Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Stephen Purcell Mar 2020
Do you ever wonder, when the leaves dance in the wind, if stones get jealous?
Or, when the sun dives, bleeding through the evening sky, a silver tear slides down the moon's pockmarked face?

Do you ever wonder, if the glistening mist through weeping willow's boughs calms the whispering winter winds? Or quiets it? Is the snow their silent tribute, falling from the stark still clouds?

The wind you see, is madness. The spring sings after stillness, after soft snowdrift coats the landscape in white. The earth grows cold and thaws and crawls slowly out of slumber.

Spring sings and birdsong rings though the air. The flowers peek up from their beds and summer starts to stir.

The wind is madness because, as the brightest summers go on and on and the bees banquet seems never ending; the nectar ain't eternal.

It's the earth's lament, not winter itself, but the unending cycle. That's how it goes and that's how it blows.
I wonder if the earth cries hurricanes?
First half decent, last half crap. First poem in ages
Stephen Purcell Oct 2013
Entangled, inseparable, the dark and the light; the sun and the night.
Sandy blond hair and a musical laugh; jet black locks and swiftest flight.
Heights they encompass and the depths they rule.
One, united forever, from balance to fall.
He, the prophet, musician and scholar; She, the maiden, huntress and guardian.
Spheres opposing, mixed and mighty.
Fire and water, the shadows in the forest and the piercing rays of dawn.
Starstruck, moonstruck  and tied together in lunar madness.
The Lord, the Lady, marked by fate bound by destiny, yet the fall begins.
Intoxicating, this bond is; the burden of power, responsibility and statute.
Deep they fell, into abysmal glorious ecstasy, and crossed the forbidden boundary.
Their spheres merge, tempted they are and temptation the succumb to.
Blood, the blood they share, reddens the moon and darkens the sun.
The Earth descends into eternal twilight.
Stephen Purcell Nov 2013
Dancing in the wind, quite literally.
In the beginning, you danced in the rain,
Your fire doused by the weight of the world.
You spluttered and your glow was crushed.
The expectations of society held you down.
Your movements were feeble and your light was dying.

It began with a touch of innocence, that harmless naiveté that age withers away.
Such a fragile essence of youth is pounded by the harsh reality that is life. Broken.
This acidic reality consumes all; Innocence, hope and simple idealism.
Maturity is a merciless awakening to a ruthless existence.


She drowned you in standards of beauty and perfection.
Did you not realise we are all beautiful?


The moment stops, stands in turmoil
and caustic, sarcastic scepticism.
It builds, climbs and crashes around you.
You fall, die and are swept away.
Only a spark remains.


‘A will to shatter stars.’
Your mind snaps, is reformed and strengthened.
Apparently, “what doesn’t **** you makes you stronger.’


The darkness of your father’s death;
and the morbid beauty contained within that blood-stained image is glorious.
It drives you to new heights and drags you to more depraved depths.


Passion unblocked, and lo, it lies on lofty heights.
Luminous, boundless, binding.
Your smouldering coal bursts into flame anew.
A curious desire for life is born;
Its candle flickers alongside a raging inferno.


A rebirth ensues.
Complete eclipse of restriction cycles from new moon to full.
The lunar light darkens shade by shade, shadows lengthen and the sky descends.


Lightning arcs though strong clouds.
Pulsing energy razes the heavens in its purest form.
This is the ultimate representation of your freed mind.
This chaotic rolling mass of fury, built up over years of restrained frustration.

Inexorably intertwined, our threads on fates tapestry weave over and over.
A ghost of echoing sentiment remains, one that must be guided, lest it is forever lost.



Gently nurturing a recovering mind is a tedious process.
Great perseverance and patience are required to preserve both its sanity and your own.
‘Tis a far reaching and noble goal, yet one of the most arduous of all to pursue.


This explosion of your psyche and subsequent downfall leaves a dangerous dilemma.
A block, if you will. A redeeming light remains from your rapid release of consciousness.
The key, is in finding that light.
Unlocking this matrix of memory produces a spectacular result.
This web of twisting thoughts spins in the air.
Dancing in the wind, quite literally.
Stephen Purcell Oct 2013
Blood, so potent, the reagent of life.
Birthed from chaos and establishing ‘order’. structured yet willful  influencing life, love and the balance.
Riled in war, simmering in peace, ready to explode.
The whims of blood, The Blood.

