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Marshal Gebbie Jul 2010
Catch the motes of dust in light
To feel the threads of time suspend,
In serenade of life’s allure
Where precious moments never end.

Silver tears run down the cheek
In swift departures curled embrace,
Poingnancy for moments few
Of entwined limbs and whiskered face.

Separations loneliness
In gnawing of the very soul,
The wish for time to dissipate
To make the separate halves a whole.

Anticipation’s rawness now
Throws arrowed light to early shroud,
The eagerness to touch and kiss
Brings clear blue sky to morning cloud.

Rationalize the wonderment
Of slender fingers through your hair,
In fantasy of sheer delight
Her silhouette reflected there.

Hold the tantalizing heat
Of tender fires of passion bound
In throngs of longing, deeply felt,
Within the belly’s tufted mound

Exhaustion in the tangled sheet
As bands of sunlight kiss your hair,
Gently now, in drifted sleep
And gales of pleasure fill the air.

Catch the motes of dust in light
To feel the threads of time suspend
In serenade of life’s allure
Where precious moments never end.


Marshalg
Victoria Park tunnel
Auckland
24 July 2010
You come in late, wiping your lips.
What did I leave untouched on the doorstep---

White Nike,
Streaming between my walls?

Smilingly, blue lightning
Assumes, like a meathook, the burden of his parts.

The police love you, you confess everything.
Bright hair, shoe-black, old plastic,

Is my life so intriguing?
Is it for this you widen your eye-rings?

Is it for this the air motes depart?
They rae not air motes, they are corpuscles.

Open your handbag. What is that bad smell?
It is your knitting, busily

Hooking itself to itself,
It is your sticky candies.

I have your head on my wall.
Navel cords, blue-red and lucent,

Shriek from my belly like arrows, and these I ride.
O moon-glow, o sick one,

The stolen horses, the fornications
Circle a womb of marble.

Where are you going
That you **** breath like mileage?

Sulfurous adulteries grieve in a dream.
Cold glass, how you insert yourself

Between myself and myself.
I scratch like a cat.

The blood that runs is dark fruit---
An effect, a cosmetic.

You smile.
No, it is not fatal.
Amanda Jan 2014
I adored the very action of blowing dust-motes off a box.

Watch it dance in the distilled air.

I like the sight it presents.
One where the past snaps the silence of today.

Slowly but surely
re-etching how much time has passed
on the corners of my bruised heart.

Once, happiness and sweetness, those dust-motes are just greyed out.

They kiss my cheeks and eyelashes.

I never blew the remnants of time again.
Enjoy darling readers!
x
Like fairy dust caught in dappled sunlight they dance.
Swirling gracefully like a ballerina pirouetting
on a child's music box.
Graceful specks of fine dirt engrossed in cloaking
surfaces smooth and coarse.
Like petticoats caught in a summer breeze
rippling, and dipping, causing a sneeze.
Dust motes like a kilt swirling,
whirling in the kaleidoscope of daylight,
engross you in devoting a poem to their dance.
Those molecules, atoms of time passed.
© JLB
29/07/2014
09:29 BST
SøułSurvivør Sep 2016
",,  :  '
,  ° .. '' , °..
. ;   . ." ,, ° '',, .  - ,,
because dust motes appear
in the light
means they are also
in

darkness


SoulSurvivor
(C) 9/24/2016
an observation about
light, consciousness
and the
subconscious

°
Amanda Apr 2014
Her eyelids cracked open slightly.

Momentarily, they slowly close again.
Sleep was still languidly dancing across it.

Then she sees sunlight peeking through the little gaps of her curtains.

Dust-motes whisper 'Good morning' as they flit in the buttery-white light.

And, goodness me,
just like
that
her sleepy gaze
met
*magic.
9:39am Saturday Morning.
Hello there sunshine!
x
How are you doing today?
betterdays Mar 2014
words to ether,
rhyme set on the winds.
what is needed now..
to break the rapid fires flow..

words come to nothing,
weary heart hears naught.

but the brachycardic
thump-thumping of
banal poetic bantering.

synapses, slipping, sideways,
into creative slumber.

ten and ten again,
ringing zen gongs, abide,
within,without,withall,
drowning the charismatic
chaotic, tidelike cleverness
of a thinking brain.

time is bought and sold,
in streetmarket stalls.
by spending precious pennies,
and bartering intelligence,
for slow, mudane,urban thoughts.

words to ether,
to mist, to fog,
blown to the ends,
of the earth.
to twist and turn,
and begin again,

as....  a sigh,
a whisper,
a stutter,
a keening in a soul,

a stroke upon a parchment,
a daub slashed on a canvas,
love etched into a heartstring,
a proclaimation allowed an utterance,

a life made a little more whole,
by kindness spent in letters.
written on a sigh of mercy
and sent forth, from the mouth of peace.

these are simply,

the motes of poetic grace
Sara L Russell Mar 2013
29/3/13

Bring me celestial music of the spheres
Such notes as dance in colours in the mind
The shimmering of distant hemispheres
Where streams of rainbow nebulae unwind

Bright notes cascade in sparkling waterfalls
Light motes resound in echoes through the breeze
From secret gardens hid behind stone walls
Paradise plays enticing symphonies

Our earthly plane is rife with vexing noise
Cacophanies of thundering machines;
Barkings of dogs, vexed babies in full voice
keep us earthbound, locked into dull routines.

Reach for the headphones, cover up your ears,
Take in celestial music of the spheres.
What is this, behind this veil, is it ugly, is it beautiful?
It is shimmering, has it *******, has it edges?

