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Jun 2023 · 140
Untitled
Snowblind Jun 2023
The sharp-toothed cliff stretched on endlessly  
below me, as I stared down upon waves in throes.
Crashing into the jagged embrace relentlessly
sliced across the rocks in dripping repose.

Each new crest broke from the howling sea and
felt infinitely far away the moment it was struck apart,
the swells rising up, for the briefest moment,
seemed to crash in tandem with the beat of my heart.

It felt like I was sinking. And floating. In a breeze
of acute warmth from autumn's breath — grasping
in a way that left me lost somewhere between her and me.
Nothing, in this light I woke up in, felt lasting.

And I wonder, if through all of their thrashing, each wave
will die down to be swallowed. In a deep, dark, grave.
I'm not confidently happy with it. I'll reread it.
Apr 2023 · 541
Windswept Valley
Snowblind Apr 2023
White feathers of snow tufts
plume themselves upon icy branches
marred by frost's biting advances,
stoicly waiting to be sloughed.

Rainfall in a torrential downpour
crashing upon all of the branches
cascading waterfalls of second chances—
again and again, drop to the forest floor.

Sparking flickers of light through clouds
can only barely illuminate the kestrel
that finds fit to prey on the sparrow I let slip.

Midsummer draping me in a lethargic shroud
swaddled around heart and lungs to slowly settle,
the lucky charm momentarily escapes my grip.
Snowblind Aug 2022
Where in this sea of flowers did you see yourself?
Climbing into it, you weakly pulled yourself into
the blossoming petals, too frail for what you must do.
You could only lie down, and cling to what you held.

You left your heart, long ago, in the mountains,
and I wonder if it ever realized that the soul
it was bleeding dry for had lost all control
and rose like roots, ripped, no longer grounded.

And the sea rose up to bury you with it's swells,
cold and ebbing — it couldn't mimic a lover.
But it was your only embrace in these last rites.
They had not an undertow to rip on what you dwell.
Alone and drowning in a sea you'd wished to discover
that it was in these moments you could see sunlight.
Aug 2022 · 136
A Tale of Passing
Snowblind Aug 2022
Tens of millions, like each star in the sky,
were the blades of grass that swayed the valley
like a wave in a storm thrashing side to side
buffeted along by this ennui-draped gale.

A far-drawn wind that I know all to well
fluttering, fluttering. Given up only in part.
I've spent every sad song for Summer's farewell
so Autumn may come and stab deep into my heart.

My eyes rested on the dew while waiting for sunrise
as if some sort of light or warmth could rip me
from these tightening and tightening thorn-ridden vines,
as if respite would make up for a heart sunk at sea.

But for every constellation that faded from the night
I saw through mountain jaws into brightest light.
Aug 2022 · 158
Singing With The Crow
Snowblind Aug 2022
Whispering, through labored breaths to lonely tree
I painfully pour out the last of my heart.
While the dying breaths of the wind-rustled leaves
whimper back laments of their death. Do we have to part?

Tears, down a pallid portrait, lethargically seep.
Each one as impermanent as the piece that they paint.
In a ragged voice, I cry out for what I know I can't keep.
For what I know will break me beneath it's weight.

The river's run becomes stronger than my weakened breath,
who do you expect to comfort here, naive stream?
You sing with the crows and you'll sing past my death
but it seems very well, that you'll also sing with me.

There is a fading set of footsteps in the snow ahead.
One's path dying with each snowflake. I step aside instead.
Aug 2022 · 135
Dreams of Fields of Grass
Snowblind Aug 2022
It felt as if I was endlessly careening.
Spiraling downwards among ripping winds;
my eyes helplessly watched everywhere I'd been
float upwards like they were only a passing dream.

Breath too bated. Choked throat. Unable to scream.
Lethargic and spent, nerves in rapid descent
with hands, white-knuckled, too cold to close when
threads unraveled, began to come apart at the seams.

Springtimes's last blossom is always just as sweet,
even if it's the harbinger of flower's final fears.
Let me land among fresh dew to enter listless sleep.
Like the petal fallen from it's tree I'm now-incomplete,
cascading to a callous ground as winter's jaws near
knuckles too used and weak, to grip what I must keep.
Jul 2022 · 127
Shorelines
Snowblind Jul 2022
Ice cold winds crashing upon
seas of chrysanthemums
while early dawn evanesces
to frosts's effrontery.