Whether split or spread it always calls, eternal curse of power.
The debts paid, yet always reincurred.
The currency of the heavens and depths, glorious and tempting. By knife or pen, bled or bred, the Blood always rises.

Sacred, sanguine, hallowed, holy.
Sacrifice, cleaned by fire washed by blood.
A cleansing spring, the red water of life flows.

Signed, sealed and bound in blood.
The pact renewed, the covenant reborn.
Stephen Purcell Jan 2015
As the daystar crowns a new horizon, Night's silence is sundered and Light's symphony rings.
Divine rays colour the low-lying clouds a veritable plethora of hues, both bright and subtle. Cottonwool-spun gems are arrayed, layered and drifting about on the morning wind.
Heaven shows itself in the sky.
Stephen Purcell Jan 2015
Stunning vistas of sapphire blue are broken only by the thin line of the horizon.
Mountainous clouds settle over ones vision and create a contrasting feeling:
The freedom of the air is replaced by the strength and solitude of being alone in the sky.
Stephen Purcell Dec 2014
From beach to beach to beach, glimmering shimmers of sand laden waves lap lazily at your feet. The seaweed masquerade of the crab clumsily dancing amongst the foam is paradoxically poignant but apt.
Sighs of relief as the soothing sensation of the sea on hot blistered feet capture the essence of the moment. The simple pleasures of the beach; sand ridden toes and remarkably veined geodes; the golden grains and barnacle encrusted rocks provide a unique treasure indeed.
And then comes the gentle pitter-patter of a sunshower- putting a literal damper on things- but uniquely completing the picturesque scene.
Inspired during the Abel Tasman Coastal Track, one of New Zealand's 'Great Walks'.
Stephen Purcell May 2016
Captivating, alluring, the attractive smell of seduction.
Forbidden fruits of temptation, shining on a pedestal.
A hungry, lust filled gaze sights this perfect rose.
Pursues it, consumes it, dances in drunken ecstasy.
And, as the dammed, falls into endless despair.
Stephen Purcell Aug 2018
To languish.
To lie in wait, to wait in fear, to fear in darkness.
A prisoner languishes, as does a lobster in the ***.
Dungeon, tower or suburban shed; it's the silence, the cursed quiet.
Weakness and sorrow and cold and waiting, always waiting.
Run-on musings of a word. Hopefully a new beginning. Mostly practice.
Stephen Purcell Sep 2015
The eternal tango of the maestro manifests itself in nigh infinite ways.
With the flick of the artist's brush, the stroke of the novelist’s pen or the chicken scratch of the scholar’s nib, legacies are etched, history is written and the world is shaped.
The astronomer, the craftsman and the physician all have one thing in common: Mastery.
Such pinnacles of skill have decades of their lives consumed, nay devoured in the pursuit of perfection, of greatness. Like grains of sand slowly falling into a furnace are the seconds of our lives, trickling, melting into puddles. But as sand melts, it forms shapes; therein lies the potential. Moldable puddles, colourless, devoid of naught but a clear medium.
Classical ideals of education and life. Miscellaneous cultural connections.
Stephen Purcell Jul 2014
The gradient of the mind

Black tears she cries, black to match her dour estate.
In the halls of the house sits darkness.
Cold is the night, constricting and binding,
only the minds of the naive escape its clutches.

White encapsulates his psyche, blindingly brilliant
and wasteful purity.
Gradually poisoned, the shadows creep through.
His bright light turns to grey.

The shadows twist forward, watching always watching.
Ensnaring souls, precious souls and infecting all.
‘Shadows exist behind all objects illuminated’
Or so the saying goes.

The chalice fills, overflows and spills.
Spills the sorrow of the mourning, spills the wrath of the vengeful.
Spills the love of the kind and ignorance of the doubtful.
This cup tips and writhing colours meet on the ground.

Ribbons dancing fluidly in the wind, whirling like flames.
Sights unseen by mortal eyes for many ages gone by.
Tangible streams merrily fly from heart to heart,
loosely connecting motes of light in the darkness of the void.

Higher, the mind ascends, infinitesimal mysteries grow.
Deeper into the abyss, conundrums swirl in misty reaches.
Forbidden knowledge beckons.
In the locked tomes of silence, a whisper is heard.

