Tag: Creative Writing – Poetry

Image: Mist 194/366 by Blue Square Thing on Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Author: Laure Cepl

The Marsh House

I

Nineteen-thirty, the year she felt the breeze

Caressing her pale porcelain face. Blushing

In the dimming daylight of New Year’s freeze,

Her cheeks are covered by a wrinkled skin.

Time streaked it like thunderbolts, frail, outstretched.

Samhain’s sun sets over her glazed eyes.

With a crescent of violets, they’re decked.

Weary eyelids quiver to the twilight skies.

The forgotten Dame of the Marshlands,

Who was left to sink into oblivion.

She gives me a smile as I shake her hand,

And squeaks a “Bienvenue à la maison”.

II

The burgundy tapestries feel so warm,

The old wood scent tickles my nostrils, while

I sit on the dusty chesterfield. White

Laced threads above my head – spectral textile.

My host asks the grand maestro, Petrof –

Dear old friend of mine, forgotten but missed,

To sing me tales of men who fell in love

With the Moon. Nostalgia, who my soul kissed.

I find myself dancing in her embrace,

While she lulls me to sleep in her nightgown.

“Remember…Remember, I was the face

Who rocked you when no one was around.”

Black widows in the shadows join the waltz,

They swing on the chandeliers as we dance

Languidly to the sound of the The Kiss Waltz

Drunk with Shalimar, exotic fragrance.

Hair on her shoulders, like flames flickering,

Red velvet petals brush my neck saying

Bewitching words, casting spells, whispering

“Bring your lips close to mine while we’re swaying”

A silky curtain softly veils my eyes.

Hypnotized, my senses forget slowly

As the music fades and the fire dies

The chimney’s shadow rising behind me.

III

But once the night falls, the marble, icy

Chills my feet and turns them into grey stones.

In the growing darkness, I start to see

Unfamiliar figures, all skin and bones.

Oh horror! Oh, their ghastly glance, tarnished!

Rags hanging on their limbs, wearing grim grins,

Silent creatures, staring at me, famished,

while I shiver against the cold dead skin!

Out of their frames, the ghostly shadows crawl

Across the halls, echo bellows of woe,

Opened jaws, scratched walls, watch them scrawl.

Cold tears of sorrow roll down the windows.

Seven ghoulish foes dancing around me

Putting curses and stamping on the ground

Macabre ritual! They torment me!

“Come with us”, they say, “to the Underground!”

I break the circle and fall on the floor

“Let me out! Let me out!”  I implore

She moans and groans as she shuts the door –

“Stay in my company, forevermore!”

Hear her mourn! Lonesome soul, she grew cold!

Vanished, they have all spirited away.

Plagued by dreadful grief like a dark foul mould,

The Dame of the Marshlands dwells in decay!

Daughter, Sister, Mother and Grandmother.

She is haunted by the absence of some

Who once loved her enough to call her

“Home”.

Images: © Lara Lambelet.

Author: Lara Lambelet

Poems and short notes

Your bombastic way of showing off love made me giggle. I could not properly gage thy truth and had to shed my salty prejudices.
♥
Wrapped in ivy, the intricacy of your heart pinched my lips.
♥
I knew he loved me the moment he started looking at me so intensely with a soft smile and a deep silence that meant everything.
♥
On the verge of joyfully exploding in a rain of sensations, let us live our absconding love.
♥
Let me taste your lips as if they were my ultimate and everlasting meal.
♥
We are endless books whose blank pages to blacken are added day after day in the libraries of our lives.
♥
I gasped deeply, consumed by the sparkling feeling spreading inside me, as our sights met each other.
♥
I cannot resent you for falling in love with me.
I wouldn’t blame myself for letting you steal my heart, either.

To my darling

I don’t know if your thoughts sometimes move slowly towards me, if your heart is in love with the same overflowing feeling as before, but I know that you will always be a person who has turned my life upside down and taught me what love is.

Should I?

Should one let oneself fall prey to love?
❤️
Isn’t it a genuinely perilous attempt?
❤️
I suspect I’m not alone in believing the answer is no.
❤️
An underrated emotion which has overwhelmed more than one.
❤️
“I love you”, these misused words which frightened the best of us, have been endlessly and secretly whispered.
❤️
From whom could I steal the credit for teaching me how to truly love?

Image: © CDL

Author: CDL

Drops of Spinsterhood

In our pond I float.

Sick of my condensed perfume,

time to leave this tepid room.

