Tag: Creative Writing – Poetry

Author: Rodrigo Koller

there’s a blackbird at my window

that wants to get in

but the glass is too thick for him.

there’s a blackbird at my window

that wants to get in,

spreading its wings and screaming my name,

demanding I let him in

but the monsters inside are too cruel for him.

I tell him

Stay out,

don’t you wanna live

and die at war under the sun?

there’s a blackbird at my window

that keeps crashing its beak against my heart

hoping to crack it one day

but I’m too tough for him.

I tell him

Do you wanna tear me up?

tear my insides out for the world to see?

I won’t let you get in

I will just stay at your form until you die

and leave your body there

so no bird comes to scar me again.

but at night sometimes

when he can’t no more

he sings a little,

and it’s enough to pierce the glass

and make me sob a little.

and I forget the walls I’ve made

so women don’t see my heart,

and there I am again

my insides torn apart,

my soul singing and bleeding.

Image: ‘Champagne’ © Sam Howitz. – CC BY 2.0 licence

Author: Marina Silietti

Peace

I was spattered with your lies echoing in my dreams
I felt hopeless, wrecked by the winds that took all of my tears
My bones cracked wondrously on your deceiving skin
My fears were painted in hell and I never saw it coming

My mind shattered slowly as you stood there
Sinking my thoughts and I deemed rugged revenge
I waded out brutally into your brokenness
And your ocean blue eyes bathed in knowingness

You put in the bag the last piece of me
Sidestepping my dismantled wounds
Wandering with your desolate dishonesty
While I was still in the woods

I laid there on the cold reddened ground
Claiming the mercy of the full moon
Asking for the mortality of our bound
While she lighted the inky room

And in the death of my soul, I found peace

Champagne Taste

I swallow your glance like pouring water
And you wreck my fears like golden cure
It’s delicate how you’re spinning in my brain
It’s untamed how you’re shining despite the pain

The champagne drops falling onto our faces is the only remedy
The brightest nights sparkling between the dark is our lightened legacy
So, I’d dare to hold your hand in the crowded room
Are they noticing how I pray for your body to bloom

This song isn’t made for the mighty stars
I’ll ask you to put its melody over a memory you miss
And I hope you’ll choose the day you kissed my lips
Do you remember how you squeezed my necklace around your sliver scars

There are bubbles stuck on your skin, darling
Even the champers samples like your eyes
I’d kill to taste your heart just for once
And I’ll claim my feelings for your mind

Until the end of the night

Image: Grimshaw Atkinson, A Moonlit Evening, 1880 ©️ Coleccion Carmen Thyssen

Author: Roxane Kokka

Listen to the dark, fallen leaves as they whisper
In a tremulous chant that I have lost a love
Of which I could not place another soul above.
As in the hollow streets of sorrow I linger,
In the burning ashes of regret I wonder
Of the alternative actions I avoided
And of enigmatic passions I distorted,
Out of fear, out of anguish, out of bitter
Dread of something new. As the thoughts of solitude
Sting my knowledge of that which I could not cherish,
And all my senses, one by one, slowly perish,
I drift in the perpetual silence ensued.

Image: ©️ Patrick Didisheim

Author: Leah Didisheim

The Nature in my grandma’s Garden always amazed me
There is this sense of Family
That you find in the grass, and in the flowers
And in the trees and in the hours

You arrive at the Gate
You hear the rocks crack under the wheels
The trees are still there
The walnuts are still left lifeless on the ground

In the summertime, you do not take the main door
You turn around the House
And smile at the pool on your right

You look at the hole that the tree left
He seems to say « I was the King here once »
And you turn again, and walk up the stairs.

Image: © Eloïse Wenger

Author: Eloïse Wenger

[1] This Bench up Lythe Lane is dedicated to the memory of Richard, the son of Jenny, one of my neighbours, who lost his life in 2010 during his service in the Marines in Afghanistan.

Author: Andrea Karlmann

Open in silence 

When it came to me,
Bit by bit,
It was a piece.
A fragmented piece.

A series of sounds,
Fragrant and raspy.

Just a mutter
At first.

Then a touch
Of motherly warmth.

Walking into a room

A leaf had landed on the windowsill,
So, I tossed it out.
A strange intrusion.
Just a leaf.
No one was to blame.
Just the wind.

Moved 

Enthused, unready for sense,
Or the redolence of
Affection,
Infused with motion,
Passions set the pendulum in swing,
Turns and turns,
Ambrosia’s ash,
Ebbing, bending and broken.

Away anathema.