I am sure it is unique, I am sure it is what I want.
When I am quiet at my cooking I feel it looking, I feel it thinking

'Is this the one I am too appear for,
Is this the elect one, the one with black eye-pits and a scar?

Measuring the flour, cutting off the surplus,
Adhering to rules, to rules, to rules.

Is this the one for the annunciation?
My god, what a laugh!'

But it shimmers, it does not stop, and I think it wants me.
I would not mind if it were bones, or a pearl button.

I do not want much of a present, anyway, this year.
After all I am alive only by accident.

I would have killed myself gladly that time any possible way.
Now there are these veils, shimmering like curtains,

The diaphanous satins of a January window
White as babies' bedding and glittering with dead breath. O ivory!

It must be a tusk there, a ghost column.
Can you not see I do not mind what it is.

Can you not give it to me?
Do not be ashamed--I do not mind if it is small.

Do not be mean, I am ready for enormity.
Let us sit down to it, one on either side, admiring the gleam,

The glaze, the mirrory variety of it.
Let us eat our last supper at it, like a hospital plate.

I know why you will not give it to me,
You are terrified

The world will go up in a shriek, and your head with it,
Bossed, brazen, an antique shield,

A marvel to your great-grandchildren.
Do not be afraid, it is not so.

I will only take it and go aside quietly.
You will not even hear me opening it, no paper crackle,

No falling ribbons, no scream at the end.
I do not think you credit me with this discretion.

If you only knew how the veils were killing my days.
To you they are only transparencies, clear air.

But my god, the clouds are like cotton.
Armies of them. They are carbon monoxide.

Sweetly, sweetly I breathe in,
Filling my veins with invisibles, with the million

Probable motes that tick the years off my life.
You are silver-suited for the occasion. O adding machine-----

Is it impossible for you to let something go and have it go whole?
Must you stamp each piece purple,

Must you **** what you can?
There is one thing I want today, and only you can give it to me.

It stands at my window, big as the sky.
It breathes from my sheets, the cold dead center

Where split lives congeal and stiffen to history.
Let it not come by the mail, finger by finger.

Let it not come by word of mouth, I should be sixty
By the time the whole of it was delivered, and to numb to use it.

Only let down the veil, the veil, the veil.
If it were death

I would admire the deep gravity of it, its timeless eyes.
I would know you were serious.

There would be a nobility then, there would be a birthday.
And the knife not carve, but enter

Pure and clean as the cry of a baby,
And the universe slide from my side.
Terry O'Leary Sep 2013
MORNING HAS BROKEN
The men, in lines, ***** two by two,
forgetting all the women who
indulged them through a night of tricks
(their lips designed with crimson sticks,
their eyes a wild mascara mix)

and think instead on times ahead
when they’ll be gone, their bodies dead
(some rotting slow’, some mummified)
though once they were their mummy’s pride.

Attired bright in uniforms,
they strew their bombs in desert storms -
like melting sands, the sky deforms
with darkness, death - and doomsday swarms
through ravished lands where fires warm
the corpses, cold and puriform.

Their eyes flash forward towards the backs
of lucky ones who have the knack
of never being in the way
of bursts of bullets as they stray
(effacing phantoms faraway)
and dodging doom’s Redemption Day.

They’re wishing for a foggy morn
or best of all to be unborn,
and peering down to mark the sway
of wings in webs while spiders prey,

they wonder when their time will come
and they can cease their fleeing from
the sights they’ve seen, the deeds they’ve done,
the life they’ve lost, the death they’ve won,

then muse a while upon the child
they killed today when they went wild,
and when they’re finally reconciled
with broken bodies stacked and piled,

they ponder, does she have a kin
to curse them for their burning sin?

And if she does, will god reply
with tooth for tooth and eye for eye?

Or will her clan be mild and meek
and simply turn the other cheek?

2. MIDDAY MUSINGS
They’re counting steps to pass the time
and puzzle if they’ll reach their prime
or if instead they’ll serve the worm
their carnal flesh and aching *****

when soon, perhaps, they sleep in berth
provided by the chilling earth,
and fret about the fate they’ll find
below the stones that slowly grind.

And once or twice will come to mind
a sultry smile they left behind
(the distant past - a tepid trace –
another time, another place),
reflected in the gray grimace
that paints a frightened fading face.

And on they trek through guilt and gloom
to track their own and others' doom
and soon they’ll  grace another pool
with blood of other beings who’ll

inhale no more the evening airs,
unlike the wily Functionaires
who brutalize the fighting men
and send them far away and then

(relaxed, unwound, with victories made)
confer with sword an accolade
on those who’ve lopped bowed heads, with blade,
so someone bent must turn a *****

to hack a hole which then is filled
with all the cloven bodies killed
then cloaked with clay or loamy dirt,
as if to hide the pain and hurt.

3. TEATIME INTROSPECTION
Amongst the many are the few
who maim and **** and think it’s true
that purple war’s a parlour game
when really they’re submerged in shame
for crimes for which they are to blame
and can’t expunge with searing flame

while plodding through an endless time,
or pealing bells with holy chime,
or posing in a paradigm
where paradox and riddle rhyme.

And when they die (as die they must),
forevermore their putrid dust,
still soaked with gore and carmine lust,
will conjure thoughts of cold disgust.

And even though torrential rain
(which tastes at times like cool champagne)
can wash away the scarlet stain
which soaks the sands of god’s terrain,

it cannot ever cleanse the hands
that work the guns and burning brands,
or purge the throats that give commands
to him who never understands.

Nor can the raging hurricane
from blackened souls the white regain,
rescind the sins or void the banes
or loose the ****** from Satan’s chains
who line the pits of hell’s domains.

