Rohan P: Poems

fold

Rohan P Jun 2018

fold

you fold
blankets into ribbons of
light

(she folds
stars like spiderwebs

—
to catch you.

i wish i didn't miss you

#fold

forell-

Rohan P Aug 2018

forell-

wildfires or
wildflowers? i wake
when the sun's setting.

burning, burning:
she's out there, somewhere.

I just read Woody's poem (https://hellopoetry.com/poem/2582994/blunt-ed-beaks-and-clip-ped-wings-or-the-ugly-blackbirds-who-always-know-better-than-the-rest/ ) and realised that Vicki, a dear friend and constant supporter of mine, was compelled to delete her HP account as a result of harassment. I am terribly saddened by this occurrence, especially seeing as this site has been a wonderful environment for me to grow as a poet and post my work. I would like to respectfully ask Eliot and the moderators of HP to look into this and prevent any such events from ever happening on this site again. It's also the responsibility of us community members to help keep this a safe, supportive, and loving space. We must exercise our joint responsibility: stop harassment and bullying; stand up for what's right. And Vicki: I miss you.

#ellie #vicki

forest rainfall

Rohan P Dec 2017

forest rainfall

desert and abandon these
warm and sullen affects; upon you,
a wolf, thoughtful and reproachful as you
shook your snow at the starlight, and pondered
upon the mysteries of the pattering,
puddling, flowing liveliness of granite nothings…

and the turquoise faded into one horizon, the
other expanded outward, catching the humming of
the air, and the soft intake of the flowers…the green sloped
and shuddered through the lens of the hillside, and above,
the clouds shivered as you painted their likeness in the sky.

#forest #rain #rainfall #colour #sky

forgetting how to feel

Rohan P Oct 2018

forgetting how to feel

you were hovering
—a blackening shadow—
above me

i glimpsed your aura
—hollow, blurred, bruised—
but didn't laugh at your antics,
didn't reflect on your anecdotes:

just turned away,
just pretended to forget how to feel.

i'm sorry i wasn't there for you

four layers

Rohan P Oct 2018

four layers

requiem, black
ink, darkened pencil-
tips paint the air.

lethargy is a
green that defies
autumn.

its darkened
palms (once open,
once layering you in

cold) gently remind:
we'll all ensconce
in ground.

you wore four layers today.

i have only one: but it opens up, unleashing my heart, every time you stop by.

#love #buried

freedom by first principles

Rohan P Dec 2017

freedom by first principles

still, the loss sustains these gaping mouths,
we tire, while you remind me
of the tastes of freedom,
of the colours of lodgepole pines rooted in dry,
eastern soil: bitter
and clear.

#pine #freedom #colour #loss

gather flowers

Rohan P Jul 2018

gather flowers

gather flowers
to burn your whitish
corpse—

(flashes of
you, the sand, warmer
waters: floating in the
blue

you always looked so ethereal, underwater.

#sea

GLASS/ECHOES

Rohan P Jan 2019

GLASS/ECHOES

mind the spiders, mending you.

mind them in flaming trees—dark
sky, ashes in their voided eyes.

mind them crawling in your skin;
mind their daggered
hearts, their twin eyes.

mind the spiders: let loose your love
in this lost, lithe lethargy.

Inspired by MACHINA/The Machines of God.

green knotgrass (rising

Rohan P Feb 2018

green knotgrass (rising

green knotgrass (rising
like a

moon of you)

reflects the ebony
shades of

tranquillity

and the sky dropped in pellets of
sea.

Part 3, concluding my trilogy of introspection as inspired by the sky.

#sky #love

haec fessos terrae

Rohan P Feb 2019

haec fessos terrae

We are that which hashes
    her

That which expends her swirling muscled tones

That which chisel at
this four-by-four;
her cedar

      a vessel desecrated.

We are terse,
we are pixels projecting this
    dance—

Her steady plateau
Her watery eyes

https://www.wilderness.org/

haunt

Rohan P May 2018

haunt

rooftop dandelions danced
in the sun as she pressed her body
to the soil.

she said it felt haunting, almost like
a lullaby, she said,
like her grandma’s
attic, she said: so many spiders.
they crawled on
her palms and bared their little fangs.
“haunt me”, she said.

#haunt

her

Rohan P Aug 2018

her

'her' as whispered praxis:

her
stormy
hair

her
highland
shoulders

brush me in
wind.

nature is just an expression of her.
(f. ellie)

#nature #ellie

her tulips bloomed in the night

Rohan P Apr 2018

her tulips bloomed in the night

her
tulips bloomed in the night,
softer
than the paling
moon/ beams

darker silhouettes
—hers—lined the u’s
and i’s of turning. the headlights
skimmed the road, petalled
like ice.

#tulips #nighttime

hold me

Rohan P May 2018

hold me

i keep thinking that
maybe you’d just turn around
and hold me

turnings and tire tracks (we
were driving on the morning
sand/

you said you’d hold me
before the dawn).

hold me.

