Silent colors swaying away,
Like a blade that cuts the stars.
A far reach,
Yet close enough to blind.

The emotional synesthesia of my heart and mind,
Conspire to light the fires beneath,
And set myself ablaze on the flameless pyre.

I stare at the wares that I have created,
As I continue the debate with me, myself, and I.

Ticking away.
The timeless eyes.
Bear witness.
To the lightless skies.

The silent colors.
That only I can see.
These synesthetic linguistics.
That fall away.
Onto the synthetic pages.
To which you read.

Nick was a lost boy
With a whispering heart
He held proper Victorian sadness
Until his public strength bowed
As it does with the artistic type
His soul beating modal
And his mask of gilded paper mache
With glue dripping and drying to fragile dreams
He needed to get back to the pastures of Tanworth
Yet London had other ideas
And his stiff upper lip cracked
He was a poet, you see
Who danced with trees...
And everyone knows
Butterflies don't ride bikes
Though that would be beautiful
To see one on a banana seat
Sailing down a country lane...
Alas, butterflies can simply fly away if a bike objects
And feel no pain
But Nick was hurt as he fell to the ground
His sickly hunched posture told of a great weight
Shoulders struggled to shepherd the world
With only Flower his power
And Pen his staff
Sadness met the River Man
And the River Man broke down
Poor, the fame of falling poets
Rich, the earth’s garden of toiled words
Caked under soiled writers nails
A headstone,
"Now we rise
And we are everywhere"
His tailwind to us
Go and look at what our fellow poets eyes do see
And bid hello to another artist’s soul on parade
For, as with you, they too are simply lost
And desperate for a garden to share and grow


© 2019 MJL

My secrets are metaphors.
The words are artfully arranged in alliteration
Or cautiously halted in
Enjambment so that they don't reveal themselves.

My secrets are anaphoric.
They are metonymic, swearing secrecy to the pen.
Sometimes they are synecdoches,
Begging, afraid, in rhyme for your attention again.

My secrets are anecdotes.
They write about themselves through personification.
This poem juxtaposes itself;
I've told you all of my secrets of secrecy-how ironic.

All of my best
(And worst) thoughts
Can be traced
Back to a foreign city
Where I walked the streets
Alone, at night

I held my pen and drowned in thoughts.
Should I write? Or should I not?
I beheld my pen, and I thought deep.
Should I write? Or should I sleep?

And I lay on my bed, with no motivation;
I was lost, so was my inspiration.
And in my dream, confused, I see:
An ethereal lady chanting to me.

Sing your story, and let us hear.
How can I? With all this fear.
Write your love and sing what you feel.
I can't write, unless my words are real.

And I recognized her as she came closer.
The passion I had and thought I lost forever.
And she held my hand and whispered short:
Write for my love, and sing it for my soul.

So I woke up and wrote all night,
And I saw my words dancing with delight.
I wrote and finished that story I adore;
And I lifted my pen, but it asked for more.

I just ordered
My third cup of coffee
After all, I am in good company
Words spilled before me.

Could they have known —
I will always look for
The smell of old books
In this digital world.

Words, my words,
My heart treasures
To put pen to paper.

Time is unkind
For a writer,

Nothing is ephemeral.

You are
A page marked by a folded corner
A love I will come back to
In the future.

Your eyes are lit low,
at dusk, like liquid gold.
There’s heavy silence,
your words come slow.

But, can you just hold on?
let’s wait until the dawn,
let sunlight touch your promise.
What if this goes all wrong?

Your fingertips play my spine,
you swear things will be fine.
I turn into you,
already, you feel like mine.

Your arms protect me,
your eyes, they set me free,
your lips promise forever,
Don’t you ever leave.