4. EVENING REFLECTIONS
When through the day to night they pass,
their eyes avoid the looking glass
displaying dim a pale phantasm
plunging deeper down a chasm,
surging through a blood ******,
smiling thin unveiled sarcasm

for the chances lost to taste
the many fruits that went to waste
when each was still a joyous lad,
who went to school and learned to add
and danced in rivers, barefoot clad,

attended church with mom and dad
(which tends the poor and cheers the sad),
to pray for good and curse the bad,
before, in war insanely mad,
he fought the fight (no Galahad)

by flinging flames and slashing throats,
immersing bods in  midnight moats
between the broken battered boats
where babes and booted bodies float,

and leaving bags of bones to bloat
in bullet-ridden overcoats,
and wondered if the goblins gloat
or spot (behind his eyes, the motes),

then strode away without a thought
that mortal lives had come to naught,
sedated by his conscience brought
to nothing more than dripping snot,
while Others sit upon a yacht
and pluck the eyes of fish They’ve caught,

for, when they die, fish seem to see
The Ones behind the tyranny
(with bellies round from gluttony)
in future dangling from a tree
(with leaves as black as ebony),
for that’s, They fear, Their destiny.

5. MIDNIGHT DREAMS**
At night the soldiers sometimes dream
of many things which make them scream,
like
                      floating down a gelid stream
             with burning flesh and cold ice cream
             upon their lips, which makes it seem
             as though their salt they can’t redeem
             when looking back at bold extremes
             of valiant warriors’ victory schemes.

Or ofter yet,
                      they sometimes meet
             a broken skull upon the street
             with gaping eyes, its mouth replete
             with swollen tongue that can’t repeat
             mere words of joy when lovers greet,
             or yell aloud or indiscreet’,

             or talk about the grand deceit
             of Those Who live on Easy Street,
             Who plot, destroy and overeat,
             while others bide beneath a sheet
             on bed of steely cold concrete,

             with final gift a flag or wreath
             that soon will wither like their teeth
             when once they’re settled underneath
             a mound of muck on mouldy heath,
             to lurk in Limbo Land beneath.

And ever more before they wake,
appear quaint dreams not quite opaque,  
like
                      upside down upon a lake
             keeps popping up a pregnant Drake
             who says “there must be some mistake,
             I only have a bellyache”,
             while high above’s a flying Snake,
             (a sight to make a killer quake).

             She cries aloud “for mercy’s sake
             your foresight’s blind, your wisdom’s fake
             the fragile bodies that you break,
             impale or burn upon a stake,
             then stack in layers like a cake,
             reflect a lust that death can’t slake”.

             And turquoise Turtles on the make
             (though taking time to overtake,
             each slurping down a chocolate shake)
             rev up to plead “let us explain,
             we think you men are all insane
            with morals thin as cellophane;

             for, peering through god’s window pane,
             we see quite clearly those you’ve slain,
             enough to fill the Dim Domain
             with blood and guts and tears and pain,
             Chimeras of a frenzied brain.”

             A worn and weary weather vane
             announces floods of claret rain
             that forty days and nights sustain,
             submerging mountains, raising Cain,
             while flushing mankind’s acid reign
             down nature’s evolution drain.

             The Serpent hails a hydroplane
             “because”, she hissed, “we can’t remain;
             behind the hill, the atom’s spark
             has vaporized the palace park,
             reduced to dust the Meadowlark
             and nullified the Rainbow’s arc”.

             And while the others hush and hark,
             a feline Toad begins to bark
             “This plane is certainly Boa’s Ark.

             Let’s flee the Human hierarch,
             forsake all Men to sate the Shark
             which swim within the Waters Dark,
             and purge all traces of the Mark
             in Eden when we disembark.”

             The beasts, in lines, by twos embark.

The dreamers wake, they’re staring, stark,
behind their eyes, a watermark.
Tatiana Cody Oct 2010
Hands shaking as they clumsily undo
Buttons, zippers, clasps
Articles of clothing discarded

Every word that passes between us
Hangs suspended in the air
Like dust motes
Only larger, more distinct
Each facet perfectly discernible
By its own beholder's eye

This was wrong
I could feel it
As my synapses fired
Unconsciously guiding my hands down his back
Arching mine

It feels wrong
But mostly it feels
So
right
Now.
A true story.
Audrey Apr 2014
The master of emotion,
The king of the dance,
Hurried fingers add
A note of daring chance.

Molten happiness
Floats in the air
Like a passing good dream;
With never a care.

Now poignant,
Now sad,
How melencholy
How deep and drab.

Silver metal gleams
In the eye of the mind,
Lost an ancient battles
On which the sun shined.

Melodies curl around inside,
Twining round my arms-
This music can protect me
From any kind of harm.

Sharp, shrieking voices
Let out a scream
As they find out the world
Is not what it seems.

A starry night captures
A beautiful song
For a love through the ages,
The ages so long.

The smooth rythms
Of the everlasting trees
Whisper quietly
Throughout the leaves.

Musty notes
In a darkened room,
And sunshine floods
Into the gloom.

Music tells the truth
And the truth never lies,
But pianos are tricky
And their feelings they hide.

Anger forces the
Furious beats
Into the world
And off silent sheets.

Midnight and brightness
Float in the stars,
Connecting all people,
So close and so far.

Pure and simple,
Liquid notes
Fall in arpeggio scales
Through dancing dust motes.

A single tears falls,
Making no sound
As keys pull memories
Up from the ground.