Sparks like stars reflected
in the seas of your eyes
painted drearily along
your placid expression.

But just like the bluebirds, you
will not always come back.
Swallowed deep by sorrow lest
I forgive the sparrow.
Jul 2022 · 392
Blossoming
Snowblind Jul 2022
Entwined hearts in a tomb of
ten-thousand dahlias,
heavy breaths like each their last
reach longingly aloft.

Unlike every choking vine
that digs entombing claws;
their winters spent together
tethers their hearts to clouds.
Mar 2022 · 229
Embraces
Snowblind Mar 2022
A spring breeze rolls with fog through the forests
singing through a night that seems endless.
Dead flowers, unbeknownst where wind sends us
can't help but falter beneath blown torrents.

You were beautiful, sculpted like marble,
then given an eternity in spring.
How nice to not know what frost will bring,
freezing petals, a dying ensemble.

You couldn't help but to only murmur
despite how badly you wanted to scream,
eyes glossing over, they no longer beamed.
Your hand, like your heart, losing it's fervor.

A thousand flowers will consume your grave
and you'll die, never finding what you crave.
Snowblind Mar 2022
Great stretches of wisteria's shadow
reach longingly through an endless field,
towards a slow dripping skyline that seemed
so much closer than it would ever know.

The sun's now passed. What could you hope to find?
I'm helpless but to bask in flowering
petals, falling like brush strokes blossoming,
painting the wind that'll leave us behind.

I've only wanted to be here with you
but like winter will do to your branches,
shades of grey ennui weigh on my canvas.
Like spring and the wind, I will leave you too.

Of all shades you are, all palettes you bear,
this sad overcast is the last we share.
Mar 2022 · 278
Pines
Snowblind Mar 2022
Amid woods frozen in woe
the weakened elk's velvet
drapes sanguine to stain the snow,
no solace in this shade.
Mar 2022 · 231
Millstone
Snowblind Mar 2022
As ripples brush upon the rocky reef
your eyes swallowing the light of each star,
cascading lines of deep ebony mar,
subversive painters showcasing your grief.

Wings never clipped, but promises unkept
tore your heart from you, hung out not to dry
but sadly to, instead, be crucified.
Cornered at last, in helplessness, content.

You were never abandoned by heaven;
all the sadder that they just didn't care
like a storm rolling upon a fledgling.
An apology too much concession
I felt no satisfaction nor despair,
indigo tides at your neck now welling.
Truthfully I've rarely much to say.
Mar 2022 · 359
Buttresses
Snowblind Mar 2022
The sun feels colder as it shines
through this aging stained glass,
decorated in such inspired design
of stories and heroes now-surpassed.

Such a glimmering lens standing vast
consumed my eyes while the smoke
swirled up and rose to climb past,
to choke the sun out from that window.

Two ravens, with my heart, sink low
to perch upon weather-worn pillar;
the winds carried them, as I overflow.
Drowning in my my own burgeoning river.

It's only myself, to myself, I've reviled,
draining out my heart, I wore the saddest smile.
Feb 2022 · 199
Aegean Breeze
Snowblind Feb 2022
Your eyes like falling stars, cascade
down, chasing Summer's drifting flowers,
their crescendo, with the breeze will fade
upon a wind-swept dance in this final hour.

And I saw myself in their somber drift.
Surrounded by the blooming scorpion grass,
I sank into the deep sea beyond the cliff
as each wave hammered a nail in my casket.

The briefest of drownings broken by a song
as a nightjar cooed from the dying laurel
in a perfect nest where his melody belong.
While my heart lapsed: yours felt immortal.

It's halt dismissed at the winding of vines
as your fingers are mine lastly intertwined.
Snowblind Feb 2022
If I could rip out my lungs here and now
to hear one last time sing like a songbird,
I would die just for that tune.

In debt, I still spend more heart than allowed
and if you're not in pain, why have I incurred
such a darkness under new moon.

But every river at last, must flow to an end
and while my heart bleeds out just like one,
there is nothing for you here.

Ramshackled veins, I feel each one of you rend
as I play pretend this will simply be done,
put to rest, not realize my fear.