Fingers close around your swallowing throat.
Trapped they have you. Cut off from all.
The power fills you, an urging you felt.
‘Escape: delve back into the hidden depths of time.’

One midsummers night you dream.
Of teary ladies and foreboding towers.
Morn arrives and you venture into the dawn,
her face in your mind and song on your lips.

The song begins, weaves and binds; the greatest of us all consumed.
Minds break, splinter and fracture under its demanding weight.
Fevered and weary we are compelled to follow. Nuanced and delicate, a haunting melody.
It dances through your mind. The song of Time.

Like fire it leaps from sapling to sapling.
We are all trees in this great forest of life.
Very few resist its intricate thrilling cadence.
Only five score have remained sane.
Stephen Purcell Jul 2014
Each moment; each thread in the fabric we call existence; is a precious gift.
Blessed or cursed, in hope or despair, we can only marvel at each passing second, minute, hour.....


Multi-faceted, fragrant and eye-wrenching life swirls around us, wreathed in sheer Humanity.

And so we dance the Dance of Life. When a crimson sunset concludes this day;
Days of grey, dreary and mired or Days of depth and mystery, whether lit up or clouded by rain;
We dance in this moment, dance in this day and dance the eternal Dance of Life.
Stephen Purcell Dec 2015
To me, words sing. They carry me up to the heavens and drag me down to the depths.

Sentences soar. They lie there, dripping with juicy meaning as they whisper softly.

Descriptions dance. Well paced prose or the precise hitting of phonetic notes are a symphony to my ears.

Pearls are found amongst the thickest of slime. Masterpieces of diction, form and character one can uncover, buried underneath the deepest mires of messiness.

These glorious works, both lengthy and pointed, are attractive for one main reason: the thoughts and flavour they contain.
These concepts swirl and crystalise like intricate snowflakes and make me think, 'If only life was always like this'.

Webbed connections spin and mesh, reflections and shattered mirrors are found everywhere. The hallmarks of beauty and the breath of the Divine mix with dark and twisted truths. Great words and those more humble writings weave a magnificent tapestry indeed.
When Inspiro granted me a birthday present at 1am on the 14th of December, I used it as best I could. Here is a snapshot of my thoughts on reading and writing.
Stephen Purcell Dec 2013
Tears of blood run down a snow white face.
Doubly compounded purity, sanguine and ancient.

Dancing flames infuse the veins of life,
Consanguinity is a curious riddle.

New blood merges with old; when they meet sparks fly.
These sparks develop, building ideas, lives and Gifts.

Psyche, breath and spirit are passed down.
Lineage, loyalty, honour and creed encompass all through these ties.

The dual lusts; both for blood; fulfil their purpose.
Eyes cloud scarlet red until they are sated.

The shedding, sharing and spawning of blood.
These are the foci of this world.
Stephen Purcell May 2016
Red blood, staining crisp, white linen
Dripping slowly from her gaping side, her body folds, tumbling to the floor
A soft but pitiful sigh escapes her parted lips
Her last breath, her last shudder, her last
Scarlet pooling away
Gradual, inevitable, insatiable
Death
Stephen Purcell Oct 2018
To those who wrong his chosen, he is retribution incarnate.
From his hands come gifts to those who help him on his path and judgement to those who hinder.
He is the light shining in the midst of shadows.
Lord and friend and shield and home.
A mirror of potential, a catalyst of those who strive to honour his esteem
A being of action and justice and the outreaching of hands.
His gifts seed life and his name brings hope.
Confidant to the world-weary and a gentle helping hand.
He is the Soul of the Protector.
Stephen Purcell Jan 2018
Have you ever fallen into the world behind your eyes?
Tis a world beyond description, of concept and timeless colour, pure sensation.
Have you ever loved the world behind the sky?
Loved the ideas, not the people, not the grass, but the sound of green on green.
Have you ever dined in a maze of countless lies?
Seen the beauty in the words, danced in meadows made of her...
Have you ever sat and watched the darkness; the twilight, mirrored starlight?
I have and it burned quietly; quietly and softly.
Stephen Purcell Oct 2013
The sun creeps over the horizon
Spreading divine rays across the sky
Golden fields sown with ripe corn gleam in the radiant sunlight
Bejewelled helms reflect multi-coloured lights as kings ride to war
A day of new beginnings, joy and wonder

