Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Laokos May 24
a severed branch in smooth moonlight
adorned above an open gate—
does it lead out or in?
does kindness wait beyond the blind corner,
or something severe
lurking in silence
to devour your life?
something wild with eyes for the dark calls through the night.
an inkling that this night may be your last,
and you’ve already forgotten
the gentle light of the rising sun.
death teases the truth behind the illusion
but never gives up the ghost.
maybe not tonight, but someday—
it will come,
as unavoidable
as the waterfall is to the river.
but you are not the river.
you are the sky, my friend—
vast and open.
do not mistake yourself for your life,
which is but a reflection
on the river, briefly.
let it fall away, as all things must,
over the edge,
into the unknown,
into the mist.
Steve Page May 22
I know the face of God
I have that faith beyond my sight

I know my fellow pilgrims
I have this comfort of common doubts.

I doubt my church at its lychgate
I bear these beliefs in its shade.
Prompted by lines from Conclave, the movie, and also by my recent discovery of lychgates (also known as resurrection gates), sheltered gates standing between consecrated and un-consecrated space, where coffin bearers would wait for the vicar.
While walking through a warm afternoon
that suddenly turned from bright to dim,
with blazing clouds that began to loom
and shadows grew deeper and light was thin:

My way ahead was unexpectedly barred
by an iron gate, its lock snapped shut.
It’s topped by spikes well made to ward
off hurdlers, sharpened, made to deeply cut.

Past the gatehouse, a tunnel, a fallen shelter
from the rapidly coming hard rainfall
that once was sung about by a jester
in time with a tambourine, as I recall.

It leads to a light that’s still ablaze
where sunbeams’ sheen still sparkles bright,
beckoning us all to pass this gate
that looks at first glance a menacing might.

To stay before this wrought iron fence,
its spikes tipped with red poison that drips
into the soil that’s in cracked distress?
I won’t just wait here in the dawning eclipse.

No lock is unpickable, no wall too high
for those with the will to reach new skies.
Inspired by this photo I took of a locked gate and tunnel in Park Sanssouci: https://bsky.app/profile/jackgroundhog.bsky.social/post/3lhj73chk522d

(Yes, there’s a Dylan reference in there)
Zywa Dec 2024
A flowering shrub

at the monastery gate:


butterflies greet me.
Collection "web tissue"
Zywa Nov 2024
The gate has no bell,

no one opens when I knock --


It comes down to me.
Novel "O Diário de um Mago" ("The Pilgrimage", 1987, Paulo Coelho)

'The door had been open the whole time and I hadn't even had the courage to grab the handle.'

Collection "Within the walls"
M Solav Apr 2022
I set myself a reminder
For all the times that I err
So that I may always remember
That I am but a prisoner

Delusions are my prison cell
And questions are the key
Yet the gates seem endless
On the corridor to reality.
Written on July 27th, 2019.


— Copyright © M. Solav —
www.msolav.com

This work may not be used in entirety or in part without the prior approval of its author. Please contact marsolav@outlook.com for usage requests. Thank you.
Karijinbba Jul 2021
~ lover poet friend~
~~~~
Do with us as you please
CONSPIRING UNIVERSE
~RD for angel K~
You aligned us but we the lovers turn the keys to accept or decline even our frantic tantric joy where we rhyme.

For too long I shot my doors fearing flinching distance will have the last laugh.
~~~~
then came my love RD
and I can touch Raj places
no one can and he
Mine that much more.

  I am over being out of time  
Not taking more blows
I exude security confidence power value my yes and nos are good I am myself

If you must to her go who
waits for her younger half
green needing wear, Go.
And you keep your love and Angel K me on hold;?
I rather keep your sword
And Z dagger in hearts orb.
~~~
The cosmos needs nothing
Why should I? I showed you how my journey can prosper us both and our family!

not you and ur other Z.
~~~~
We mirrored each other searching for long lost lovers yet all you see is distance.
And your Z.
There are so many songs to play many lovely little things to live for yours and mine.

Remember make up your mind for our gates to open up your tiny window z must close-respect my freedom of speech.
My love and feelings matter
Yours matter more to me.