You don't quite look like you as your eyes cloud
and like when you couldn't speak, I can't find words.
And all the sterile tools and the palest off-white room
could not make me immune
from the way the walls closed, like a casket. In on me too.
Feb 2022 · 107
In Everything
Snowblind Feb 2022
It's the rising of sun on Summer days
where mature branches loll over the vale,
mist like a sea, letting only the boldest
of mountains to breathe above the waves.

With each sway of every frail arm,
made a dancer in the wind's soft gale.
roots dug and redoubled by the sun's kiss,
but it's liminal here, before Autumn's harm.

Do you yearn for the Spring-
for when it all was in bloom?
Is it depressive to think-
of the impending frost's gloom?

As the mist now settles,
choking out my view.
As heaven's frost petals
will soon do to you.

I'll leave, yet I'll return,
a thousand times to this place
each day, each of us a bit bigger.

And still I'll never learn
quite how to grow and to face
my own winters with your vigor.
Tried to go more freeform in meter and rhyme. I think it ended up extensively similar to my other pieces.
Feb 2022 · 336
Saint Adjutor
Snowblind Feb 2022
Swallowed down into these sickening depths,
like a ship too bold for the seas it sailed
before falling, living out hundreds of deaths.

Harrowing, is having a heart that has failed
in so many rights, but still has to beat on
and be beat on like the rocks that waves bewail.

Naive and emboldened you tied your own millstone
and now I can feel it all, your panged breaths.
Shallow and sharp, weak, and like you, all alone.

And there's nothing left of you, nothing to protect
so for what it's worth: You've nothing left to reflect.
Feb 2022 · 219
Valleys in my Heart
Snowblind Feb 2022
Something about the way this valley
can extend and flit the smokey mist
like the winds that pull gentle heartstrings.

Behind gazing eyes I wish so so badly
mountainous strength to subsist.
This frostbitten face yearns for Spring.

Need not, from any well but of your own,
glossy eyes grazing the mountains to find
that winter makes forests seem less intertwined;
only in frigid air is the true tree shown.

Want not, the annuals that come and go,
dark and shade may intrude on shine.
Dig firm these roots, these ties that bind.
And then so, worry not when leaves are blown.
Feb 2022 · 890
Canticle
Snowblind Feb 2022
Now heaven does not seem so
close, never singing, yet—
I'm putting will to whetstone
while building on regret.
Ferskeytt
Feb 2022 · 1.0k
Boreal
Snowblind Feb 2022
I saw great shade-casting green built upon pines,
like statues ripped the Earth stretching up to the skies.
Never could you reach, and yet you live to try,
But the heaven and the Earth seem lovers by design.

Billowing clouds, feeding roots that build shrines
that I won't live to see completely arise.
For my own pallid self - or for beauty - heart cries?
They stand so stoic and draped, in flowers and vines.

As I'm lost in the calls of the overhead crows
rained in each fluttering fall of feather delivered.
Drop. Like my once-glossed eyes emptying this soul
and my weighty life into the likewise sobbing river.
Casting out, casting off. Isn't it the same as to sow?
The river does not pause; why then dwell on what differed?
Jan 2022 · 267
Chiffon
Snowblind Jan 2022
A sad visage — is it that leaves cannot hold snow
only roughened needle may cradle it's cold crystalline,
a fresh-blossomed love as lost as the calypso.
God's chiseled sculptures cast out, serpentine.

The somber minuet, glistening à pas menus upon her face.
Dizzyingly fluttered through cusping sapphire lens
each tuft, each dune of wind-sculped embrace.
Do you know even your warmth harkens her ends?

How could you? Lovingly, lost under peaks of heaven.
Heat of helios as your reflective love soon parts —
no fault of your own, nor allowance of concession.
It was too bright of a burn, your blazing hearts.

Alabaster draped darling, you hold on so tight.
I promise, I swear, birds will sing of your light.
Dec 2021 · 116
Untitled Tanka 2
Snowblind Dec 2021
Beauty
cannot be searched for.
Ivy grows
choking the flower,
frosted trees die in the garden.
As far as I am aware, the site, as of now, does not support Kanji. While I could post these in katakana, it would feel far more disingenuous to the core elements of many haiku and tanka, and so I feel more comfortable posting them as self-translations. Which also explains why the syllable/on count is not in line, since it is a translation. Hopefully they will at least convey the feelings I am trying to express. Or the atmosphere. Whichever finds you.

