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 Mar 2018 Steven L Herring
atr
Amidst the smoke and light and laughter
Along the smiles and cheers thereafter

A sound is bled, wrung free from strings
It bounds and treads and wholly sings
Inside each song, a secret’s moved
Not right nor wrong or frequent proved
The message dances from bow to ear;
A coded trance of love and fear
From left to right the story rings
Of death and light the Cello brings
The covert tale engulfs the room
It vibrates truth to those who loom
The Cello knows for why it’s played
Its secret lost, both gone and stayed

In the smoke and light and laughter
Music lies and cries thereafter
 Mar 2018 Steven L Herring
z
when people are in love
they often say
they simply fell
tripped over their own two feet
face forward
and into the arms of their beloved

i did more than simply fall
onto the ground of your love

you, for me
were an ocean
and i dived
headfirst
roughly
harshly
almost painfully
into the waters of “you”

i knew i could not swim
but i did so anyway
i was drowning
entangled in you
surrounded by this being of “you”
engulfed in this feeling of “you”

and i did not know what came over me
but i let myself drown
i did not try to swim back up
because if i went back to land,
releasing myself from your grasp
that would mean losing the feeling of “you”

and after
submerging into the depth
the love
the passion
of “you”

how could i ever leave?
Freud says tattoos
Are
The Manifestation
Of a
Trauma

Every point
A
Separate pain
We
Have
Suffered

It took
Two
And a
Half
Hours

To complete
The
Diary
Of my
Trauma

And half a million perforations

To convert
Those
Memories
Into something

New

And

Beautiful

To finally
Let go
Of the past
 May 2017 Steven L Herring
ryn
Today is knowing
that the night before
was only a feeble attempt
to delude myself
into thinking
that the world spins around
me and my ideals.

Today I know better.
Today I am sober.
You look like a light-colored satin
Stars f
          a
            l
              l on your caramel hair
Your laureate crown is permanent

You walk fast as a local feline
L'Empereur far from his throne
You look disoriented
You look tired

It's nightfalling
Resolution parts
The moon shines
Gold minds

Lace L'étoile
Jeune ace
Shiny sleeves

I go through a mirror
You're sitting in there
I hide carefully
Not to be alert
I have found myself again
Dreaming of you inside
The reflection of your mirror

At night my opal
                           sleeves are made of satin.

   - Codelandandmore// 6:00 PM ©
Modern poem
We were poets,
Once,
Hearts etched upon our sleeve
The lords of our intent,
Words bloomed for all to see.
Each branch of thought considered,
Chiseled,
Whittled to express.
Carving the forest in our likeness
We paved the landscape with our breath.
Woods would sway in idle days
Sunkissed glades lay bathed in gold.
Nights waylaid by dancing maids
Cheap ale and tales of old.
Fires burn, flames unfold.
Though
Embers remember
Tender clutch of the cold.
We tend to forget the bargained,
The sold.
Up rivers and creeks,
Paddles, disowned by the meek,
Cast away to distant shores.  
Glades decay,
Fade to grey.

We become poets once more.
Teresa climbs on the bus
before the sun, if she has
the fare

to get there, where she
makes the bread; she's been at this
two of her nineteen years  

yet she has fears, they will
come for her--green card or not;
though they like her rolls

she kneads the big *****, pulls,
pinches, a sculpting of dough, a laying
of trays, one after another

then, from the Iglesias,
they come, decked in their finery
though she does not see

she only hears the litany
of language she can't comprehend,
a clanging of trays, laughter

the urging of the jefe to work
faster, bake the bread; the communion
wafers did not fill them

now they are here, breaking fast,
forgetting the words they just heard
the songs they sang

Teresa does not complain; she
is glad to feed the worshipers, though
they will never know her name

nor will they stop for
her in the pouring rain,
the blistering sun

Teresa never wavers
next Sabbath will be the same:
dawn, the dough, the oven

it is the work--her hands
which make the bread others break,
the grace granted to serve

holy, holy, holy...
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