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Danielle Sep 20
he had a special place in my heart, though he had it all.

As a kid, I admired all the celestial bodies that I can put in pages, I can see how the constellations are connected to my veins and how the moon is shaped like your eyes.

The more I grow older, the further I learn to wander in the garden, a wilderness where the islands haven't been named, parallels have intertwined and orbits that have once collided.

Oceans were calling me to test its depth— the calmness of it reminds me of you, the stillness of it brought terror as the deep waters are not moving. you're a scenery in a post card that I could receive but not enough to love me.
B Apr 28
Where the air is thin and flowers grow a plenty
take me where it hurts to breathe
where the sun embraces me, so gently
and the towns are quiet but friendly.
We shall fashion daisies into wreathes,
watch as the aspen births her leaves
into crimson colors, so many.
Mark Wanless Jan 2022
i thought i was a voice
in the wilderness
until i heard a voice
in the wilderness
CarolineSD Jul 2021
I let this wilderness excavate my soul
Hard edged rain thrown from a raging sky
Cuts quick across the exposed contours of my neck
Hair gathered and whipped across my eyes
And I will kneel in this dirt and beg to
Be stripped down to the throbbing core
Of what it is that
We really are.

A crack of mountain thunder
Vibrates along my spine
And the wind even bends the tallest bodies of the pines
Who reach their trembling arms high
Above the cliffs
And I am still clutching at the darkened sand at the edges of this
Storm-whipped lake
Heart beating wildly, half-afraid
Of the violent power of this wild space.

But here, finally, in ecstasy,
Like one released,
I find that I am face-to-face
With the missing pieces of my soul
Cut off in jagged edges
From the day that I was born,
And it is only in the presence of haunted,
Exposed wilds
Sometimes high in these cliffs,

And sometimes in someone’s eyes,

That I find myself again.

And so, like one who is often blind,
I extend my hands out into the darkness
Fingertips aching to find
Another spirit that is formed of mountain storms and
Rages wild.
Is it a blessing or a curse to always feel the rushing
of love beneath it all?

"There's a craving that will never come to pass
There's a hunger that will never cease to last
There's an aching that lies deep within my soul
For the promise that someday I could be whole."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCxQiJtmSGk
CarolineSD Jun 2021
By the shores of an alpine lake
Newly thawed
Sun bright and full of an early summer’s
Hopefulness
I watch the goslings waddle
To the lapping edge of the water.

Their mother eyes me, but
Notes that I am
Not a threat.

And I am not a threat.

I tell her softly that she should pass
And I will not throw rocks
Or chase her off
Like so many do
As if we have some greater claim to this
Blue lake
And the evergreen forests
That surround it
Than all of the wild things that quietly adjust their days,
Trace a slightly wider arc,
Around the cacophonous noise we make,

Before slipping quickly up, up and away
Into the thickness of a wilderness
Rife with ponderosa pines
And a crisp silence
Broken only by the wind
And the bird songs
That are the first to speak
Of the winter’s end.

And I prefer to listen
And look often
To the farthest contours of the foothills against the sky,
Borne away from even my own voice that
Seems to demean the purity of things
Free and
Wild.

And time,
A gentle drifting
Like a body on the surface of the lake
Drawn out to the center when
The tide is just right
Pulls me away from these cities we make
Inside our minds
To justify the way we think our lives
Mean more than hers;

Just a mother leading her young ones to take a drink,

And I will never stop her;

The spirit of honest things.

No, I hand her my heart to take to the center of this blue lake
And let it sink like a rock to the dark,
Cool depths where it belongs,

From whence it came.
Hamna Apr 2021
I am lost
In the wilderness of my youth
I fight
with every ounce of my might
To keep the dark forest of desires away from haunting me
I try to flee
To the right path, I see
but thorny branches of nightmarish trees grab me so maliciously
And reach my heart
To pour some venom
I sink
Into a shuddering oblivion
The soulless devil invites me to his enmity
I refuse
As I hearken the sanity
My Lord had provided me
And I cling to it like ivy
Indeed, My Lord helped me to seek Him
Before the devil and the sinful hankerings sought me
I swear I just heard the trees breathe, a deep contented sigh. Harmonious to the one echoed in my soul.

Breathe in, Sway out.

Breathe in, Sway out.

