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Glenn Currier Dec 2019
It’s a quiet cool twilight
and through the windows I see
elm and pear standing in elegant silhouette
arms and delicate fingers
calmly reach for the sky.
They know not the years’ end is nigh
they remember spring summer and fall
and now they rest in winter’s arms
theirs the wisdom of passing
season unto season
their roots reach down and deepen.

We two are quiet at twilight
yet reaching for the heavens,
but we do know the years we’ve stayed,
more than eighteen thousand days
in the embrace of our love
season unto season
our roots deepen
and reach into our hearts
finding reason upon reason
to learn and grow and mature
millions of minutes step by step to endure.

And breath by breath
she has said yes upon yes
to this man unworthy of the grace
I have found in her voice and her embrace.
In moments of anger and near despair
we crafted a sculpture of care.

We’ve walked through darkness into light
knelt before each other sad and contrite
for our failures and night upon night
we have laid side by side
and together we’ve stayed
conquered our pride
found the divine in each other and beyond
turned tears and fears into a durable bond.

Still her smile melts me
floats me and bolts me
and her lips still thrill and pull me into her fiery orbit.
Even after this long, this woman I cannot resist
and yes, she persists
in her acceptance of this old guy
who can still bring a sparkle to her eye
a chuckle to her voice and a smile to her face.

Here we are at this twilight time
golden and holdin together
and – still – yes, still we rhyme.
Dedicated to my wife, Helen Elizabeth Currier on our 50th wedding anniversary - 12-30-19.
Randall Hasper Dec 2019
every up-pushing bent green-yellow-frayed grass blade and raggedy, seed-**** protruding from

the hard cold winter ground in front of me

— like the billions of leafy counterparts and bladed look-alikes growing rudely fecund from —

rocks
cement
asphalt

or from

vacant lots
littered fields
waste-places

remind me that you and i are part of a raggedy but indefatigable weight of persistent  burgeoning glory
Mark Toney Oct 2019
My disquieting thoughts strike at night in the wee hours
As if born along by the autumn winds and bracing cold
Persistent as a fever and fierce as thunderstorms
What can be forgiven and what cannot?
I fall asleep to another night of uncertainly

I awaken to a new day of endurance
My spirit ablaze with hope can cope
With feet steady and face to the wind
Transforming the toughest trial into triumph
Because beyond the pain the prize is seen
9/3/2018 - Poetry form: Reverse Poem - A reverse poem is a poem that can be read forwards (top to bottom) and have one meaning but can also be read backwards (bottom to top) and (potentially) have a different or opposite meaning. It does not have to rhyme and doesn't have to have an opposite meaning when read from bottom to top. It DOES need to make sense when reading it backwards, however. - Copyright © Mark Toney | Year Posted 2018
Juhlhaus Oct 2019
I am a creature
Of movement and pain.
In movement and pain I exist
And have always existed.
To cease movement
Will be to pass from existence.
I am a creature
Of movement and pain.
A marathoner's mantra.
William de klerk Sep 2019
In my hand I hold a ****** pen
repeatedly staked
into my hole ridden heart.
-As I write walls around my mind,
I am locked so far away
from the scolding stares
of ignorant eyes.
I mark the trail of my escape by
Silently bleeding ink across the canvas,
that is my written world.

In my shaking hand I hold a pen,
A sword secretly unsheathed each night
To resist  the unrelenting
demons that dance in the depths of my mind.
Afraid to succumb to sleep
for the fight to seize a soul so shattered
that it longer swings, slashes and stabs
at the black hands holding down
the broken body
desperate for demented thoughts to dissipate.

In my hands I no longer hold a pen,
as out the throat that screams
of a self fulfilling prophesy of pain
protrudes a pen,
and as only silence survives
an empty shell stares back,
haunted by what I've done
longingly gazing at the light far above
as I crawl out the  black pit
I willingly plunged into
for the last time.
Sometimes writing is an escape, other times it takes you to the deepest part of your mind that you fear, and sometimes it's the strength needed to break free from the hold of the darkest parts of your life.
Carl D'Souza Jul 2019
Patient-Endurance is the virtue I need
when striving to improve the situations
which Destiny has brought me,
for while the situations
are not yet improved
I need to patiently endure.
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