Gentle Giants

What soft shapes they were,
gentle giants and wistful wisps,
marching solemly across the sky.
Where are they voyaging?
They seem unpetrubed by such a question,
The sky calls them on,
The colors are deepening,
First a pale gold and then the softest pink,
A blossoming red will soon follow
And out of nowhere a darkness,
And I fear my words will run out then.
But I’ll hear you quietly sigh,
Making me realize that enough has been said.

Hydra

Hydra
I see it now,
it stands afloat a blue that calls upon our longing
it’s as if someone placed a piece of land
atop an exotic cocktail.
But the smell of salt gives up this illusion,
There are no ethanol vapors here, no spirits
except our own.
Hydra
There she is,
Lonesome yet bustling,
There is life here,
But quiet and considerate.
Cohen lived here you know,
he fell in love and wrote on love here,
I think the waters still hold his words.
I picture him staring out across a windowsill,
Wondering about this ship that approaches,
Did he foresee us as ghosts?
Gosh, what a fright we must have given him,
Scared him half to dead did we.
Hydra, there it is
How long has it stood there,
among waves, among wars
And now among us.

Setting Sail

Tonight I want to write my heart away for it is heavy with words. Not in the romantic love sodden manner I often do, although I’m quite sure it’ll find it’s way to manifest in some shape or form. Tonight I write my heart away as if I’m setting sail in the dusk. I cannot see the horizon but I glance across in the direction it’s supposed to be and I am waiting for that silver of Sun so I can push away from the shore.

Beneath the floorboards of the vessel I sit in there’s countless treasures I’ve collected across the years. They are bottled and canned, a bit dusty and dented at the edges but the memories they contain are wholesome still. For how can such wonderful moments decay? My only fear is that if the bottles are to crack or the cans were to split open, would these memories rise up and get lost among the stars?

Oh, what would I do then? I suppose I will spend my entire voyage chasing them down. I will pick out the stars that shine brightest and believe that it is a memory that makes it shine so. For there is no other reason, no destination in store for me and I will leave my fate to the stars like an explorer of the past.

There I see it now, that unmistakable glow of  a new day.

I must go.

Content

And in that moment
I felt my nerves no longer fray,
this heart of mine it beat steady,
Unhurried.
There was no throb in this chest,
no exaggerated pulsing of the arteries
running down my neck.
No, there was none of that,
none of which I usually am.
There was only you next to me,
And I next to you,
paired with a feeling I don’t often have.

somewhere

I’ve always fallen for the notion
that people make places,
that there is nothing special
about here or there,
not if the ones we call our own
are there to see it,
It’s you and I that breathe the words
which define a place.
Home is not a home,
Scenery isn’t scenery,
Not until we’ve called it so.
And just like that,
I think “somewhere” would essentially be
Nowhere,
Not unless we had seen it,
Not unless it’s name had passed through our lips.

Thankfulness

Here’s to another day lived
on the same Earth as you,
I am thankful to have met you,
while my wounds are still fresh,
while my scars have not faded,
And the weariness inhabits the lines on my face.
Yes, I am thankful,
thankful for this brokenness,
this human-ness,
this aching.
And you, you’ve shown me yours so willingly,
And asked me to treat
this feeling like a gift,
Such is the way I’ve taken to it,
Like roots reaching into the soil
I embrace your presence.

Signal

Light the torch,
And if at first it doesn’t take the flame,
Fuel it with your soul,
Your unflinching will,
The parts that keep your skin so warm.
I know something glows inside you,
A white, unrelenting fire.
Use it and light that torch.
And when you’ve done that,
Raise it to the sky,
Swing it and disturb the fog,
I will see it,
I promise you,
I will see it,
For I need you to guide me safe,
I need you to help me avoid those rocks,
To navigate through treachery,
For I do not trust my compass,
I do not believe the stars,
Yours is the only signal I look for.
Use whatever you have left,
Keep it burning,
Wave until I hold you,
And promise to never leave your arms.

Palmer Creases

Home is right there,
it’s right there in her hands.
In some ways you knew you’d find it there.
Even though you’ve never held them
Something about the lines drawn across those palms
call to you.
They remind you of rivers,
Cold mountain streams,
The kind that you dip your fingers in,
cautiously ,
And let the iciness surprise you.
You feel that the same would happen,
If you were to reach out and place yours on hers,
But are you ready to let rivers collide?

Yesterday

I need to write about Yesterday,
So we don’t forget.
Not you, not I, will ever forget.
We shouldn’t. We mustn’t.
I think from this moment onwards
I’ll always refer to yesterday, as Yesterday.
Yes, that’s what it should be.
It needs to be.
It has to be.
We’ll call it Yesterday, two days from now,
We’ll call it that, a week from now,
And even as the years go by,
That’s what it will always be.
Yesterday.

Stories

Are we moving pictures,

Silhouettes that float

Against the backdrop of the unknowable?

We try so hard to remember

And yet we’ve forgotten some of our stories,

Lost episodes whose fragments float aimlessly

As echoes in outer space.

When they’re heard,

If they’re heard,

I wonder if it will quicken the listener’s pulse

Or have we been so lucky to be one among few

To know of what words can do to the heart?