Image: ©️ Frederica Petriglieri & Kiljan Paris

Authors: Frederica Petriglieri & Kiljan Paris

Nothingness was eternal. Without pain or pleasure neither anger nor calm. It was the lack of everything, the erring of lost consciousness of those who weren’t aware of their existence.
Floating in infinity among stardust and lights. Carrying the emptiness of the universe.
All souls were one and one soul was all.

How am I supposed to remember our matterless past?
While I’m floating tenderly in Charon’s boat.
Why does my memory of the universe fade away?
For the first time of my ethereal wonderings
I’m forgetting everything.

The darkness starts to weigh over me.
The Acheron! Am I drowning?
Wasn’t I destined to cross it?
Sudden fears grow in my being.

As I’m sinking deeper in unknown matter
Away for my lost embarkation
The fluid is tickling my lips
An instinctive sensation.

The pressure grows and grows
My entire being is surrendered by warmth
The feeling of weight accentuates
Where am I?
I did not cross the stream where everything ends
So has it just started?

All of a sudden my hands grab a soft rope.
I let them go freely along it
But they’re ending touching a moving wall
Is it possible? In all the darkness around, am I in a defined space?
For all I know now I’m trapped and alone.

My consciousness is trembling
The surrounding moves again and again
The wall is forever dancing
I’m trying everything to reassure myself,
When, out of my touch
Something comes directly through my head.
Wonderful hot air, smelly yet irresistible.
The Acheron smells nice!

-No wait!
I’m not in the river anymore
So where does this come from?
Isn’t hell supposed to be filled by flame and toxic gas
And that all the unliving are suffocating for eternity?
So why does all I breathe taste unrealistically familiar?

All flavors flourish within me.
The more I feel, the more I forget.
Senses of deeper knowledge
Are drifting me away from all that I know.

I start to hear my own symphony.
My heartbeat settle the rhythm
While the pond over me is shaking
I thought the underworld bears two rivers
But my ears hears billions
From the depth of darkness
The songs of their endless streams
It is drifting me back to a sense of unity
For all the rivers are joining in one.

The tune is connecting me to everything
To all that is over me. I can feel it.
So why does my rhythm sound different
From all the rivers symphony?
-Am I not alone?

Far distant sounds make the wall trembling
Soft and insistent
Decided yet subtle
As pretty whining in the darkness
-Maybe it’s not that hard in the underworld
It must be the voices from those who successfully passed away.

But I’m still running in circles.
And my cell is getting smaller.
-Has my judgment arrived yet?
Am I a damned soul trapped in itself
Destined to question for eternity?

-LET ME OUT!!
I push the wall and pull the rope with all strength.
The voices answer me back:
“AHHHHHH”
“AMORE CALMATI”

I’ve no clue of what that means but surprised as I am
All the muscles within me freeze.
“HAHAH, GRAZIE”
Who the hell is talking?

To satisfy my curiosity
And also because it was itching me
I open one eye to glimpse beyond the fence.
Soft lights spread in my small nest.
But enough to see the whole of me
My arms, hands, feet and toes.

From darkness comes shadow.
On top of that I’m hearing voices.
I’m starting to be crazy for sure.
I need to act, to move and get out.

I’m taking again the rope with both hands
My feet are pushing in every corner of my prison
I hear the same voice shouting but now I’m not stopping
Voices become louder and louder.
But I continue to push.
I’m banging my head through the wall.

I’m sure it’s moving and I can pass through.
-That’s it! I found a fissure where the light breaks.
Even if I suddenly doubt about following the light at the end of the tunnel.
I know it’s the only way.

It’s as if the wall wanted me out.
Every now and then the tunnel squeezes me and pushes me forward.
“LET’S GO PUSH”
Well I can’t do better and my head is stuck.
“HAHAHA”

I look up again and the light blinds me.
I’m tired, my body aching everywhere and my muscles start to fail on me
“GO GO COME ON”
As I’m fainting, the ground under me collapses.
My lungs are exploding as I’m trying to breathe.

But it hurts, I’m suffocating
Yet the boundaries around me are gone…

I’m floating amongst the giant hands of the underworld
So I did cross the Styx and Acheron after all!
For I’m selfless, defenseless and vulnerable.
In the arms of two titans who sing lullabies.

I know nothing anymore.

Author: D. K.