Everything's so simple
When played in black and white;
The piano controls
My darkness and light.
Mike Jewett Feb 2015
Moonup, shades of sangria
hazed in mothwing
      dust

motes. We wrap in
flannel, tartan Seattle
      warmth

accompanied by smudging sticks.
Batteries never charged-
      defibrillator

shock. Flatline.
You said no violets (you
      didn’t

mean it). Moondown takes
time- scores of swaying shadows
      to arc

the parsecs. Inherit starlight,
bank it, never blink; wet stones
      echo

in the noise of stars.
Ella Gwen Sep 2012
I can never let myself go
completely

because I am afraid
that I will drift apart

like motes of dust on a sunbeam
yet not quite as beautiful

and somewhat more meaningless.
The shadows have their seasons, too.
The feathery web the budding maples
cast down upon the sullen lawn

bears but a faint relation to
high summer's umbrageous weight
and tunnellike continuum-

black leached from green, deep pools
wherein a globe of gnats revolves
as airy as an astrolabe.

The thinning shade of autumn is
an inherited Oriental,
red worn to pink, nap worn to thread.

Shadows on snow look blue. The skier,
exultant at the summit, sees his poles
elongate toward the valley: thus

each blade of grass projects another
opposite the sun, and in marshes
the mesh is infinite,

as the winged eclipse an eagle in flight
drags across the desert floor
is infinitesimal.

And shadows on water!-
the beech bough bent to the speckled lake
where silt motes flicker gold,

or the steel dock underslung
with a submarine that trembles,
its ladder stiffened by air.

And loveliest, because least looked-for,
gray on gray, the stripes
the pearl-white winter sun

hung low beneath the leafless wood
draws out from trunk to trunk across the road
like a stairway that does not rise.
If ever I was accusatory
it's only because I too am guilty.
I try at symmetry
only to end up inadequate.
One who cannot amount to their own ideals
cannot know a single thing.
However certain I am of decay,
I still forget faster than memory would allow me to retain
motes of dust scattered across my library
that were once skin,
places I had been,
not one returning from departure.
No postcards
save for my disintegrated cells who speak only
of transformation.
Hushed in dim light,
scattered across oceans of words whispering,
You're already dead you naive little star.
1602

Pursuing you in your transitions,
In other Motes—
Of other Myths
Your requisition be.
The Prism never held the Hues,
It only heard them play—
Darbi Alise Howe Jun 2013
It's a sweltering night, a sweltering morning really, and my body is tattooed with spider bite kisses and bruises.  I smell of park grass and chlorine and someone else's sweat, my lips are chapped, swollen, my eyes encircled in crimson undertones.  The people on the street stare- I am blonde, a dead give away, slighter and taller than the locals.  Men are confused, women are scornful, police are helpless.  My legs cramp with the dawn as I walk back to the apartment in my hospital-gown green tunic, sobbing openly, hair tangled with twigs and dirt.  It's still dark enough for that, but too quiet.  A milkman stops his work to look up at me and whisper ciao in the most kind and gentle voice I have ever heard, especially here, and I want to throw myself into his arms and sleep and scar his white uniform with the black stains of my tears, though I restrain myself and nod, shuffling forward, shoulders slumped, no eye contact, his gaze a hand stroking my back like the father I never had but always wished for, and I cannot help but cry harder, though I try harder to restrict each sob until I sound as though I'm gasping for air, but I would rather seem asthmatic than week, rather be strange than pitiful.  It is always better to be unknowable, much more simple than openly vulnerable in my experience, though my experiences are drunken from the bottom dredges of a half empty glass, so truly I do not know if this is true, and and every day I understand Hamlet's letter to Ophelia just a bit more, because every day I doubt truth to be a liar just a bit more.

Still, there are some things I know, enough to be called intelligente by a man named Simone, whose eyes shone with solare during the day, but at night became dark and hungry.  I know now why my friend chose to fly off a building in Spain without his wings.  There is a disconnection abroad, no sense of security or protection, demons are awakened and restless, dreams colder, and more cruel; the heat drains one's essence, melting the glue that keeps us who are broken together.  I know that expectations are sad reflections of desires, shadows of my own inadequacies.  I know that I am afraid, that heaven and hell are not places but permanent conditions, that my head is the prison guard of my heart.  Blame and guilt come easily.  There are no distractions, just meaningless directions, and I seem to have forgotten those I brought from home. Here, I am concerned with physical threats, trauma that can be shaken off with a block's worth of strides, yet I cannot seem to lose my naked shadow between the buildings.  I thought I hid it well behind frozen gazes, but the mirrors say, no, no, they know you are all wrong, you foolish girl, you poor little lie, they see through you, they sense your fear and feast upon it, you ignorant child, you are as small as the motes of dust drifting through the beam of a forgotten projector, the film torn and tangled, the screen stuck on one frame

I should have stopped when the milkman spoke. He knows that it is not mirrors who lie, it is us.
short story I wrote about something that happened when I was living in Florence.
Lisa Benson Jun 2017
this is irrational. in mathematics, the human reasoning - there will always be some sort of radical fallacy shoved into the equation. you. you sir, are what i call irrational. i can't lie when i say that i'm quite fond over how tall you stand, like a mountain. like a king. you don't rule the valleys and praries of your people, but you've found power along capalliries and veins. this box jutting irregularly in my chest is what you rule. i could construct motes and bridges and stone castle walls to keep you from getting in, but i can't deny i've always wanted to be a queen. your queen. i've never wanted so badly to rule your world. to take the throne and call you mine.
it's june 2017 and i wrote this in march of 2015. wowie!
Rose L Mar 2015
The storms have set in fast this year
The wet skies a little sticky to the ear
Chalk fizzing in the water but it doesn't affect us in town
and again the leaves have skipped amber to brown;
the ships dock faster every September that rolls around
and the captain keeps telling us he's found less, and less-
by now we've all been wearing the same stuff for years
- Bar sodden coats and lipstick smears
but the word with my friends is since that summer on the shore
We've never come this far inland before.
It's the last term now and the older years that are closest
tell us that the new kids catch on faster, they've noticed
but that's something we're not supposed to discuss
soaking up heavy sunlight like a dusty curtain letting its motes spin
And in the backrooms - new fashion is emerging
and again we're handling with faux grandiose -
the kids at the bottom of the class need this stuff most.
we're not likely to forget.
and that moment when the girl in the pink stood and told us
she wasn't convinced she needed us anymore
and lunch was silent.

