The Husbandman's Hands

cradle soft my soul

whisper to me, low and bold

tethering your remedies

‘round my wounded heart with

nimble words, you sew,

with tight roped attentiveness

through the dangerously delicate

muscle of my heart

while quietly praying for a miracle 

Connection Born of Fire

He lies sleeping,

My pen across the page,

His white noise lullaby.

And you… you settle

Deep into the places lovers keep

The blinding light of a dream I can touch.

This secret life sustaining me,

Through the fragrant disappointment

The chosen consequences of living brings.

I am, in stillness,

A woman who loves you beyond reason,

Soul sought what wishing could not.

Within the ill-equipped truth,

Of my disingenuous circumstances,

I see clearly the face of another an know your silent suffering as my own.

There is transcendence here

Beyond the place a logical train of

Thought my mind rarely follows

The remembrance of your touch seared

Into the welcoming of you into my moist flesh, into my heart,

Aching for yet another assault your passion wages.

For I am a warrior born of blood,

Breed by an angry mother in the absence

Of intellectual pursuits, who knew only carnality.

Draw from my weeping body

The weapon of my own destruction

And wipe clean the evidence of my grieving and render it inert.

Lay me down upon the surgical table of the heart,

I surrender myself into the capable hands of the one who can mend

The ribbons of me cut from the severed dream.

There is simplicity in this

There is truth in this

There is purity in this

There is life in this

A union beyond reason and

The permission we give ourselves

To surrender to it, and breathe in a new language of intimacy.

This we grasp with both hands

A risen bliss, and from it flows

The peaceful act of healing what the world could not mend.

Fueled by an unknown source

Crafted in the furnace of simple magic

Forged by the steel blue blows of selfish tongues, unknowingly.

Beneath the surface of our deeds

An honest epiphany is delivered in my breast like a secret

Guarded by the crumbling walls of my own idolatry.

And I know, beyond my own ability

To prevent the now writ’ truth…

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)*











*quote from e.e. cummings 

An Elegy For Jay Gatsby

All wanted things grew silent the night,

the absence of understanding became your entombment.

The languid beauty of your sleeping figure

set secretly from my reach, sparkled with a dark beauty.

Death brought you the release of your inexhaustible torment

living the life, five years her absence brought you.

In the darkened state of my dreams, with the bright

knowledge of a murderous truth, I alone now know, I am your friend.

I sent out across the expanse for any who would come

to honor you as a man, as the giver of gifts, as the sacrificial lover.

No one came.

Your body lie as in sleep, waiting for her to come

As you always had, with the sharp ambition to win her.

The embroidery upon the satin should bear an epitaph,

The great lover who built an empire from longing.

Campaign dreams, the texture of your desires, sprinkled the color of your coffin

casting long shadows over the foundation of the great house you hoped to lead her home to.

Green light blinking on in the expanse, far greater, with no boat to sail across such a sea with.

She gave you the emptiness of regret instead, lay silence upon your quiet breast in lieu of flowers.

Sleep now, Gatsby, your father’s hand is near. 

I’ll keep watch now, settle deep into the bosom of peace.

“So we beat on, boats against the current, 

borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

 ~F. Scott Fitzgerald, the final line from the Great Gatsby.

My poetic tribute to one of the greatest literary characters in American fiction and his author. The Great Gatsby is one of my favorite novels of all time and I've often wanted to write an elegy for a fictional character, this is my first attempt. An Elegy for Jay Gatsby. 

Posting tonight with the fabulous poets over at dVerse for Open Link Night #95.  

Dawn in Bed

In the cool of early morning

the steel blue coming dawn

heralds the approach of the sun.

I lie in a half-lucid state

underneath the memory of your

eyes the color of the azure sky.

My world existing beneath their

all encompassing gaze. I know no

other dwelling place where

your expanse is not above me.

My thoughts make no rebuttal to this truth.

Disarmed and naked in my vulnerability

the light reveals my state, the fragility of a woman

whom has known the touch of a man

and been irreparably altered by it.

We exist in the moments that are now slipping

through my consciousness, growing more

alert, like sand through groping hands.

Fragments of moments and flashes of memories

the color of tin, and just as sharp,

I collect with words on pages

and how I long to craft them into possessions I can keep,

and carve out a place for them upon the shelf of my days

where I can finger them once more in silence.

You have placed the glow of the sun in my heart

and given me peace in unsettled places.

You have laced together particles of my soul

that had no hope of cohesion

until you laid eyes upon them.

With your instrument of sounds discernible to no one but me

you loved me into the madness of surrender.

I hear you in the bathroom stirring the

sounds of your physical presence.

The beckoning of your obligations take

you from my arms and though I still

feel you with me, you are not here.

Grief for moments passed and a hope

for many others provoke me awake

so that I might occupy the same simple day

as you, and walk in the hope that the expanse between

the days you craft for us with your simple words

will inevitably bring you home to me.

At the side of our bed you kissed me good morning

and I swallowed you into my embrace once more.

I am yours again beneath your endless sky.

Until you struggle away, and I am left in the still warm bed

of our night beneath the stars that will never

alter with our own movements in spite of them.

I know that you must go now.

A mournful, blissful radiance will be the garments

I shall wear today in remembrance of you.