The last shining light of day disappears over the lip of the world as shadow sets in
Grey immerses the world in perpetual slumber, the only witnesses nocturnal
Sleepy eyed townsfolk trudge to bed while thieves and spies awaken
The reign of night has begun
Stephen Purcell Mar 2015
Rarer than diamonds, knowledge or hallowed life itself, valued beyond reckoning, two souls lay in the warmth. Their sire's face was awestruck, openly joyous at the miraculous news he had just received. The sheer happiness and tears that happiness had brought forth was almost as unprecedented as the event that caused it. His usually stone like mask almost completely melted as he embraced his wife and for the first time in 200 years, truly laughed. In the comforting softness of their mother’s womb, two consciousnesses  peacefully rested, unaware of the joy that their existence had wrought. In this warmth they stirred, feeble minds looking about for something to latch onto; and something they found. Metaphysical tendrils tenuously probed the lowest reaches of the upper dimensions. The twin psyches emitted an aura of precinct, but naive curiosity, 'looking' for some form of contact. Feeling the projection and reception of joy from the warmth surrounding them, they absorbed, discovered an experienced that joy, if only for a moment. As the wandering tendrils of not-thought climbed higher and brighter they came to an open Plane; the middle. Unable to go upward or back, they drifted forward, each in an opposing direction. They 'saw' each other. Timidly and slowly, each danced around the other tendril of thought, assessing and recognising its companion.
Hesitant, wondrous and cheerful, the strings of unstructured consciousness circle closer and closer, until one audaciously brushes against the other. At contact, they each shyly shuffle closer feeling and tasting the other. The tendrils give a faint shiver, grow taut and then still, before glowing. Revelling in their newfound closeness, the twin minds rapidly pulse, imitating a feeling felt but minutes beforehand; crisp, pure and untainted joy. The sensation flares majestically, before dimming to a low hum of contentment. In the material realm, their mother looks at her husband, her face lighting up at what she feels inside her; her children. Diamond tears slowly wash emerald eyes as she is embraced tightly, from both without and within.
More of a story than a poem.
Stephen Purcell Aug 2015
Not merely soulmates, matched and equal, but two halves of the same soul incomplete without the other.
Intricately woven links, platinum meshing with layered silver.
Breath-stealing, life exuding, divine.

'Oh, the tales that will be told of this love.'

Hesitant, wondrous and cheerful, the strings of unstructured consciousness circle. Living, imagining and eternal.
Revelling. Crisp, pure and untainted *joy.
An ode to uncapturable impossibilities.
Stephen Purcell Feb 2019
Toothfish. Wide and frozen.
Wet gloves, odd sawdust and plastic.  
Time and fish both slip.
A haiku
Stephen Purcell Mar 2018
Baptised by the rain, by your companion's tears and by the pouring dripping fear.
Step down, my love, from the dark clouds into the muck; into the mire of my soul.
White you once were and white you will become. Be still, my love and see me tear.
See me rip and roar with pain, begging, kneeling before the face of it. The face of the Abyss.
See me falling. See me bleeding into the river, the mighty torrent.
Above us is a holy light. Look up, my love. Look up and fly.
Stephen Purcell May 2016
Christ eternal, the seal, the white lamb.
Divinity personified, given in place of us.
The fulfilment of the ultimate blood price,
paid in full with divine blood.
Defeated by death, yet death he defeated,
Rose from the ashes, He struck down the shadows and shone.
Shone into the abyss, the fate that awaited all sinners;
Broke death, brought life and us.
Cleansed our corrupted souls for eternity.
Through the blood of Christ we live.
Through the blood of Christ we are free.
And through the blood of Christ, DEATH IS NO MORE!
Dawn arises, light shines, the beacon is lit and night’s silence is broken.
Stephen Purcell Jan 2015
The eternal cycle, birth to death
A passionate, if short, existence
Perspectives, so absolute, matter not under the immense age of the world
Ignorant or enlightened, ruler or slave, every life has the same ending,
With one exception

Immortality, the eternal curse
Lethargy broken only by spontaneous moments of conflict, insight or passion
Bounty through time, only increasing the boredom, the thrill of the chase relying on lack of resources
Power, knowledge and skill are the only benefits of this lonely existence

— The End —