This is another one I am saddened by a lack of kanji support for. Since it was one of the first ones I attempted to implement kireiji and kigo in. The kigo being the symbolism of frosted trees relating to winter. And the kireiji being a 'ya' at the end of the second line to effectively cut the piece in two parts, albeit related.
Dec 2021 · 157
Untitled Haiku 7
Snowblind Dec 2021
Traversing the valley
Autumns leaves billow and dance.
The jaws of frost gives chase.
As far as I am aware, the site, as of now, does not support Kanji. While I could post these in katakana, it would feel far more disingenuous to the core elements of many haiku and tanka, and so I feel more comfortable posting them as self-translations. Which also explains why the syllable/on count is not in line, since it is a translation. Hopefully they will at least convey the feelings I am trying to express. Or the atmosphere. Whichever finds you.

This is the one I am most saddened by the inability to use kanji in, but mostly because I very much enjoy the characters for floating/billowing sharing a character with the word 'ukiyo' meaning 'floating world' and meaning a fleeting world, as Buddhists teach. That all is fleeting. And I feel very proud that the idea of the fall of Autumn and encroach of Winter brings an idea of ending. But still conveys cycles.
Dec 2021 · 185
Untitled Hiaku 6
Snowblind Dec 2021
A crow among the leaves
It's tail dances.
Winds billow from a heart
As far as I am aware, the site, as of now, does not support Kanji. While I could post these in katakana, it would feel far more disingenuous to the core elements of many haiku and tanka, and so I feel more comfortable posting them as self-translations. Which also explains why the syllable/on count is not in line, since it is a translation. Hopefully they will at least convey the feelings I am trying to express. Or the atmosphere. Whichever finds you.
Dec 2021 · 152
Untitled Haiku 5
Snowblind Dec 2021
Above the clouds
The birds can piece it.
Diving through the crying of a snowstorm.
As far as I am aware, the site, as of now, does not support Kanji. While I could post these in katakana, it would feel far more disingenuous to the core elements of many haiku and tanka, and so I feel more comfortable posting them as self-translations. Which also explains why the syllable/on count is not in line, since it is a translation. Hopefully they will at least convey the feelings I am trying to express. Or the atmosphere. Whichever finds you.
Dec 2021 · 133
Untitled Haiku 4
Snowblind Dec 2021
I have seen the coldest summer yet
beneath the weight of shooting stars.
But now sentenced to death in my silk.
As far as I am aware, the site, as of now, does not support Kanji. While I could post these in katakana, it would feel far more disingenuous to the core elements of many haiku and tanka, and so I feel more comfortable posting them as self-translations. Which also explains why the syllable/on count is not in line, since it is a translation. Hopefully they will at least convey the feelings I am trying to express. Or the atmosphere. Whichever finds you.
Dec 2021 · 156
Untitled Tanka 1
Snowblind Dec 2021
For the mountain
Loneliness from windー
Is an impossibility.
And yet still
Beautiful that the blossoms fall and fly away.
As far as I am aware, the site, as of now, does not support Kanji. While I could post these in katakana, it would feel far more disingenuous to the core elements of many haiku and tanka, and so I feel more comfortable posting them as self-translations. Which also explains why the syllable/on count is not in line, since it is a translation. Hopefully they will at least convey the feelings I am trying to express. Or the atmosphere. Whichever finds you.
Dec 2021 · 84
Untitled Haiku 2
Snowblind Dec 2021
A drowned flower floats
you took this spring for grantedー
feathers float out of my hand.
As far as I am aware, the site, as of now, does not support Kanji. While I could post these in katakana, it would feel far more disingenuous to the core elements of many haiku and tanka, and so I feel more comfortable posting them as self-translations. Which also explains why the syllable/on count is not in line, since it is a translation. Hopefully they will at least convey the feelings I am trying to express. Or the atmosphere. Whichever finds you.
Dec 2021 · 89
Untitled Haiku 1
Snowblind Dec 2021
A hand upon the bare skin
and the cold tough of wrought iron,
the song of footsteps in snow.
As far as I am aware, the site, as of now, does not support Kanji. While I could post these in katakana, it would feel far more disingenuous to the core elements of many haiku and tanka, and so I feel more comfortable posting them as self-translations. Which also explains why the syllable/on count is not in line, since it is a translation. Hopefully they will at least convey the feelings I am trying to express. Or the atmosphere. Whichever finds you.
Oct 2021 · 264
Soft Fells
Snowblind Oct 2021
Snow falls upon
lonely heads with-