We are at crossroads
I've been here before
~~~~
Dignity whispers
I am disciplined in the art of love and boundaries.
I ain't door mat for lovers rainny days.
~~
By Karijinbba.
https://youtu.be/qtRw72ia4rk
Davina E Solomon Apr 2021
And the knowledge of the hedgerow plant, I found embedded in leaf veins ... like in mine, etched along blue lines of a notebook. In the ripples on the remnants of water that pooled, before the mudflats claimed them are the striations of  ol'butot near  Naivasha. His stories tell of caves, a gleaming obsidian of a pre historic introspection. Do forty day fasts suffice to exorcise the springs of sulphur or the forced baptism of a flash flood washing six souls to Hades ? The sun glinted at me through a narrowness of fate, a gorge of interminable seconds and I marvelled at the strata of time in a warp, for it blurted out a moan.

Love spoke in nuanced layers of molten flow that crawled to stillness. Can I not say that stone speaks? A couple of hundred years back in time, self titled discoverers  had seen land that had not been unseen by the thousands who lived for thousands until then. So yes, the strata spoke to me, like the striations in the leaves and the lines that were everywhere telling stories of interminable seconds. Time grooves like a death valley in an engraving, etched like a memory of that which has never been, ripples on sand, circles on water,
Anything can trigger a poem, this one dominoed into Hell’s Gate Park in Kenya. Down below, a random photo I took inside, a few years earlier. It was strange, there was hardly anyone there that day, except the hot sun and a tiny array of grassland herbivores.

“A sparse region of natural beauty, Hell’s Gate runs west of the ancient lava flows of Mount Longonot, a 9,111-foot-high extinct volcano dominating Lake Naivasha and the Rift Valley. Combined with Longonot and Naivasha, the region forms a unique sanctuary for bird and animal life. It has been a longtime favorite of hikers, rock climbers, and nature lovers” [Ref~https://www.csmonitor.com/1985/1203/ohells.html]
At night, against the pulsing embryonic black which could
Squeeze any number of untold horrors from it’s voided heft,
There sits a door; bright searchlights unmoving, having forever
Ago found and revealed the menacing target of their feverish hunt.
The lights, beacons of vision and revelation stay still,
Afraid to ever lift their gaze from the door.

The door; a crimson sentinel of conformity’s’ demands. A gate
To a finite space of infinite secluded terrors. It’s mocking facade,
Not the true foundation of the haunting visage, but it’s chosen
Illumination against the choking nothingness around it.
There is nothing else but it, and if the lights lose
Their oppressive gleaming, there will be nothing.

Would it not be better for the deep to win the ever waging war
Against our struggles to find hints of sight and recognition?
If the door were to vanish from the othering out there,
then it would be impossible to not turn inward. A forced reflection,
a mirror that’s presence is known, existence felt, but is unseen,
only available when the absence is absolute.

Nonplussed, the bastion remains, a gravity well pulsing
In and out the night, as if the darkness centered around
Maintaining the illusion of safety from knowing ourselves.
Do not be afraid, you will not be forsaken or alone with anything
Other than the beating of your quickened pulse, the edges
Of your vision shrinking until all that you are

Is mirrored in that crimson sentinel.
Sometimes even the simplest things can sometimes a sense of uneasy dread
Ashlyn Yoshida Mar 2021
We've locked ourselves
in rooms of steel
created safe places
designed like prison cells
everyone says there is no way
to escape
without someone to call out our name
and no way to be free
without a light to guide us through the maze

But it will always have to be our feet
that takes us through this hell
And our own eyes
that will lead us well

Relying on others to help you is wrong
a delusion taught to you
through poems, stories, and songs
It will only be you and your willingness to heal
But that does not mean you have to walk alone
to break down all your seals

Stop this searching for that 'one true love'
the more you look
the further your real goals will become
to truly love another
is to forgive and mend yourself
because resenting your actions
only hurts everyone else
you do not love if you hurt and hate
it will only be your hands
that opens your heart's gate.

True love takes work
true love takes time
it only comes across your heart
when you work hard to be of sound mind
But what would I know?
I'm only sixteen

what experience would I have gone through
to really know what that love means?
Be kind, be gentle, be the silent strength inside.
Be a stream that leads to a river.
Next page