Free Verse # 267 (beyond the farthest star)

I kiss her
like the sea
rehearses his song
in endless endless waves.

~

Eyes closed he kissed her,
tenderly, religiously,
as though she were a river of mist
coursing through the night.

~

Night came
and dressed me
in the colours of a longing
for a face I’ve never seen
yet has always burned in me

~

Alone at night
Listening to the wind
Chiming a hymn
To a forgotten face,
The face we all
Shall one day be.

~

Passing through the sieve of love
his heart became a poem
whispering her name
beyond the farthest star

~

She entered him
and felt herself being engulfed
by an earth made of rain,
soaked full to her bones.

~

In a world made up
of words and clamour
you are the poem
which silence holds my soul

~

She watched him write
and, somehow,
felt the tip of his pen
move along her skin,
etching, bleeding, burning,
turning her into a poem
seared in the mist
of his endless longing,
scribing her in his heart
like a star in the fur of night.

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Senryu # 90 (to Sarah)

Evening shadows,
the candle in me blossoms
a garden of memories.

Free Verse # 266 (their fingers touched)

With his lips and fingers
he traced her freckles,
counting, memorizing, alighting,
the way a poem-flame grazes
a sky made of stars.

~

She stood before the mirror
and kept whispering his name,
by and by her lips flowered
and the bees and butterflies
came in to feast and sip.

~

Their fingertips touched
and the silence filled with the wonder
of a thousand budding stars

~

With a gaze forged
by the fire of longing
she looked at him,
her heart a red rose budding,
silence gathering them
like clouds in the sky.

~

Like water through the vale,
like waves lapping the shore
his hands caressed her
until her skin became
a burning sea of light.

~

Her skin
the texture of a poem
weeping tender light

~

I long for a poem
I cannot name,
the shape of her lips
uttering my silence.

~

Before him she laid,
a white poem,
an abyss of light
calling him to exist
in the act of spilling
his fervent ink
into her endless landscape,
writing her into
the expanse of his silence,
folding her and becoming
an ocean in her love.

~

He writes
and on the blank page
sees her unfolding,
hills, valleys, mountains,
a primal earth birthing him,
setting him free.

Haiku # 162 (to Sarah)

Bare Branches of an Old Tree by Maryna Kriuchenko

Against the winter sky
the bare branches stirring
the dust of memories

Her Face

Her face displaces reality, dislocates it and roots it firmly in the unreal, the surreal—bursting reality from its seams. Therein it burns, a sun transfiguring existence entire into a flame shivering amid our ribs, rooting us in the eternity of her fire. Her face, ultimately, is no more than the light calling us further and further into the mystical depth of a being embodying the whole of life. We submit, and in our surrender become the beings that we were born to be—beings forged of pure love; moths that have finally burned inside the house of flame and have become the raging flame itself, the very heart of dawn.

With thanks for Dan for the inspiration.

Plenum

His fingers knead her,
longing carved into a poem,
a sea ready and aching
to burst into a soft weeping flame –
then touching her lips he lights her
the way a candle touched by a spark
becomes a well of light –
he lights her,
his opiate breath sustaining
her slow burning flesh,
the fiery beatings of her inebriated heart –
he lights her
and as a candle in the night engulfs her,
her light fluttering
the endless landscape of his heart,
open, surrendered,
becoming what she is,
a being made of light.

Free Verse # 265 (into her arms I fell)

Her limbs
like infinite rivers
tangled the landscape
of his endless longing

~

In the hot tea the imprint of your effervescent lips.

~

Into her arms I fell
as rivers tumbling to the sea,
and in my descent
I reached the height of being,
in my falling I rose
higher than the sky.

~

I remember you
the way a seed
fallen into the earth
remembers spring.
A knowing so deep
blossoming at the touch
of a single drop of water.

~

The fragrance of her silence I gather into a poem made of light.

~

The scriptures of her skin –
in his touch a poem unfolding
endless rays of light.

~

She who beats deeper in me than the pulsings of my own heart; who soaks me more wholly than the quiverings of my own blood.

~

In the hollow
of her collarbones
I wept my poems,
at dawn they flew
into the puddle of the blue sky,
white birds singing
eternal love.

Alive & Growing

Life deserted you
and yet I saw you laughing,
your laughter greater
than life and death,
your joy, your love,
alive and growing.

Free Verse # 264 (the fragrance of her smile)

All I know of the sun
is the fragrance of her smile.

~

On her collarbones I hew
my breath into poems.

~

She kissed him
and in his mouth he felt
the budding of a thousand springs,
her fragrance in his flesh becoming
the water that gives life,
the silence that gives
the poet his poetry.

