suffused
by sun scattering rays uncovering a day's birth placenta gleaming
amidst the glaring shadows of the refuse of nature's yesterday's
discarded leavings

my eyes reversed,
unsuffused
as it they were a gift,
waiting all this time,
forgoing-opening until
just this moment

my ears suffused
by soft sounds and
swirling ripples of calm waters,
the wind teasing, saying,
move like me, but just so, barely,
the real sounds of the quietude heard
as if for the first time

my tongue tastes you,
wrested from my mind's eye, you are given,
in the everything, skin creme of lapping waves, in the everywhere,
uncovered from within the sun's own departing shadow

my smell
is the smell of life,
nostrils flaring expanding with no limit
to take it all in,
completing, unifying,
a puzzle that never was,
that is now forever solved

my hands fuse
the tingling of life given from wet dewy grass,
shiny and reflecting,
the roughness of the bark,
a natural protective coating,
combining soft caresses and confirming
the necessity of both

perfectly still
I sit amidst
the perfect stillness,
all movement unnecessary,
all my senses reach out and return as one,
bringing me presents of knowledge,
more than suffused, I too,
am trite but true,
dearest god, can it be true,
rebirthed, renewed

this ordinary day
is now extraordinary
solitary figure staring gaze steady,
a perfection ******,
impatient for the
suffusion fix
of this day, and the morrow

~~~

**August 6, 2015
Shelter Island

http://hellopoetry.com/poem/1296049/the-last-thing-on-earth/

~~~

a passerby, common exclamation,
to which no workmanlike thought
ever sufficient given...

the idea of it though burns,
throat choking noises fill the brain,
all course unexpected through hot bloodless veins,
more a questioning proclamation,
a shoutout to my unknowing,
not a declaration of certain positivity,
a positive certitude of only
which questions
bear asking...

what is the last on earth that:

*I wish to kiss,
forgive and forget,
curse, demanding it soon-to-be-follow-on demise,
what image desired to happy scar my retina's retention,
the taste that will always bud
but n'ere bloom for a thousand millenniums uncountable
which poem mine will I clutch as I am laid-me-down,
the one that will read over and over again
always in grace and with tears of only sad joy,
always satisfying...

what flower will last burnish my declining senses,
which friend, will I two-handed grasp,
saying for you,
should have been so much more...

which sea, waters, needs be my final resting place,
will I will it salty or sweet, me to keep,
what face to savor~gaze for all eternity,
whose forehead to graze goodbye,
what future to pray for my descendants,
and all those that gather to bury me...

whose breast to hopeless last clutch,
as if they could deny, stay my sentence...
or I,
theirs...

whose heart to keep close as my last companion,
from whom to beg, remember be as I remember you,
faithful and true,
whose light will I require,
whose light will I provide,
when it is the last thing I contemplate...

whose touch, whose skin will I best remember,
will be the last one, or the first,
what question will I need answering,
what solutions will I at last,
be able to provide...*

so much more to muse upon,
as I gaze upon this poem's sad refrain,
and in desperation contemplate,
what will be my last thought embraced
when I leave this commissary,
that purveys so many answers...

indeed, answers aplenty, like shiny new pennies,
all begging to be found sufficient,
many claiming audacious necessity,
but I know better than that,
the answers will provide themselves
when marked finally
"due immediately..."
~~~

July 28 ~ August 8, 2015
Shelter Island

Aug 2015

AlanK

The Ascent

She was lost in a deep dark chasm
Of pain and desire
Bitter memories that stained
The rock walls.
She scaled the shear cliffs
With each new day
A dawn of hope spurred her forward
Inches every day she rose
Closer to the light
Bathed in sunshine
And warm desert air
With each step she became unshackled
Breaking the bonds of history
Rewriting her life and smelling the sweet
Flowers of the spring for the first time.
Nature’s power to heal embraced her nakedness
A young bird taking flight
From the comforting nest.
Her delicate wings are buoyed
By the updrafts from the canyon.
Rising higher and higher
Above the stagnant river bed.

Aug 2015

Jack Aylward

Love Is Young (Sonnet 1)

Often, one young in ripened youth will fall in love
With such a glowing heart to flutter at fair
Red lips, to meet and touch another sensitively enough,
To look and dream in eyes so rare,

Turning to take the others' hands
Floating as a stream into trickling tears
Like a flower with dew on finest strands.
Their golden hair, caught by the luminous moon, appears

Now mirrored like their own reflected faces
Beaming, following each other in each other's dream,
Understanding the beauty and innocence that graces
Where they meet in a startling gleam.

Entering a non-ageing youth of whispered time
The lovers' hearts entwine to rhyme.

©Jack Aylward
(Published in the Scotia Review magazine, no.24 edition, Summer 2001).

Jul 2015

nivek

a late night snack

swaying on the edge
I have deep fallen

gathered in
a pure spider

saved my life
for a second

spun me round
and round

a mummified
snack for later