#love #heartbreak

hum

Rohan P Jun 2018

hum

upwards open
stringed spirals
spring close to
you.

you purred
with the humming.

#hum

[I am no landscape, my]

Rohan P Dec 2018

[I am no landscape, my]

I am no landscape, my
droning, drowning
dearest.

I am no sanctity to your
touch, no sea to strangle your
pleading, endless eyes.

I am stone to grass,
I am inscribed,
I am memoriam.

i didn't mean to leave you, but the clouds moved by so beautifully, and the birds—

Rohan P Sep 2018

i didn't mean to leave you, but the clouds moved by so beautifully, and the birds—

red-breasted swallows chase
love on our
grave. She piles the earth, spoonful
by spoonful—

I see a torrent of brown
in her hair,
I see her dancing in the early
morning light.

i found something when we were apart.

#clouds #sunday #swallows

i don’t know why her eyes

Rohan P Jun 2018

i don’t know why her eyes

i don’t know why
her eyes
why she soars over plains
and mountainsides

almost
to hold me, almost to say
goodbye.

i don’t know why
her eyes
drown in moons,
puddle in the rain;

in my heart so tirelessly
reside.

for schuyler.
for everything

#i #love #you #like #the #rain

i don’t know why we didn’t fall

Rohan P May 2018

i don’t know why we didn’t fall

falling out like
blowing leaves (upon
the pavement, you leaned
in to kiss me? but the sun rose
and the dreams lifted, veiling
your colours; there’s no point
to going on, you whispered, as we
melted slowly.

when i fell into the emptiness, i didn't feel the slightest bit empty.

#falling

i heard you in the wind

Rohan P Aug 2018

i heard you in the wind

i think you ride
on the wind:

colour the dark
climb the edge of the sun.

i left the window open
for you.

"don't delete the kisses".

#ellie #love

i, knowing,

Rohan P Oct 2018

i, knowing,

i, knowing,
declare you in
manifest—

you're in my
words and worms
and winds.

i embody you in
relation:

i, as aesthetic expression,
you, as visceral reception.

http://artsites.ucsc.edu/sdaniel/230/Relational%20Aesthetics_entire.pdf

#surrealism

i'm burning whatever's left of us

Rohan P Oct 2018

i'm burning whatever's left of us

i'm burning whatever's left of us:

i'm burning
these foundations

i'm forgetting you

i'm walling myself
in flame

i'm watching you walk
away

the doorway collapses
around me before i
realise it's too
late.

WHAT DID I WANT FROM HER?!!

i'm more than you

Rohan P Sep 2018

i'm more than you

i'm more than you
could ever tear apart;

my colours blend like
clouds, soaking through
paper.

i'm sorry

Rohan P Oct 2018

i'm sorry

The metal splinters and bends:

i'm split into moon-shadow
and star-shadow.

i'm ripped apart.
i'm outshined.
i'm sorry.

interlude: river

Rohan P Apr 2018

interlude: river

headway upon
the waters—scratching
like mice, their ears, furred
and wrapped into the overcoat

they dropped: your river was like a
cage.

a brief interlude

#river #mice #caged

in the middle of the night

Rohan P Aug 2018

in the middle of the night

in the

middle (our
love

sails)

of the night.

messing around with structure :)

#structuralist #love #sailing

it didn't rain

Rohan P Jun 2018

it didn't rain

the rains
gather in lines across
your skin.

they wave
like faraway leaves;

they flutter and circle
me; they float out of
reach;

they
brown
in the sodden soil.

I wish it would. Maybe we would hold each other in the deluge.

it will outlast me

Rohan P Oct 2018

it will outlast me

tears fall in wells of the irreplaceable
—their dying, solid currents
forgotten as i brush your sleeve.

it will outlast me:

this weathered floorboard, those lofty chandeliers...

for horizontal reality.

I've known melting snow

Rohan P Dec 2018

I've known melting snow

I've known melting snow like droplets of spruce:

musing greens, feather-whites,

spaces among words,

ink dripping from earth to ether.

had writer's block for a while
hope this heralds the end of that era

I want to look back at it as an ephemeral thing

Rohan P Apr 2019

I want to look back at it as an ephemeral thing

Remember the headrest—muted
and pasted to your arms.
How it felt to smother in voicelessness.

Remember hair stains, decade-weary leather.
Remember the revolutions around ourselves.

Remember as inky sky purples from sunlight;
Confront the oppressive curls of memory.

i want to melt into you

Rohan P Oct 2018

i want to melt into you

i feel your words pressing
into me

they're softer
than i ever thought

"i want to melt into you"

why are they only in my head

in my mind we're holding each other right now we're falling asleep we're ending it all

just

Rohan P Aug 2018

just

just your gaze,
just rising starlight
across your rivers;

just fields of wonder
buried in those eyes.

In my "words" hp profile, "eyes" is one of my most popularly used words. I can see why. I just find something so mysterious about eyes; I could write infinitely about them; I could spend eternity staring into their depths.