Let the breeze move through your mirrored branches.
A movement dedicated to life beyond your center.
A late night observation in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of everything.
Bardo Mar 2021
He died on the wires, electrified with fear
And riddled with cold religion from the gun-towers
He lay there motionless, all bloodied and burned
With one hand strangely stretched out
Like as if he were reaching out for something
Maybe some long lost freedom he'd once known,
And that look... that look upon his face.
Way in the distance across the fields, on the very edge of the forest
Some children were playing completely oblivious.
The Commandant, he came out and gathered us around
"Let this be a lesson to you all", he said, "no one gets out
No! No one escapes the Mind Camp".

                            II

O! How I wish I'd never read that book
Never come across it
How it haunted my days and chased me through the years
I just couldn't...I just couldn't get past it,
I had been lost, so lost in my head, so confused
Nothing made any sense
And there were monsters everywhere, monsters in the books
And there was no one there to help
It was like I was lost in a very Dark Wood,
But then one day I saw a light
I read words, words that seemed to point toward the truth
They seemed to offer hope
They spoke nicely and politely and smiled pretty smiles at me
They invited me back to their house
and welcomed me in
It was a nice looking house I thought
But the moment I stepped in, the door behind me, it was slammed shut and bolted
And it was like all the air, it was suddenly ****** out
And all the faces, they began to change, become distorted and grotesque
Now they only spoke to give you orders
You must do this! You have to do that! Or else!!!
And then they'd warn you of the terrible consequences that would befall you
If you didn't carry out their wishes, their demands
I...I was trapped, I couldn't get out.
It took me years to escape them
escape their clutches
I couldn't smile again properly or laugh for years after that
How its terrible shadow hung over everything I did.

                          III

They got him in the tunnel, they dragged him out
He hadn't cared much about religion, any of that stuff
He had the Commandant worried
"If Hell and the Devil don't scare him,
This one, this one's a tough nut, a tough nut to crack...
I know, he smiled,  we'll turn up the heat on him
Yea, we'll get him with the Eternals",
So they hit him with the Eternals
Eternal this! Eternal that! Threatening him
But even the Eternals didn't seem to bother him very much
He just kept on going regardless
He was...simply marvelous! What a wonderful Spirit he had,
The Commandant, he had to think again...he mused
" Well if religion doesn't scare him, we'll have to get Science in
We'll get him with a Big word, some frightening idea
That'll crush him, bring him to his knees,
What about... what about the Subconscious Mind, you better watch out, the Subconscious Mind's about
It's always watching you y'know
Just like Big Brother, it's filing it all away
Better watch your step
You can't escape....
Or maybe... what about your genes, yes!
Your future is written in your genes
You have no power, you have no say
You can't do anything to change things
Sorry son, there's nothing you can do That's just the way it is
You just got to accept it"...
Yea! They got him in the tunnel, dragged him out
He'd suffocated, couldn't breathe anymore.

                           IV

He approached me one day in the prison yard, this other prisoner,
I only knew him to see
He came up to me and said "You've been in here a long time just like me,
I heard you're planning a breakout
Me! I've been planning one too,
I was thinking maybe we could go together
When we get out, we could go to the town, join the underground
We could find new words, a new language, build a new world
What do you say ?"
I looked at him and then I looked away
I looked through the fence, across the fields, to the forests, the hills and the mountains
I looked far faraway and then...then I said
"I want to go to a place where I don't have to hear any human voices anymore
No one to bully me or coerce me, entrap or enslave me".

                                    V

Yea, I thought, I'm gonna build myself a little cabin way out in the wilderness somewhere
And live there all alone, all by myself
I'll fish and plant my own garden
I'll live there simply,
And for the first time in my life I'll try and get to know myself
Without any fear pushing me or hanging over my head.

And maybe... maybe one day I'll hear a voice singing in the woods
A strange voice, singing in a strange language with strange words
Something I've never heard before...

A Nature girl singing, some little Indian girl
Innocent and smiling and laughing all the time,
So lighthearted and joyous, so free and unafraid
And maybe she'd see my cabin and come over
A little tentatively, like a little curious fawn deer
And maybe we'd strike up a friendship the two of us, using only simple words and signs,
And maybe in time she'd grow fond of me and me of her
We'd picnic in the meadow by the river in the sun
We'd lie there together the two of us just watching the clouds go by
And she'd sing to me in her wonderful strange words
And her fingers they'd gently stroke my face and my hair
Just like a little mother...and they'd speak to me in their own secret words...their own secret language, they'd say
"You're safe here, you don't have to run anymore".
This poem was inspired by a painting I did called 'Mind Camp', it was a painting of a prison camp a la The Great Escape, with someone dead on the wires. The prison represented the world's & society's rules and monsters and how they damage and suppress the individual. -In a way this is a companion piece to the previous poem. It's about someone who lives mostly in the mind.
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