Wandering

[Invalid Image - URL must end with jpeg, jpg, gif, png or bmp]

Explore the world, your mind, your dreams, etc, and write about your experience on these journeys. Let an adventurist inspiration help you shape your poems into an eventful, thoughtful piece filled with wonder, and pursuit.

Rules:
Old and new poems are accepted
2 poems per poet
No word limit, just try not to get too carried away
No poems written entirely in bold, it strains my eyes, sorry
Titles are not a requirement but preferred
Please check grammar and spelling before entering
You have two weeks

Feel free to comment each other's work on the thread but try not to get into long discussions or arguments

Have fun,
AlwaysCaliban  

Oooh, definitely in for this one! I've been in the process of writing one about wandering for a while now. :)

the girl who ruined half the planet
==============
We sat on the shores
of the irish sea
and spoke until the tide
got to our feet,
me teaching you Gallic
and you teaching me french
We spoke broken perspectives
in loud bars, musical accents
trying to rival ours, and
even through the smell
of whisky and cigarettes
i smelt the spirit
of the aristocratic  
in your breath
God, it made me senseless  
The opportunities that presented
themselves in silence
only to wither
in the fields
in lourdes
disputing the cosmic laws
and God, and religion
and everything thats
mentioned in the bible
and i said i believed
but not in that
and you wanted to leave
because i said that
and i went to Paris
and laughed for hours
about the girl who
left me for God,
and now
With that being said
i can never go back to ireland
or lourdes again.

In The House Of God~


Once upon a long, lost day,
 
I wandered from my streets.
 
I set out to find my way,
 
Away from this deceit.
 
As I walked across the land,
 
I came across a tree.
 
A door I found, shaped like a hand,
 
That opened up to me.
 
I walked in to have a glance,
 
What I found was a twist.
 
I thought I'd fallen to a trance,
 
Like I did not exist.
 
As I searched I saw a light,
 
A vague shine up ahead.
 
It caused my thoughts to ignite,
 
And filled me up with dread.
 
As I walked slowly to its place,
 
A silhouette appeared.
 
I abruptly stopped my pace,
 
As the figure drew in near.
 
It stopped right in front of me,
 
And whispered in my ear,
 
"Do you believe in Deity,
 
Or is that what you fear?"
 
"I fear not what isn't real,
 
And I believe that which I see."
 
A light came on to reveal,
 
A mirror reflecting me.
 
I stood in awe as the light faded,
 
And again the dark consumed.
 
My mind raced as I raided,
 
But then the voice resumed.
 
"Now that you've seen do you believe?
 
Do you see now what I mean?"
 
"Why do you try to deceive?
 
All that I've seen is me."
 
"Do you believe that not a Deity?
 
Do you not see what I've revealed?"
 
"What is it that you're telling me?
 
I see nothing that you yield."
 
Silence fell upon the room,
 
As though I was alone.
 
And then slowly I was consumed,
 
By a vision not my own.
 
I saw a church, and then a priest,
 
And people gathered in their seats
 
"A deceitful man, to say the least.
 
He steals their money in attempt to replete"
 
"He is a man of 'God',
 
What is his crime?"
 
"You dont find it fairly odd,
 
That ones self is not his shrine?
 
After all, its you who deems,
 
What things are and what they'll be.
 
Its yourself that gets you through the screams,
 
It's within yourself that you always flea.
 
The only God thats in this life,
 
Is inside of you and in your mind.
 
The only power that cuts the strife,
 
Is the happiness that inside you you'll find."
 
I couldnt find the words to say,
 
I just stood there with a blank stare.
 
I couldnt talk, so i turned away,
 
And left the tree for some fresh air.
 
As I opened the door, to my surprise,
 
I was in my room the whole time.
 
I had just awoken from a dreams demise.
 
I had awoken to a world... redefined.

I follow my feet

I follow my feet carefully
Comfortably snuggled in the embrace of retreat
Adorning small jewels of utility
I forged a trail in what was seen
All the peace that was sought was seen

Then I watched as I seemed to stop
Slowly as though tired of this fulfilment
I changed
As though deranged
I changed
Walking back to the land of the bra and the car
My soul does not get to wander very far.

Little Sister Spelunking Words


I knew the prospects in that aphotic hole
plunking chunky speech
chalky talk drawing up walls
that caved in on a word.

Who was the canary, you, or I Sister
maybe both of us ? Their noxious sentences
bored our lungs with a punch, and pit
that black lunged neither of us anymore.

Were you sure we would inhale
a fresher syntax someday? It seemed
dense to me then, avoiding stalactite
semantics lacking definition.

And I still don't get

what they were digging at
insisting we mine dirty coal-adjectives
while I clutched, and hoarded
our diamond-nouns in all that dark.