~

Her face he’d touch
As the spring breeze at dawn
Caresses all the flowers

~

This dewdrop poem –
a verse on her lips to spill,
etching a lipstick
of a luminous sheen,
a fire birthing fragrant white
each word and sigh,
a poem to flower in the world’s heart.

~

To pray
the light of her eyes
I distil into poetry;
each verse a luminous flower
into the sky softly whispering
the sacredness of her name.

~

My poem I lit like a candle,
all night long she kept vigil
into the darkness casting
the firebirds of your name.
At dawn the birds
into water condensed
and the earth was left soaked
in an endless cover of dewdrops,
the sighs of your name.

Free Verse # 263 (a love made whole)

All the sap of my life
squeezed into a single poem,
its mesh lit and sustained
by the fire in your soul.
Burning it whispers
a love made whole.

~

Her waterfall hair
Upon his body
A poem gone mad

~

Igneous fusion
of two hearts
into a calm ecstasy
pulsing stillness
in dawn’s blue heart

~

All these poems I write you
during the long day –
little winged birds,
fireflies I send
hoping to cross your way.

~

Soft edge of dreaming
where her face
is the timeless pool
in which everything reflects,
the oneiric reality.

~

Night waxes dark,
in my being
the candle flickers
the endless hues
of your warm face.

~

Alone I travel,
a fire bird burning
in the sea of night.

Letter, February 19, 2015

There is a depth in me only your silence can touch; for that, beloved, you must become the dawn, the still eye of light, so that I could become the poem, the flower exhaling her fragrance into your luminous heart. Together, perfume and light, we’ll melt all shadows as we become a being forged of love, a heart so pure it beats wide as the desert sky.

Colleen Kelley – The Elephants were calling last night

The Elephants were calling last night
From the Rim of the mesa
Into the valley of stones
Their sounds shaking my windows
And Crushing my heart

A Giant Matriarch
Standing on my chest
With her great soft foot.
Ear Wings beckoning me
to follow Her
To Follow Them

To Migrate Back
To leave tormented Earth
And Cross the starry fields to
Home.

Free Verse # 262 (one poem at a time)

Ballad of a spring-flower
embracing the dawn –
her lips submerged
in the first sip of tea.

~

As stars into the shore of night
she sank into him,
his opiate breath seeping
into every fragment of her being,
consuming her,
a moth in his flame.

~

Pulsing with your light
my heart has always been a beacon
guiding me like migrating birds
to my eternal homeland,
your breath, our love.

~

The luster of dawn
upon her waving white skin,
a world drunk on silence.

~

Sculpting her,
one poem at a time;
her breath
the ardent essence
of each flowing line.

~

Raining heavy;
the raindrops
in my heart
a scurry of lines
etching your name,
the curves of your face.

~

Through the seams of silence
her voice comes to me
fragrant with the sighs
of the flowers at dawn
to fill my heart
with the waves of her sea

Haiku # 161

The candle whispers,
outside the winter wind
combing the dark night.

~

La bougie chuchote,
dehors le vent d’hiver
peignant la sombre nuit.

Senryu # 89

My each poem
a flower in her hair,
my bohemian girl.

Haiku # 160

Autumn Wind by Jennifer Gelinas

In the autumn wind
the howl
of lost voices

Senryu # 88

Bohemian muse,
in her hair the flowers
white as the moon.

~

The incense
of a thousand poems
burning in her soul

Haiku # 159

Kerr Ashmore, Then Comes the Light

Fog over the lake
at the forest’s edge,
a lone birdsong.

Letter, February 15, 2015

Your back, beloved, from your dimples down low to the nape of your neck — I always envision it as a sea of poetry, each rolling wave a poem, and the waves are infinite. Ah, to delve into that current, caress it tenderly, my fingers like sailors coursing the endless waters, drowning in this house of mystery. Let all poetry be, this is my poetry. This be the temple where I worship, where my sighs and longings unfold with the rolling of each wave.

You went away from me

How can oceans pour
through the narrow eyes?
You went away from me,
a burning arrow piercing my heart
then vanishing into absence,
into the fog of mystery;
you went away from me
and my eyes knew
how the endless waves can pour
through their narrow openings,
their salt etching bitter flames.
Now my eyes know,
and my whole being trembles
like an earth trampled
under the wild feet of grief,
relentlessly beating.
You went away from me
and the silence engulfing me sobs
like a rootless fire
besieged by a dark sky,
my heart pleading
for your return,
for your touch that is home.