All the men at school act like they care
But cold chairs and icy fingers forced their hand
and god knows I'm not quiet anymore -
but I don't think i'll miss the school gore.
Does this make sense to anyone except me? That feeling of being a team at school?
Marshal Gebbie Oct 2018
Shot a rabbit two days ago, it was a good shot taken at distance from height. The rabbit died instantly, it had been digging holes in my lawns, it had to go.

I watched it die and I had cause to ponder the death from a religious angle, where believers say we go to another place when we die?

I know where this rabbit went, he went into my vegetable garden, buried deep with all the other varmints and critters that have crossed my path.

Over the years we, (my wife and I), have turned that patch of barren volcanic ash into a wondrous source of lettuce, potatoes, onions, rhubarb, tomatoes and leek..by adding the carbonaceous remnants of not only these creatures but of composted vegetation, seaweed and selected fertilizers. We also grow the most beautiful roses and deliahs and crysanthemums you will ever come across.

And do you know...in the dark of night other little rabbits and bugs and things come out and nibble those very creations...unaware that they are completing the circle of being.

This is the true spirit of creation, as I see it, where deep in the garden, the motes of nutrition transmogrify beneficially from one entity to another, eventually, for the common good of all.

This is the basis of my belief. Feet on the ground...
What is....most definately is!

M.
Taranaki NZ
Nupur Chowdhury Sep 2018
Dust motes and sweat stains
Faded graffiti over rusted steel plates
Advertising everything, from politicians to a massage parlor,
The engine roars disgruntled, in smoky rancor.

I stepped on your feet, said I was sorry
Tell me mister, could you tell I was lying?
Pushing through the rush-hour crowd
I finally found my footing and was proud.

Well, there’s something to be said for low expectations
A word of praise for cranky co-passengers.
Not that the polite ones aren’t fun,
When they smile and roll their eyes like they’re so done.

And it’s not that I’d ever expect sincerity,
At 10 on a rainy Tuesday morning
I’m not a nihilist, or even much of a cynic by default
But at 10am, I take nice with a bucket of salt.  

I put on my headphones, crank the volume up to max,
Sway to the shrill screeching of pirated tracks
I’m sorry, did you say something? I can’t really tell.
It’s not you’re uninteresting, it’s just that this song is swell.

And maybe I could’ve made more of an effort
Gotten to know your name, exchanged toffees and emotional support
Maybe you’d have told me your story, if my ears were free
Maybe we could’ve found something worth a keep.

But you see, mister, it’s not you it’s me
At 10 on a Tuesday morning, I’m not the best company.
I hope, tomorrow, you’ll find a co-passenger worth your time,
As for me, facelessness suits me just fine.
Eileen Prunster Apr 2012
the sun pours liquid gold
honey flows through the window
motes ripple
and swim in the stream
Many thousand glittering motes
Crowd forward greedily together
In trembling circles.
Extravagantly carousing away
For a whole hour rapidly vanishing,
They rave, delirious, a shrill whir,
Shivering with joy against death.
While kingdoms, sunk into ruin,
Whose thrones, heavy with gold, instantly scattered
Into night and legend, without leaving a trace,
Have never known so fierce a dancing.
Leigh Jun 2015
Dig deep in the sand with a cupped shovel-hand
Until you come across a healthy source of water.

Scoop up what you see and let loose the soggy contents,
Let them dribble through a careful filter fist.

Slowly drip foundations and upon them start your fortress
Using steady streams of trickled dribs and drabs.

Stalagmites in hyperspeed form walls and lookout towers
With the damp bricks one by one constructing peaks.

Spectators of all sizes will collect and cast their gazes
But you must keep up the focused droplet swell.

Maiden battles can't be won and so the masterpiece will crumble
To the tide that forces motes to overflow.

Waves crash and reek their havoc on the castle that you managed
To build with will and manky dripping palms.

The sand on which it once stood will be flattened out and polished
To make way for a palace twice as grand.
.

When on the beach as kids, my Dad taught us to make these incredible castles using only dribbled water and wet sand.

.
claire May 2015
Here is where I sit and dig my teeth into my lower lip and extract the splinter of you from my heart, so I can drip red onto the paper and make it into words. Here is where I tell you how much I ached for you and never said anything. Here is where I laugh regretfully over the word ‘crush,’ which in the end fulfils its title so perfectly. Here is where I bleed.

Fact #1:
You didn’t do anything special to make me like you.
There was no zealous epiphany or grand gesture that sent butterflies streaming through my abdomen. You were horribly wonderfully you, and that’s what did it. That is what tipped me over the edge.
I remember the precise instant everything changed. The pendulum swung into unfamiliar territory; I looked at you and a powerful case of vertigo rocked my being. I may have grabbed onto something. A desk. A chair. Anything to keep me standing until my head resettled on my shoulders and the world was normal again. In any case, you were oblivious. I watched you, both sorry and glad that you were, and struggled not to drown.