I see you now from a distance

In the doorway

In the street

In the vehicle of your absence

And I know now, without a doubt, that I have loved you without boundaries, and I will never be the same.

I have recorded an audio version of this poem on SoundCloud, Click here for a listen: 
Dawn In Bed Audio

New poetry for a new Open Link Night. Join us over at dVersepoets.com to enjoy the fruit of poets and the communion of poetic companions. Cheers! ~Apryl 

Paperman

Existing in two dimensional intangibility

Your arms weighty with the details of life

An ardent taskmaster awaits, the dictator of survival

Our paths crossed along your trade-route toward home

You smiled at me

And your eyes danced

You smiled at me

And my heart grew wings

In the stonewalled silence you surround yourself with

My delicate words seek an opening

Hopeful I send them through the needle-eyed sliver

I see you briefly in the ignorance of my existence

Spending myself with a thousand thoughts

Delicate words etched from the details of my own life

Folded gently together with prayer

I send them all unfettered with wings like expectation

A thousand tiny syllables uttered behind my teeth

Behind lips swollen with sobbing

Sharp against my fingers as I fold

Bloodied digits with paper-cut ambition

Red lipped remembrances

Smoothed across the page

And how I prayed

That would be the one that would sail you home

My skin bares the mark of your silence

My platform bed, worn thin like tears on pages

Heart fragile as paper

Rising with expectation to herald your homecoming 

I wait in the solemnity of prayer

In the dark before the dawn

In the stillness before the storm

From lighthouse paper airplanes sent in silence

Sweep me into the embrace of a thousand tiny hopes realized

In the light of a new day sprung from weeping

Heavy in your arms where the details once were

Thick with the dimensionality of grace in all it’s splendor

I am not shaken

I am not removed

I am not absent

From the fullness of loving you

Resurrect from the ashes with me my love

Dust the mourning soot from your weary eyes

Bury the disembodied despair you once surrendered to

Take my hand, together we will transcend

In a three dimensional kiss whisper the triumphant words of those

Who have risen from an amputation of the soul

And settled into truth of what it means to live again

alone... again... at last…

We are. 

C/S

Linking up again with the fabulous poets at dVersepoets.com it's another Open Link Night where we make poetic contributions and offer our encouragement, our praise, and our critique of one another with hopeful voices filled with the growth that comes in community. Join us if you wish, encourage us if you will, and share a pint with me, but only if you dare. As always, your comments are welcome and appreciated. ~Apryl 

Lucidity

sensation of skin on skin

fingertip on nose and mouth, drawing a single, solitary line

he slips down my body with tactile elegance

alight with the provocation of enhanced awareness

I am alive again, for the first time

heart pulsing love notes into my extremities

filling my ear with hot words

softening my defenses,

transforming my ravenous need into blissful fulfillment

rose scented pathways

marks the passage of lips curled with words

on the end of every simple sound

the standard of beauty we have become

a redefinition of each other’s desire

quantifying simple needs with breath and resonance

blood provoked with the tip of a tongue

liquid thoughts like sugar

dissolve between the friction of our kisses

classic style, with momentary graces

steals through my consciousness

like sand through groping hands

knit together with fragments of spirit and soul

in the warmth of glimpses, we see a desired state

crafted in the image of Eden, in it we are made new

sandalwood and the godly taste of ambrosia hidden in

folds of flesh. drink deep from the hard

liquored shots we take of one another

intoxicants slipping down the throat

of my openness aching for satiety

consummation of joy manifested in those moments

this woman belonging to one man alone

in his darkest secrets, her whispered name remains

and in hers, branded by the fires of his promise, she bears his mark

we are at the beginning of our love story, he says

my princess, my love, my sweet baby,

this is it for me… this…

is far too great a burden for one man to bare

and bending to remove, is now misshapen,

broken beneath the weight of unspoken expectations

transformed into a great a swell of sorrow overwhelming,

in the fragrant morning of his absence I realize

it was always, only just a dream…

Now open those pretty eyes and see, with sobered lucidity.

Linking up with dVersepoets.com, join us, won't you? 

The Transient

St. Terese Florida 

I exist as an orphaned creature

borne of want and fury

this once fertile existence

now suffers but a glimpse of plenty by moonlight

monstrosities only make sense in

the shadow of present nightmares

cast off like a blanket, will I this night

but gather instead provisions fit for an escape

fear is but imagination

set free in madness

I shall no longer endure the darkness,

but grope after days of illumination

switch on the light, when found,

and stand awake in truth

linger not here, will I

in this place between worlds

dream no longer, will I of

Eden recreated in mortal fantasies

it is the light I now pursue,

and the light-giver with arms wide as weeping

at his feet I’ll lay myself

and bathe in the bright shelter of his warmth

for what greater purpose does light have

if not to vanquish darkness with it’s presence

Look for me no longer among the shadows.

Linking up again with dVersepoets.com #OpenLinkNight and writing along with A Poem A Day challenge for National Poetry Month. (Though I'm not always posting the poems) Today's prompt was light and darkness. I made an attempt to capture a journey through both. Thank you for reading and thank you for your kind/constructive comments, they are deeply appreciated. ~Apryl