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 

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 

Death Hewn Love: An Easter Reflection

Death

Man child

Offering self

Exchanging life for love

Ransom of blood, blood moon shadows

His death

Burial

Finished

Mourn beloved

Shaken by grief-filled cries

In hollow of created earth

He lies

Resurrection

Third day

Newness dawning

Blossoming with love hewn

From death; forever lost it’s sting

He lives

In honor of the upcoming Easter weekend my poetic offering is just that, an offering. 

Linking up with dVerse tonight, join us for a verse and the communion of conversation. 

I look forward to exchanging a few with you, thank you for your readership and 

for the comments that I hope you leave, they are of great worth. Blessings ~Apryl 

She Carried it in Silence

When three years of age she was,

the girl saw a vision that haunted her.

Abandoned by her mother with a baby 
in the backseat of a red car too big for her, 
yet it moved across a sea of automobiles.

The baby, she believed, was her sister.

She never understood why they came.

She never understood from whence they came.

She only knew that they always came.

Dark shadows bringing blackness greater than night.

Her great-grandmother had them too,

spoke openly of voices and visions.

In her presence alone the girl felt belonging,

a like minded knowing that people exchange in quiet smiles.

It was said that the Grandmother had aged into madness.

Dismissing the ramblings of the old woman

by adults, gave cause for her silence.

Native superstitions, they said, from Grandma's childhood.

They came to the girl at night,

mounting blackbirds in the pitch.

Tightening the openings around windows

she tried to keep them out with

barriers crafted from clothespins and fabric.

She placed tiny crosses on windowsills made of toothpicks.

An old native American woman once told the girl

that she was special, a child of gifting

one that wasn't filtered from her by

white blood and religion.

That night the girl saw 

a great white whale worthy of Melville.

And in it’s mouth a great vessel,

and aboard the vessel was her mother.

Still, she hoped the gift was of God.

Clutched tight her rosary, and prayed.

Confusion and secrecy knit together her

thoughts and in silence she remained.

Few knew about the gift, others whispered

about the knowledge of the things that

drew from her the child-like images

more accurate than divination.

The girl became a woman, and put away childish things.

She buried her gift in her heart by faith.

She carried it in silence, with it’s visions.

She swallowed whole the key of release, in prayer.

And with it, envisioned her Great-Grandmother freed. 

Linking up again with dversepoets.com for Open Link Night. With a grateful heart I welcome you and thank you for reading my poetry. Your visit is appreciated. Comments are welcome, thank you for them, your words help to carry me to my next poem. Have a blessed evening, I hope to see you at the pub!

Green

The color your eyes appeared

in moonlight the night

melancholy took you from me.

The emerald texture of the moment

casting altered shadows on

the brightness you left for me.

In the green veined earthen

child that crawled from the

womb of wanting you.

From the parts of myself genetically

engineered to seek Eden, and know only the

intangible idea of that desired state.

You called forth it’s growth from my depths

life hewn from the stone carved heart

I settled into the palm of your green thumbed hand.

You whispered grace over it,

made flesh to form from it’s deadness

etching into it, like ink on skin, your initials.

With breath and green mist you

enveloped me within it’s blanket of bliss

and promises steeped in raw sensuality.

I saw only what you wanted me to see

though I always held the knowledge of what

lay beneath, a haunting haze of realization.

I could not keep you was the color

of the earth upturned as it’s brown depths

swallowed slivers of grass on the day I lost you.

It's sharp flavor stung my tongue into silence

amputating from my vocabulary

the words that would bring you home to me.

You left me to sail upon a faith-filled sea,

waves the origin of my orphaning, it’s

tides carving deep channels in my skin.

Sand softened glass it

brought me instead, and instead

I kept your green gaze behind my eyelids.

On that beach of your absence

I crafted a mosaic from

green sea glass the color of mourning.

From the poetry prompt Green at dVerse.  

