love

Poetry: The Wish

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If I could have a single wish, if I

Could rub the bronze bottle and send him back

With two shiny trinkets still in his hand,

If I could blow out the candles or snap

The bone so that magic dust filled the air,

I would wake to find myself surrounded

By people incapable of lying,

People who had dug deep into their souls

To reveal and face the truth and hold it

In close embrace, enduring the sharp pain

Of discovery until an imprint

Burned into consciousness the awareness

That truth is the real source of human love

And the warm seed of the human spirit.

 

Photo Credit: © Paija | Stock Free Images & Dreamstime Stock Photos

Poetry: Permissions

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When we first met I found myself engaged

In resistance, conjuring flaws where none

Existed, wishing you would disappear

Like a puff of smoke in a crazy wind.

I avoided contact, conversation

And caring, for I had intuited

That you would bring seismic change to my life,

Wrenching my soul from its weak foundation.

Clinging to hope that you would choose safety,

You chose to risk all you were, all you are,

For someone struggling to earn the freedom

To live every dream and fantasy.

Resistance crushed, I surrendered willingly

To the warm permission to be myself.

Image via Dreamstime.com

Poetry: Connections

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Connection is a superficial word,

An image of spliced wires, the chemical

Bonding of atoms, a concentration

Of beams of sound or light, indifferent.

They exist in a state of off-white noise

And paradoxical experience

Where lovers burn deep into their bodies,

Unable to shake cold isolation.

Such a fragile thing, so easily snipped

By a common tool, could never withstand

The hard desire we share. We need the collapse

Of barriers, a fresh wind, silver smoke

Cocooning body and soul, to conquer

Distance through the fearlessness of our love.

 

Art: Claude Theberge

Poetry: Abandoned

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I don’t remember walking in the rain:

There are sparks of memory from that time

When showers pounded the streets and water

Plunged through the gutters, but I was always

Behind a window, warm and dry, confused

That I’d arrived at school without a drop

Staining my shopping mall wardrobe, knowing

The fields would become lakes, empty of life,

And the children would have to play inside

Or on blacktop until the earth was full.

But while I walked to school every day

In permanent sunshine, the long walk home

Ended in darkness—in a cold, dry place

Love had abandoned before I was born.