I don’t blame you. It wasn’t your fault. How could you have sensed the seismic shift I was so careful not to telegraph? How could you have known I’d go and do something so moronic as get a crush on you? I’m sorry, dear. I am. I wish I hadn’t.

Fact #2:
You think no one has ever had feelings for you.

(What an uncomfortable phrase, Had Feelings For You. Sounds like there’s some sort of compartment in my heart labelled with your name, as though if you cut it open and looked inside you’d see ash and glitter suspended like dust motes in light. Impossible, infinite).

You think this because you’re human, and humans tend to see the worst in themselves. You’re—according to you—awkward, bothersome, repressed, weird, unattractive, alone, different, inferior. You worry over the biggest things, the smallest things, and everything between. You crack open with great frequency.

However.
However.

There is someone in this world who loved you, who loves you still (in a deep deep recess of her soul), who wishes she’d been brave enough to tell you; wishes also that she’d been able to hold you and kiss you and run wild with you in every beautiful place.
You are worth someone’s feelings, and there is a heart out there full of ash and glitter in your name, beating away.
Sadly, you’ll never know whose.

Fact #3:
Crushes ******* sting.

(Don’t look, don’t look at their eyes, don’t look at the color in them or the flare, hold your breath, think of anything else, remind yourself that they can’t, they won’t, it’s stupid. Call them friend, just Friend, because that’s what they want. Don’t let them see the way you pine for them, the roaring creature in your chest. Don’t. Don’t.)

Fact #4:
You didn’t return my feelings.

Inevitably, the person we find ourselves pulled to always lets something slip. A mention of a third party with whom they’d like to (and to me it sounds so painful, so ominous) “get to know.” A giggle when a certain girl or boy passes. An admiring look thrown their way.
Worse, the object of our longing declares they like no one at all, and that’s my story. I’m sorry to say I thought, for just a bit, that you did. It’s my fault for misreading the signs. I take full blame. I’m human, too, after all, and I know very little. Who am I to project my fantasy onto you?

It still hurts, though. Aches in a way I don’t wish to remember or relive, ever. Not being liked back takes the form of black, rolling nausea, which I felt when I laid prone on my bedroom floor, eyes numb and full, breathing air all thick with dead things. It’s a sickness, a condition. A person cannot get over it any quicker or easier than they can a tumor. It can recede or overwhelm and usually one has no say in this gamble.
In my case, there is both. The pain fluctuates from day to day, lifts and falls. I see you and we laugh, and, internally, privately, I bleed. But you don’t need to know that. I will not have you see me as some weak or broken thing when what I am is on fire, hot with a glowing sadness. I’m a survivor of nuclear detonation. My heart was once spattered on these walls, this page, but I’ve gathered it up and molded it together again and it doesn’t look at all how it used to, but today it’s (almost) whole.

Fact #5:
A piece of me will always wish you wanted her the way she wanted you.

I think of other universes, split off from ours: a myriad of alternate trajectories. Perhaps in one of them we are together. Perhaps we looked and we knew and we melded. Who knows? What a silly, futile wish.

That is pain and reality. That is life.
Amanda Apr 2014
Little bits of fallout are scattered at my very feet.

Mingling with dust motes and spilt tears.

These little shards of time.
Whether, they were fragments of clocks & antique watches
or
the very iridescent pockets of dusty memories.

I am not sure.

Few things that I do know is,
please do not try to pick them up.

If you do, be careful, be cautious.
Hold your breath
if
you need to.

One little cut is the doorway
for
all
those creased and crinkled memories
to
tip-toe
in.

I did both.
I held you in my hands.
Wisps of your warmth flitted through my outstretched fingertips.

You flowed gently in my veins,
kissed my ribcage,
gently nudged my heart.

Then,
it
was
n o t h i n g.

I gasp on some days at this emptiness that fills me up.
The silence lends itself to hear my words;
the
truth.

I
           had
you
  in
the
dusty      
past.

The present is one my eyelids cannot close to,
not without your heart-beat saying
'I am here'
to
mine.

Little bits of fallout-
burnt and crinkled memories
mingled
with
shards
of
you
then
*me.
Hello sunshine!
I hope where-ever you are, you are having a wonderful day.
*hugs to you, you and of course, you!*
x
From my rented attic with no earth
To call my own except the air-motes,
I malign the leaden perspective
Of identical gray brick houses,
Orange roof-tiles, orange chimney pots,
And see that first house, as if between
Mirrors, engendering a spectral
Corridor of inane replicas,
Flimsily peopled.
                  But landowners
Own thier cabbage roots, a space of stars,
Indigenous peace. Such substance makes
My eyeful of reflections a ghost's
Eyeful, which, envious,would define
Death as striking root on one land-tract;
Life, its own vaporous wayfarings.
Eileen Prunster Jul 2012
Lead paned windows
beam shafts of coloured light
dust motes floating
spiral upwards
released from
captive carpets
flee
Justin S Wampler Feb 2015
she was a bird on the water
she was clouds reflected
she was trees sighing in the wind
she was sunlight through Venetian blinds
she was dust motes circling lazily
she was Sunday morning ***
she was smiling at me in the mirror
she was bonfires under a pale moon
she was tidal waves of emotion
she was whirlpools of conviction
she was typhoons of jealousy
and I was there too

she is the silhouette of a cigarette pressed to my teeth
she is my shadow cast behind me in the setting sun
she is blue-tinged smoke silently filling the room
she is burning my eyes like chlorine in a crowded pool
she is bars of the cage where my mind is kept penned
she is electric fencing wrapped around my heart
she is buckets of tar drowning me in my dreams
she is written in cursive on the insides of my eyelids
she is slowly shriveling my liver and blackening my lungs
she is living in all the mirrors I look into
she is becoming brobdingnagian prose
maybe that's just me but,

I'm not there anymore.
So why is she still here?
Let it go Justin.