You boiled, remember,

dreamt about our infusion

until, encouraged

by my ‘whole leaf’ pretension,

I danced out of your pink water.

Again, why did I think

that the half-full cup you’d kept

was cold without tea?

I dived back in. While I slept,

you spat us into the sink.

On the table (cherry wood)

now crawl sodden leaves who would

rather dry than rot.

CDL

1.

Some people never go crazy –

Me, I’m sitting on a lawn chair
Alone on the side of a hotel pool
Nothing to do but
Listen to the wind go by.

A snowflake falls on my nose
And an older couple comes running out
Maybe 70 years of age
Roaring with laughter –
They jump into the freezing water, fully clothed
Splash each other and
Race to the other side.

As they reach the ocean’s end,
He catches her
And it’s clear he has no intention of ever letting her
Go.

They haven’t seen me yet
And they probably never will
But I watch them.

Some people never go crazy.
What terrible lives they must lead.

Image: © Céline Naito.

Author: Céline Naito.

Giant Empty
John Jasperse Company, Wexner Center for the Arts, Nov. 2001

 
Like stones in a Zen garden,
Buildings aligned
Are forgotten.

 
The remnants of an ancient time,
Are dressed in deformity.
Nakedness is no crime,
In a quiet fury.

Image: © Céline Naito.

Author: Céline Naito.

Corona Feast
Delightful things today.

A myriad of birds chirping at the sky, fully theirs.
Dormant cars left unheard, even here in the forest.

The hooves of a deer and then, a rustle of leaves
A shadow at first and then, it all became clear,

It stopped, just to make sure it was you
Then fled
The glimmering light and the leafless trees,
Back to the stag in your mind.

Bees humming,

Which turned out to be ants,
So many red and black ants,
Going about their things
Among the crispy leaves.

A trail of criss-crossing echoes surrounds them.

Leaves pushing their own green birth,
While the painter’s forsythia
Proudly produces its yellow.

And the poor bug that fell on my laptop
On the table this evening

Its wings burned for wanting too much.

Images: © Marie McMullin

Author: Marie McMullin

Arms Open

Once unbound

                        your hair cascaded down your back

just as wild but lighter than the laughter

                                                                                                         falling

hard as hail

as the storm brew in your eyes.

                                                   Once I tried

to anchor your grief

hand held out

in vain

wisps of hair trailed your escape.

Still at the table

me here

you there

wounds glimpsed through vapours

of brewing tea made me believe

my hand

by inch

 by inch

would grasp solid flesh

that took flight

light breeze

and poured us more tea

me here

you there.

Walking side by side,

should I believe the joy lighting

your eyes, promising,

or the gap from your hand to mine

                               holding

the stuff of dreams?

So many years, love, standing apart.

One step is enough

to walk into arms held open

so long bereft and aching

to reach round your neck and swear

I’ve got you.

I’ve got you.

Nest

The birdhouse has two new lodgers;
This year the happy pair are blue tits.
They’ve already started on home improvements:
Twigs, moss and blades of grass,
And even a tuft of dog fur the breeze
Carried off when I gave him a brush.
Madam settles out of sight,
Mister flutters anxiously about.
And then the heavy lifting begins:
Open mouths crowding the door,
Relentless hungry cries spurring on
Parents to endure fourteen-hour shifts
And keep the worms and insects coming.
Such loud chirping lacks discretion –
The magpie that massacred last year’s brood
Lurks about again, its shadow
Stretching over the many bodies
Of the neighbourhood’s cats, cut-throats languishing
Below the nest. One well-aimed stone
Makes them scatter; they’ll be back.
This doesn’t lessen the incessant comings
And goings of these two tiny birds,
Ceaselessly working towards a future
That isn’t promised; perhaps that’s hope.

Beyond
From the window I see the moon
Peering through a veil of clouds.
I stare, and say hello, my sister
In solitude across the many miles.
Silent, but there, and kind enough
To let me believe she sends back
The gazes of others far away
Looking up and adoring her face.

The night sky is studded with stars.
Lyra, Aquilla, Andromeda –
Stories riddle the ether.
Light years away and out of sight,
Galaxies come to life and die,
And still blaze on in the dark
Writing off both time and space.
It is enough to make you believe in fate.

Sibylline stars, chartering courses
With incandescent ciphers.
Who else learns the universe
Expands, retracts,
Is born and held in a name?
Stepping up to Atlas,
I push the skies off his shoulders.