Anatomy of a Heartbreak

goodbyes
tourniquet 'round
cardiac branches grown
thick with intimate conjoinings
severed




I'm linking up with dVersepoets.com's Form For All. Tonight the challenge is the Cinquain. Thank you for your visit to the blog and in advance for your comments, they are greatly appreciated. I'll see you at the pub, ~Apryl

Surrender to the Burning

My quiet eyes weep

for the one who will banish

from them the view of all other men.

In silence they do dote upon

the verbal imagery of his face

it clouds the mind and torments the soul.

The first flourishes of a spring drawn

from a frozen earth, birthed into being

by the presence of the sun.

Passion favors the sentimental heart

imprisoned by the walls we build

for simplicity’s sake, for our own safety.

Walls are built for such things as these;

For the breaking of the waves

that threatens houses built upon the

inconstant sands of a fallen world.

For sheltering dear ones from

the terrible conditions that lurk

beyond door posts and property lines.

For the keeping of creatures

brought under-wing with careful tending

and, at times, for restraining away their stubbornness.

For the housing of fortunes that pour forth

from the fingers of diligent men

like the belligerencies that pour forth from a drunken one.

And I, one lost among them, slipping through the hands

of caretakers and housekeepers, unknowingly,

a thing without the walls of care

a creature born of the wilderness

not dear enough to keep

the rogue wave of men’s nightmares.

I am, after all, a woman with fire in her veins

and purity tucked away in her

heart like a secret.

The sun has drawn lines, dark upon

my unclothed skin, hungry for it’s continual

kiss to shelter me from the harshest of exposures

to this dead and dying world.

I find no greater comfort than this,

that we are each creatures of light

drawn together by a likeness of being.

Light alone burns the remembrance of darkness

from the corneas of my eyes,

and absorbs the sting of infectious living.

Nocturnal shall I be no longer,

for I am a creature of the day,

I have laid myself upon the alter of light.

And I must, surrender to the burning

for it makes ashen things out of

the temporal, and the wretchedness of life.

Yet one thing remains…

By the sun life is born and sustained

none can live apart from it,

neither you, nor I can escape that truth.

There are no better stories than

those written by your presence

hot upon my days.

Those ever fixed marks revealing

a profound truth I can no longer deny,

that I loved him once, and

sometimes…

he loved me too. 

I'm offering up another poem for dVersepoets.com Open Link Night, come join us for a night of poetic revelries. Offer up one of your own and join the fun or kick back and enjoy reading. I look forward to seeing you around. ~Apryl  

Stilled and Silenced

there are no children to pull off freshly painted walls tonight,

no needy husband’s hands to fence with

this night belongs to being

in a noisy silence

autumnal evening sounds

assaulting ears bent toward quiet

cricket song and the last of the cicada concerto

remnantsof a living earth preparing

for the hibernation of retreating into oneself

linger here at the dusk of summer’s end

maples bowing low and heavy

offering palm sized leaves

only southern trees can grow

and hereI sit amongst the California red grapes

and their blended blissful bounty

in gratitude for their harvest

blue velvet sky bleeds violet lines

with the surrender of the sun

I am in silence

I am at rest

I am whole

the fearfulness of truth

with this, a tiny revelation comes

reflectively hidden in stars

strewn ‘cross the blackening sky

heralded by twilight’s whispered presence

bound to human rest

a Sabbath understanding

there is Holiness

in the simplicity of stillness

I am awake now

these quiet eyes do see

purpose in solo revelry

secrets tucked into my heart

like tissues in pillow cases

for moments of weeping

draw them out

during the dark night of the soul

for it always cometh

amidst it’s plight remember

this stillness and grope for peace

with muscle memory

cultivated in solitude

one by one

and become again

bound to quiet understanding

and begin with the hope

of dawn’s promised procession

crickets quiet, owls steal away

and with the son’s arrival,

the first fat rays of presence

define us once more

as those who dwell among the living

drawn into the warmth of day

and remind us we belong there

in reverence we draw light with breath

and exhale luminous awe

from ominous oneness

and in that moment we shall

be still and know

Linking up with dVerse, we are looking at the moments of solitude... these are mine.