#goldfinch
Perched on my shattered mind’s eye
Stood a goldfinch, its tiny feet tip-tapping
On my subconscious state of mind
Reinforcing my solipsism that I once lost.
For I, and only I, can remain here;
Your hopefully persuasive words otherwise
Bounce off me easily. The goldfinch is here to stay
To solemnly reassure me that I am always alone.
Jul 26, 2019
Jul 26, 2019 at 9:13 PM UTC
Faded gilding, rubbed through to cracking, flaking wood.
A glamour of ages, sliding, flies to the breeze.
The little bird perches on a once-fine moulding;
Head tilted, one bright eye turned towards the mantle
where a half-blind mercurised mirror barely reflects
an army of creeping vines, consuming naked angels
and the God of this house.
Our hero’s velvets are ruined, dripping and eaten through.
Where riches have lived, decay succeeds.
Nature’s velvets; opulent mosses and emerald lichens
are devouring damask
and smoothing over marbled hardness.
The bird listens for footsteps.
The lady would scatter crumbs on the windowsill
and he would flutter, unafraid,
to peck at her sweet feast.
Once, she drew him.
Fine-lining passerine delicacy,
her pencils fetched him,
and bestowed him an artist’s nobility.
He turned, this way and that,
flashing gold-touched wings,
miming a duchess snapping open a fan.
She’s gone now,
and so have the crumbs.
The bird senses no sugar on the sill,
nor the faintest reminiscence
of lavender perfume, glittering as star bursts
at the hollow of her throat.
He sings regardless,
a mournful beauty
longing to return to a glorious, lustful age,
where light refracted in cut crystal,
danced upon frescoes
and illuminated the ugly –
- to render them enchanting.
He swoops to dance on the mantle,
answered by the mirror
and sits a while, preening.
The gentlemen and ladies are gone forever.
Ejected from history to echo as ghosts of fancy and excess,
undeserving of remembrance or pity.
The bird will never forget.
And knots up secrets
kept tightly in his breast,
committed to his tiny, fierce heart.
Aug 20, 2018
Aug 20, 2018 at 5:15 PM UTC
.
Gold Finch on a tree,
she sings with sweet clarity,
gifting joy to me.
.
© Pagan Paul (20/12/17)
Dec 20, 2017
Dec 20, 2017 at 6:09 AM UTC
You know, this journal does not even contain half of what we know. I hope we never forget.
(sonnet #MMMMMMDCLV)
Now, while cicadas drone 'neath blue skies' pale
Glance, or to deeper shades of that, what hence?
Remember Starbucks' "Friends Day" for intents,
The prompt last night, as yesterday's detail:
We rode the bike path 'gain whose wildflowrs hail
As wont in clover's pink, and yellows thence
With brown eyes, thistles' purple, grasses dense
On either side, while goldfinch laughed t'avail.
I'd hated these auld trails we knew, as poor
Since Mum's death, but now I belong to you,
Oh! all's sae sweet like ne'er before as twere.
My car'mel fru-fru drink was tasty too:
Cuz I am yours. That means I can't write fer
All that cuz evry minute's yours who woo.
08Aug17
Aug 9, 2017
Aug 9, 2017 at 10:40 PM UTC
It was a startling spectacle,
sad, sweet, saccharine,
a violin’s slow swell.
our mouths had clipped shut with words unsaid,
—breathless, stunned, aching,
a casual wave, followed by nights of bitter regret.
If I had asked you to, again,
in the right time, in the right place,
would you have run away with me?
For we had lied in desert waters,
and dreamt of cinematic dreams.
Drowned in our notorious luxuries,
of vending machines and stolen things.
And we had smoked cigarettes
and spent nights lying beside one another,
—blackouts, confusion mixed with longing,
and the unshakable feeling
that our lives may be a mess,
but all had been right in the world.
Nov 7, 2015
Nov 7, 2015 at 8:43 AM UTC
Cold, wet footprints of drowned ghosts
leading you towards nowhere, a heat-blurred unreachable zenith.
Unlit candles, china white on a china plate,
shots of ***** shots of bleach.
Ambling along dusty corridors,
hallways with loose floorboards and memories you're not sure you ever had.
Desert haze, his brooding gaze,
conversational Russian 101 and irretrievable moments
alone in bed together while Sean Connery distracts you from the press of his fingers.
Feb 25, 2015
Feb 25, 2015 at 8:16 PM UTC