.
Bruised Orange Jan 2012
a crack of light shines into the dungeon of my heart.
i see the dust motes float on by.

this too shall pass whispers across my room,
and the dust motes float on by.
Dominique Dec 2018
Taste the sunlight
Wrap up in the golden thread
The 40 carat golden thread
That leaks like honey on your head

Feel the sunlight
Open up to gamma streams
The seeds of life in gamma streams
That donate such vivacious dreams

Be the sunlight
Buoy the dust motes with your smile
The guileless, butter-melting smile
Illuminating clouds a while

And linger amber in the light.
When all else fails, turn to the warmth within to drive the shadows out. <3
Akemi Feb 2017
Lily marked the gravestone. A white streak across grey cobble, the crumbling visage of a turning sky reflected in the puddle beside her. New dusk brimmed grey gold, a heady dust galloped with the rising easterly winds, a white streak across grey skies. Lily marked the edge of her notebook, nine-past-ten, the end of second period, a break in consciousness, then a tang of blood from her swollen gums. Lenin rose above the rooftops, a hand brushed her forehead as the paramedics left, a black bag.

The answer was heat death, compartmentalised energy, like fireworks falling into darkness. Burning rice, spilt coffee, Ain’s smile. Nights on counter, pad paper, day old rain. Lily fell into a nightmare, smooth black, a single light dissipating as the universe died. She spat blood, missed the bus and collapsed on the walk to school.

It was the anniversary. Setting sun, plumes of white, the exit sigh of a wasted day. Lily woke hours later. She returned to an empty home, suffocated in a dream and rose four hours too early for school. Climbing the roof, she watched the sun rise, grey and formless.

There was ash in the hallway to class, the remnants of the incense from yesterday’s memorial, pencil shavings from the forest, fingers blurring out of definition like the trees around her, the soft empty breath of loose soil. Ain came to the store on a night like this, wind gathered silent around her frame. They found themselves atop a bus shelter, lights rising from a sea of nothingness.

Eight-forty-five, the chalk felt heavy in Lily’s hand, white dash across infinity, city blackout. Everyone went to see the dam, cracked pavement, Ain dripping blood, Lily wreathed in ravens. Below the river, forest spirits wove among power lines, bird bones cracked beneath the soles of children, motes rose. Lily lost sight of Ain, the dam broke and children cheered.

Time passed. Ceaseless time.

Lily drifted through petroleum smoke, dashi, the burning husks of gods. She watched the river ryū sweep through her street, turbid with the broken heads of graves, mad with phantoms. She visited memories yet to form, nurseries of dust, cosmic return of the infinite perceiving itself. She cried, remembering everything, the smell Ain’s wet hair, ricochet of a glass bottle, Lenin’s dirt-smeared skin, the birth and death of the universe; mother unable to afford pad paper, sakura bursting the sky pink, couples riding past on too expensive bikes, father drunk on sake. Ribbons of light danced around Lily, a playful susurration, feeding her more and more memories.

Isn’t it beautiful? Existence burning through itself? A departure with no ending, no beginning, no becoming? Haven’t you lived a full life? Won’t you live it again?

Lily screamed. Split dam flooded the empty grave. The same smell of soy, dust and sweat every day. Lack birthed in the space between, like teeth, lacuna bleeding. Nightmares and old memories pouring out like a knife. Ryū stiffened, red streak across the sky, tail burying into the earth. Rice steam filled the air, a passing train carried Ain and Lily into the city, crowds of smoke, her crescent eyes reflected in a storefront, the eyes her mother loved. April awakening of the forest gods, cool spring rustled the hair around her neck, a humid breath descended from the mountain to the lake. Warm rain fell in sheets, city smudged out of focus, bokeh lights departing, Ain’s wet skin—

The city retracted; a whimper escaped her mouth; her fingers passed through power lines, wood smoke, pavement; seasons collapsed, superimposed like holograms, snow and humus; gyoza steamed, air sirens blared beneath the shadow of foreign planes; kodama rose as ancient trees reclaimed the land; volcanic blasts shook the ocean, AI sped to singularity; reality vanished like light falling off a mirror and Lily ceased to feel.

Space is illusory.

Lily.

It travels ceaselessly through itself.

Lily, stop.

And we don’t exist.

Lily grinned, rising from the reeds, a cattail in each hand. She sped towards a screaming Ain, who tripped on a willow root, and began bopping relentlessly.

“Lily!” Ain cried, squirming on the ground. “Lily, stop!”

Lily grinned, rising from the reeds, a cattail in each hand. She sped towards a screaming Ain, who tripped on a willow root, and began bopping relentlessly.

“Lily!” Ain cried, squirming on the ground. “Lily, stop!”

Lily grinned, rising from the reeds, a cattail in each hand. She sped towards a screaming Ain, who tripped on a willow root, and began bopping relentlessly.