The smell of grass
The smell of gasoline
The smell of garlic cooking with just a touch of olive oil and herbs 

Tuna sandwiches
The change of seasons in every breath I take
Smoking cigarettes in winter while your whole body freezes in pain and coldness
Smoking cigarettes in the warm and sunny beach after a long swim in the ocean
Smoking cigarettes anytime 

The ocean
Its salty taste, the aggressiveness that gets in your eyes, your nose, your skin 

Rainbows
Trees
Birds, how they walk
It’ll always make me smile
But also dogs, yes
Dogs

Driving in the city, at night
Thunder when in bed
Sex
Radiohead songs
How they understand me
The fact that it could always be worse

My sick father
My dead mom
Movies
Terrence Malick’s existential dread that is present in each of his works

Paris
Oh, and Spain
Yes
Gregorian Chants
Flamenco
The hope that I will once understand the lack of meaning and fulfillment in my existence
Tolstoy and Dostoevsky books
Poetry, any kind, any form but poetry 

Van Gogh, O’Keefe and Hooper paintings
The hope that one day I will taste the lips of that blonde girl on the 9h37 metro 
Mozart’s Requiem In D Minor K.626
Italian girls
The fact that I will end up dying anyway 

It’s too expensive
Too messy
Too lame
Too frightening

I still haven’t brushed my teeth 

Yes
Those are fine reasons
Today?
No, not today
Tomorrow?
Tomorrow is another day
And I, and the morning light, we will change

Image: ©️ Andres Stadelmann

Author: Andres Stadelmann

Spells
Toppled by storms
And strands
Born to brush a little with your feet
Sometimes with your hands
But never with your eyes

Sheets, smells
You kick with your feet
And you reach for those hands
But the touch is too far to keep away from those 


Those voices I hear
They can breathe
And sometimes think
And often drift
Into that land of dreams

But when my hands rejoin
To something offscreen
And try and stay awake
By that touch of fatigue
And I try and stay awake
Thinking of those brave, brave men
And the spikes in the bush
And the fire of that dream
Thinking clean
Thinking clean
A touch of a spleen

And those souls lost in paradise
How shall I think of thee
And that touch oh so dry
And that mouth oh so still
Only dreaming
Only dreaming
To that still of a hill

But when I try, when I try
When I try
To dream far
Just a foot
Just a touch
Of that fiery hill

Please
Please
Take me

Image: ‘Protests in Belarus’ © Ang Bob.

Author: Nadia K. Bauer

I.
Когда увижу я —
The silver portal that you lock every night
With the same rusty nail
Olga laughing and you rolling your eyes
Когда почувствую я —
The humid moist the tall pinewoods
CAST alongside their shadows — on the little dachas
The smell of yellowed newspapers burning in the pechka
Will I ever UNsee —
The marks of JAIL on his smudged face
Her mother’s disappearance
The firebombs they threw just across the street,
Will I ever — on the earth of my liberated Rodina —
STAND again.

II.
Hold me —
Rodina moya
Give me SILU to watch you derive from under my feet.
Do not let go of your endless plains and of your
clear birch groves — of your teethless babushkas
who will keep — selling the same juicy blueberries
by the roadside — until I can embrace you again.
Let the shadows of the gaol bars slowly wash off his face.
Give her the strength to walk on our lines without me
— give her the strength to walk. Дай им more years —
rock them until I can take them in my arms from you.
To me, give надежду to believe
That I will feel my bare feet on your
WET and FREE earth again.

Image: ©️ Guillaume Amstutz

Author: Guillaume Amstutz

Rosy Dawn

A blinding light floods the sky
Stretches from the soil to mountain high
Dyes the land in the sweetest tones
Nourishes the leaves, brightens the stones
The droplets that hung in the air
Now shine bright, pink and fair
The world is a prism bathed in light
Reflecting life, banishing night.

The World in Winter

The mountains are like the earth’s teeth
hungering for a dawn after a long, long night
and the frost takes hold in this barren heath
a potter’s field covered in white

The falling flakes are the cold ashes
of a fire that bright burns no more
on the meadow the snow crashes
burying deep the earth’s ardor

Under the rooftops covered in white
a quiet maze of vacant halls
bathed dimly in faint daylight
when in slumber the pale sun falls
and as the wind howls over the world
whittling the trees with its whistling
carving the rocks with runes all twirled
crushing the hopes and their kindling
a bitter cold devours the groves
turning the wood into splinters
while a waning moon rises up above
silent witness of the winter

The Shattered City

An organism of steel and concrete
spreads like a disease, far out into darkness
with skeletons adorning the streets
waiting for light to shine on the nameless

The dying stars flicker only dimly
as the towers are circled by haze
the ghosts are roaming limply
in this collapsed and dusty maze

Under the ground, hopes are buried
old love letters in the streets scattered
and hate letters in the chimneys burned
down to ashes, by winds carried

Broken wings caught in cobwebs
clipped apart by vicious hands
far below, the water ebbs
and crashes on the cliffs and sands

But far above, a faint glimmer
beyond the forest and the hills
a distant hope that still lingers
before diving in the landfills

Nightfall

It expands to the furthest corners
All the sorrows, the joy, the songs it covers
The darkness progresses, and soils, and gathers
But through the tears in its skin, the light shimmers