fires cascading among
the crackling logs like-

hearts elating at brightening
smiles that bring-

Soft warmth to cold sharpness.
Aug 2021 · 73
Untitled
Snowblind Aug 2021
Porcelain fine, like silver-dipped dusk
frames iris' shine, putting shame diamond.

Soft dark night, sewn of onyx and jet
Flirt sweet to my sight, like they do to the wind.

A song not suited for lungs.
A dance not suited for eyes.
An art built only for hearts.
And to my heart does she give rise.
Aug 2021 · 79
Untitled
Snowblind Aug 2021
Quiet leaves and aching branches
weave and twine above hanging heads

The smoke has long abandoned these ashes,
I ask you to finally let go of the dead.
Aug 2021 · 83
Untitled
Snowblind Aug 2021
Spring rains trace flowers
dancing over petal and leaf;
My face, too, is beneath this cascade
traced by water; traced by grief.
Aug 2021 · 82
Untitled
Snowblind Aug 2021
An echo of hounds
Crying out howls and barks
The flutter of birds wings
joins the spirit of sounds
as they end what they sing
and rise to embark.

The pine is still green but orange and red
across the forest floor do lie.
And unlike these birds I know
that she cannot fly.
Aug 2021 · 69
Untitled
Snowblind Aug 2021
No cypress bears such slender grace and yet
The gates of Petra still shall fall
And time forget
The age of Man had come at all
Before the span of aeons poses any threat
Unto the star-appareled beauty of her eyes.
And I, one step behind
Will surely find
Their glimmer never fades e'en when the last star dies.
Nov 2020 · 91
A Crow With Two Tails
Snowblind Nov 2020
Cast your leaves, trees unfettered
autumnal colors inked with a crow—
like my heart it's wing beats go
and leave me but just one feather.

These winds will do as a parting kiss,
but don't cast down a shadow gloom.
For you bring back the flower bloom
and you'll come with to reminisce.

Keep in mind, my jet black heart:
You are not just subject to the storm,
you're wing and wit, Olympus born
and our embers always kindle to a fire start.
Oct 2020 · 75
Shade
Snowblind Oct 2020
I would paint every color of every moment of the sky.
Each sunrise and sunset - each glistening moon.
But I'd never recapture the shine of your eye.
And I'll never not say: "You died far too soon."
Snowblind Oct 2020
Who'll keep me warm, when you are gone?
After snowfall,
who'll sing the mornings sweet songs?
At the end of it all,
when all's said and done, will we still get along?

The hardest time might not be all the frost.
Maybe it's our autumns,
to swallow our pride and sit inside with our loss,
waiting for blossoms.
But we've to plant them ourselves when uprooting dross.

And the birds will come home, at long last, to nest,
and flowers will bloom,
while I sit and I wait, heart longing for rest -
that can't come without you.
Oct 2020 · 106
Who We Miss
Snowblind Oct 2020
Your cloud-soft lifts may smile and part
to make you now, the thief of hearts -
as mine beats faster by fits and starts.

But to miss a moment of your grace
even for sleep's coddled embrace
is a cut from my heartbeat of sad disgrace.
Oct 2020 · 63
Rust
Snowblind Oct 2020
The sun still shines through the cold
and I still wear myself to the bone,
for iron and steel can rend my flesh
but in the end it will bend at my behest.
Sep 2020 · 66
Patience
Snowblind Sep 2020
Such a height to fall from grace —
O pray and hope but don't cry, child
your once-soft hands will tame these wilds,
as your arrow will find it's place.