“Lily!” Ain cried, grabbing Lily’s wrists. “Haven’t we done this enough?”
[3] time is a flat circle perceiving itself
/
[1] hellopoetry.com/poem/1554623/the-end-came-a-long-time-ago
/
[2] hellopoetry.com/poem/1798516/an-echo-of-ain
/
How is it that I am now so softly awakened,
My leaves shaken down with music?--
Darling, I love you.
It is not your mouth, for I have known mouths before,--
Though your mouth is more alive than roses,
Roses singing softly
To green leaves after rain.
It is not your eyes, for I have dived often in eyes,--
Though your eyes, even in the yellow glare of footlights,
Are windows into eternal dusk.
Nor is it the live white flashing of your feet,
Nor your gay hands, catching at motes in the spotlight;
Nor the abrupt thick music of your laughter,
When, against the hideous backdrop,
With all its crudities brilliantly lighted,
Suddenly you catch sight of your alarming shadow,
Whirling and contracting.
How is it, then, that I am so keenly aware,
So sensitive to the surges of the wind, or the light,
Heaving silently under blue seas of air?--
Darling, I love you, I am immersed in you.
It is not the unraveled night-time of your hair,--
Though I grow drunk when you press it upon my face:
And though when you gloss its length with a golden brush
I am strings that tremble under a bow.
It was that night I saw you dancing,
The whirl and impalpable float of your garment,
Your throat lifted, your face aglow
(Like waterlilies in moonlight were your knees).
It was that night I heard you singing
In the green-room after your dance was over,
Faint and uneven through the thickness of walls.
(How shall I come to you through the dullness of walls,
Thrusting aside the hands of bitter opinion?)
It was that afternoon, early in June,
When, tired with a sleepless night, and my act performed,
Feeling as stale as streets,
We met under dropping boughs, and you smiled to me:
And we sat by a watery surface of clouds and sky.
I hear only the susurration of intimate leaves;
The stealthy gliding of branches upon slow air.
I see only the point of your chin in sunlight;
And the sinister blue of sunlight on your hair.
The sunlight settles downward upon us in silence.
Now we ****** up through grass blades and encounter,
Pushing white hands amid the green.
Your face flowers whitely among cold leaves.
Soil clings to you, bark falls from you,
You rouse and stretch upward, exhaling earth, inhaling sky,
I touch you, and we drift off together like moons.
Earth dips from under.
We are alone in an immensity of sunlight,
Specks in an infinite golden radiance,
Whirled and tossed upon silent cataracts and torrents.
Give me your hand darling! We float downward.
The moon, a sweeping scimitar, dipped in the stormy straits,
The dawn, a crimson cataract, burst through the eastern gates,
The cliffs were robed in scarlet, the sands were cinnabar,
Where first two men spread wings for flight and dared the hawk afar.

There stands the cunning workman, the crafty past all praise,
The man who chained the Minotaur, the man who built the Maze.
His young son is beside him and the boy's face is a light,
A light of dawn and wonder and of valor infinite.

Their great vans beat the cloven air, like eagles they mount up,
Motes in the wine of morning, specks in a crystal cup,
And lest his wings should melt apace old Daedalus flies low,
But Icarus beats up, beats up, he goes where lightnings go.

He cares no more for warnings, he rushes through the sky,
Braving the crags of ether, daring the gods on high,
Black 'gainst the crimson sunset, golden o'er cloudy snows,
With all Adventure in his heart the first winged man arose.

Dropping gold, dropping gold, where the mists of morning rolled,
On he kept his way undaunted, though his breaths were stabs of cold,
Through the mystery of dawning that no mortal may behold.

Now he shouts, now he sings in the rapture of his wings,
And his great heart burns intenser with the strength of his desire,
As he circles like a swallow, wheeling, flaming, gyre on gyre.

Gazing straight at the sun, half his pilgrimage is done,
And he staggers for a moment, hurries on, reels backward, swerves
In a rain of scattered feathers as he falls in broken curves.

Icarus, Icarus, though the end is piteous,
Yet forever, yea, forever we shall see thee rising thus,
See the first supernal glory, not the ruin hideous.

You were Man, you who ran farther than our eyes can scan,
Man absurd, gigantic, eager for impossible Romance,
Overthrowing all Hell's legions with one warped and broken lance.

On the highest steeps of Space he will have his dwelling-place,
In those far, terrific regions where the cold comes down like Death
Gleams the red glint of his pinions, smokes the vapor of his breath.

Floating downward, very clear, still the echoes reach the ear
Of a little tune he whistles and a little song he sings,
Mounting, mounting still, triumphant, on his torn and broken wings!
The tiniest piece of dust
that's us
No more than an iota
"until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law" (Mt 5:18)
Our hopes and dreams become anecdotes.
Glittering, sparkling silver particles
dancing freely with an abandonment
not seen since childhood.
Time elopes freely, either quickly or slowly.
Dependant on our experience with it.
Is there substance to time?
Are we it's substance ?
Us, the spots, flecks, mites and motes of humanity?

Time erodes what once was
Law, pain, pleasure, life
We remember items long turned to dust
A scintilla of us remain along with our one
grain of thought, lest we forget, we are just
sparkling dust floating around waiting to land
to be turned into the sands of time.
Shoals of grandiose people
ignoring the sermon on the mount
The mote and the Beam.
We see others but not ourselves
We see dust but do not clean it
We see sunlit motes dancing
But we do not dance for after all
For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
—Matthew 7:1-5 KJV
© JLB
The birds' shrill fluting
Beats on the pink blind,
Pierces the pink blind
At whose edge fumble the sun's
Fingers till one obtrudes
And stirs the thick motes.
The room is a close box of pink warmth.
The minutes click.
A man picks across the street
With a metal-pointed stick.
Three clocks drop each twelve pennies
On the drom of noon.
The birds end.
A child's cry ****** the hush.
The wind plucks at a leaf.
The birds rebegin.

— The End —