#eyes

kick-drum

Rohan P Oct 2018

kick-drum

i'll spare
    the kick-drum
your overturned ashes,

      your northern         spaces:

these

   clouds will
      congregate—

these

     chemicals will
        whirl round and round.

inspired by dcfc's no joy in mudville.

laundry

Rohan P Sep 2018

laundry

you're floating out in the sea, you're washing laundry,
strung and folded in the storm.

you want to crease your
jacket with the tide: it's black and grey like your limbs
and arteries.

but i wanted you to press against me. i wanted you
to give up, to say "i remember".

we're running out:
we're ***** and worn and no ocean can open our
rusted, rotting hearts.

i think you're waiting
for the decay.

you stare into the depths and let them float away.

layers

Rohan P Feb 2018

layers

encoded in
the warmer corners
of pocketed, petalled fields,
blossoms push through earth and mud,
whirl through air and clouds and sky

like you, they
bloomed with the stars and

like you, they
withered with the snow.

lemongrass

Rohan P Apr 2018

lemongrass

yesterday, she
woke to the waving of
the grass

—bitter, golden,
lovable—

and she swept
the ridges and crests with
sunsets and understanding

like a feeling
of waving, waving
away.

on a rainy day, the smell of lemongrass is like the warmth of your memory.

#lemongrass

light rain on these shaking hands

Rohan P Dec 2017

light rain on these shaking hands

light rain on these shaking hands,
shower the earth below,
ease the darkness of our heartland
repose—if only to forgo.

#rain #loss #love

like brushing an inch of snow off a windshield

Rohan P Sep 2018

like brushing an inch of snow off a windshield

we left behind
gated, frosting footsteps:

a pulsing night, pulling
in and out of colour:

you were an
outlined track on our
palms: a myriad of
our voices tangling
as rubber wires:

a crystal in our cloudless breath,
an art i couldn't limn.

you were brittle
and warm: i still

shivered as i brushed
your shoulder.

I think I realise something for the first time:

you're a person I've never met,
but whom I've seen a thousand times.

like winter releasing

Rohan P Jan 2018

like winter releasing

you contour
into imaginations and fold (like spring
creasing)

swimming through the
amalgamations and
smiling (like summer
ceasing)

wandering the paths of
lilac, lily layering—
a feeling (like winter
releasing).

#winter #endings #love

looked at you

Rohan P Nov 2018

looked at you

i know why you don't look at me

knowing i could've
looked at you.

part ii

lovesong

Rohan P Sep 2018

lovesong

then i see you: breath
catches in my throat.

i feel my soul
resounding upon you: sounds
of you, always. do i fool you with my
smile?

i know what i cannot
say: what i can never truly,
truly say:

i miss you i
miss you i miss
you i
miss you i

schuyler, my dearest—

marrow

Rohan P Apr 2018

marrow

your bones soak in
the subtlety of
falling/

or

your cold, faraway
freedom, your pursed,
sunrise lips/

and

that terraced, sloping worry,
buried in your arms/

more like

your whitish and
weathered rain.

inspired by Emily Carr, local poet from Bend, OR.

#bones

medallion of the gray skies

Rohan P Jul 2018

medallion of the gray skies

the oak tree rolls
(a medallion, a junction)
darker than the soil
—
than the gray skies.

metaphor

Rohan P Feb 2018

metaphor

consider the folly of a thousand sunrises as
an appellation of your eyes—
i’ll think of moors and massifs as
a reflection of that
buried inside.

#metaphor #love

moonlight, moonflight

Rohan P Apr 2018

moonlight, moonflight

aspirations beget
lucid, sea-struck moonlight;
emanate your kind regret—
soar with the painted moonflight.

#moonlight

moonset

Rohan P Jan 2018

moonset

unnoticed,
a silvery sliver,
you fade into our shadows,
and descend into our tears.

#moon

my winter sunrise

Rohan P Dec 2017

my winter sunrise

cold and moons, eclipsed by the
shadow of that quickening starlight,
of the encroach, silently, of winter
misgivings, and missings;
lost and fallen in heaps and piles of
plated-snow: narrowing and narrowing.

you dare to reminisce at the dimming of the
night; waiting for the silent ceasing of that electric
light; smiling, for the warm fireside shingles and stones of such
delight; rising, persistent, reaching out to set the hilltops crimson and
alight.

#sunrise #winter

my world mine

Rohan P Dec 2018

my world mine

—World—
its whirling, wheeling whys.

you're my World.
My mine; my
only why,
my world, my whirling,

my world mine.

you're my world—all my world.

"England is mine"
- Morrissey

nailed open

Rohan P Aug 2018

nailed open

the body turns
and trembles
and opens

you didn't tell
me that the green
was closing in

but the fence nailed
open
and turns
and trembles.

#nailed #open #fence #turns #trembles #metaphor

Navigation

Rohan P Jul 2019

Navigation

I'm sailing static across
new surfaces—
soft waves, soft gusts behind me.

It is giving in.
It is an osmotic tickle on my
skin, a fervor
that flows like water:
high to low.

I'm feeling mute heartbeats
at the passage, feeling it must be
larger than this.