Each moon glows with the hum of home
as the lone fire sings back with crackled hum.
A heroes journey is about who they become
and the paths they pave from once unroamed.
Sep 2020 · 161
Untitled
Snowblind Sep 2020
Carried on the wings of a bird too frail to have left the nest
you fell to the roots of a grand maple that was clinging to a thread.
As it collapsed, branches and leaves falling, you exclaimed,
"I, too, rise above the world around me, reaching such heights."
But you failed to notice that it was just the world falling apart.
And like the bird that bore you, you, too, will not survive the frost.
Aug 2020 · 91
Downward
Snowblind Aug 2020
Bury me down,
deep in the ground.
It's dark and it's cold,
for only the Earth to hold.

Bury me there,
for it's only fair.
As she promises spring
and winter she brings.

She's too much like me,
cycles of winter, you see.
Down, I should be.
Too deep to become a tree.
Too shallow to freeze.

Bury me far-sent,
for the sea to lament.
She's a beast left to thrash,
she'll take my body to crash.

I write poems and cry,
I sing out to the sky,
and she billows her wind
and cries, too, over my sins.

I'm too much like her.
And it's too much to endure,
the storm that I've spurred.
Wash away - habitual poseur,
drown them now - my life's saboteur.
I'm truthfully not entirely happy with this one. The first few lines were dancing on my tongue while I poured my coffee, but it doesn't seem to come out as beautifully in writing. I'm not a massive fan of short jagged lines. At least not this short. I feel like this entire piece is good, but could be more. Perhaps I'll come back and rework it. Try to expand the lines and put in a more complex rhyme scheme or actually give it a formal meter.
Aug 2020 · 80
Abrasion Builds Wonders
Snowblind Aug 2020
Cracks in the surface of mountain soil
open and let greenery rip and despoil.
Shred and tear through both rock and stone
to make room for a growth, at last all it's own.

From both base to summit — Olympus to Wutai
it's time spent well, time spent to defy
what once was rigid, unmoving and strong
to crumple bit by bit into a breeze-laden song.

But the mountain doesn't wail, and neither will it fall
for the mountain is not worsened by it's transient shawl.
Aug 2020 · 97
Blossom and Toss
Snowblind Aug 2020
White and undriven — the billowing drifts
the spring it buries does not yet know
the beauty it carries beneath the snow
to shine upon the world — to merely exist.

To be such a flower, nature's delicate gift.
I relish their smile and call out to them so
but is it macabre to smile when their petals blow?
To look upon their death with the same rose-tints?

What would I give for such simple design:
to reach to the heavens and flower just once
and then to pass after my first occurrence,
to not weather the woes of repetition and time.

Or the rose-tint is as good on theirs as on mine,
maybe I, too, will have a charming last pulse —
like a falling of petals, like a crescendo and crux
and all at once, like leaves it will fall, all my malign.
Aug 2020 · 83
It Is Not Growth
Snowblind Aug 2020
Cupping the stem, I raise my blade
to snip off the young bud.
For all the sun poured to be made
I still slice off and toss to the mud.

I cannot say it was for your good,
pruned so that the harvest
might be as vast as it could,
till then neither of us may rest.
Aug 2020 · 100
Ekido
Snowblind Aug 2020
じゅんしゅする
どろ-だらけ-どう 。
やま いたむ。
--
Junshu suru
doro-darake-dō .
Yama itamu.
--
I am complacent to
these muddy roads.
The mountain sighs mournfully over me.
I apologize. I cannot get the original Japanese to work. It seems hiragana are accepted, but not kanji.
Aug 2020 · 67
Storm Shores
Snowblind Aug 2020
The pale off grey looms far among the shores
Beauty in the way it so honestly treads
Earnestly disparaging upon all that it weds
It rips upon our world, more ancient than war

To carry ones self with such a meticulous pride
Such a power to crash, to rip and to rend
It encompasses all of a life, to give and to end
Threads such as hers: to which my heart is tied.
Aug 2020 · 85
Morning Shade
Snowblind Aug 2020
There's a brook to which
my heart is tied.
Speckled reflection where beauty hide.
The threads with which my mornings stitch;
water's response to a golden finch.
My mind as slow as the creek does crawl.
These moments with which my life does spall.
Amongst the cold, the crisp:
a gifted bliss
that in these words I meekly scrawl.
Aug 2020 · 111
Ceramic Shattering on Stone
Snowblind Aug 2020
White feathers
stained in sanguine
hold wind's hand
till bathe in the stream.

White tails
and feathered song.
Ambivalent doey eyed.
Does natures charm extend to mine?
A part.
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