I wrote this one years ago, during a time in my life when I was going through a spiritual journey of transformation. I had, at that time, wondered if I met my soulmate, if she (or he) would be able to understand me and love me no matter what. So a lot of that found its' way into this poem as well. Here it is:

- Journey of Secrets -

I am going on a long journey; I shall be leaving today…
Upon a road no one can follow, at least not right away.
If you liked or loved me, I wish I could tell you more…
But there are certain secrets that are closed like a door.
Ask and I will open, but once you see what lies therein,
Ended shall be the time, for turning back this way again.
I told you I wore many faces, but only one ever mine…
What if I were to tell you, my true face is of the divine?
You would not believe me; you would say I was false,
And you would never take my hand and join my waltz!
The universe is calling and I have so many things to do,
I wish I had a beloved whom I could thus confide unto.
So much have I written, which I fear has been ignored!
I understand how Jesus felt: though many call him lord,
Nobody really understood him, or even took the time,
To know the man from the myths, his reason or rhyme.
What would you see within, if into my eyes you gazed?
Perhaps Eden’s Garden; even how Jericho was raised!
But could you come to love me, in spite of everything,
Would you take my hand and all the joy it might bring?

It matters not if we be nations, or even planets, apart…
What makes us closest kin is what is within each heart.
All that you could see within me has little to compare…
To the compassion within you, when you say you care.

Heaven is so stern a place, and Earth can be so lonely!
Why do people forsake love, to worship after money?
If they knew how things began, they would be humble.
Instead they build Babel anew so again it can crumble!
Woe that in mortal flesh I walk, to shed mortal tears…
When just a kiss would ease, the suffering of the years.
I have seen you weeping thus, maid, so come unto me,
So together we may embark upon the coming journey.
No road is long when shared, and no purposes in vain,
Share with me your heart, for two can bear one’s pain.
This summer I have been transformed as was foretold,
Once I laughed at the notion, called it mad and bold…
But now my eyes are anointed: seeing with cold clarity,
The things that did remain hidden, that I denied bitterly.
It is not enough to know oneself if we deny Creation…
We must embrace the whole, to achieve our salvation!
Climb the pyramid, and from the top you will see truly,
The scheme of things bared both the lawful and unruly.
Without reptilian illusion, to clutter the celestial sight…
You will see divinity and so bask in the empyrean light.

I care not for trivial worries like race, color, or creeds.
Love is blind after all and spurs us all unto great deeds!
There is not a more gallant knight, nor a crueler knave,
Than one whom love has touched, and so made brave.

All this I can give you, just by opening the closed gate,
But once the locks are broken turning back is too late.
The wheels turn already, as old things come to pass…
And waters are rising, until we are up to the high mast.
The ancient ones wake from slumber, the sigils burn…
Whilst through it all I endure and my spirit does yearn!
Oh smiling maid might you be content with eyes wide?
Then kiss me, and know a power not easily put aside!
You see me in your dreams and so you know my face…
We have met before, and shared a singular lofty grace.
Let us entwine, like the serpents of the caduceus itself!
In Alexandria they wrote my name in scrolls on a shelf,
Whilst in hidden places I taught the highest illumination.
Abandon your fears, and banish ignoble consternation!
I walked with the Druids, and saw Stonehenge built…
When old Atlantis fell I bore my own share of the guilt.
My journey has been a long one stretching way ahead,
Do not turn from me maiden; walk at my side, instead!
There is power beyond money, and secrets to prize…
Even pleasure without measure, if the truth you realize.

What you seek lies within you and in my soul to grasp,
You have only to reach forth, and my right hand clasp.
I cannot promise comfort, but on me you can depend,
To be your dearest companion, you lover, your friend!

And I was inspired to write this one after going out for a walk one night when it was all foggy and misty out. Very otherwordly!

- Enshrouded -

Part One: Alien Things

In fog enshrouding like a cloth fit for some burial…
The town I walked through was caught in the mists.
White and gray the sky, with shadows most surreal,
The air thick with cold, as if by winter itself kissed!
Was this the same place I called home for so long?
And still I dwell here; still do I consider it my abode.
Yet on nights like that, silent without cricket song…
The town is bleak and harsh, the soul itself to erode.
Yet mine is unaffected by the purgatorial bleakness,
For I have walked in Hell and returned quite whole.
A part of my soul dwells eternally in the darkness…
So on nights like that, my nerves remain in control.
The mists are primal, something from another time,
As am I, and so am I not the mists’ own kindred?
The familiar becomes alien, the ordinary sublime…
When, all is by such gray nothingness enshrouded.
And so I walked through the streets, so caressed,
By spectral hands, that it seemed a spiritual realm.
A lesser soul might: have by that been distressed…
But aliens things do not, my senses so overwhelm.

Part Two: Pale Moon

Child of Faerie, child of other worlds, merry meet!
This spoke the mists to me, and I did not hasten…
For night is my time, and its’ shadows I must greet.
I pass a pond, and the waters do strangely glisten,
Through what moonlight can pierce the thick veil…
Of fog and mist, that steams upon the waters near.
No craft would dare at such times to so make sail,
Its’ timbers creaking as the pilot prepares to steer.
Yet do I not hear such sounds, in the far distance?
Nay, it is but the creak of trees upon the shoreline.
The waters are heady with some soggy fragrance,
As above me, in the sky, I see not stars that shine.
Nearby is the cemetery where my mother sleeps…
Dreaming, like the kings and queens of Avalon do.
Whilst in nearby woodlands, a wild thing creeps…
For old animals dwell there, beneath a pale moon.
The company of the dead is all the water can feel,
In certain seasons, when the stars align just right…
The bite of winter to harden their hearts like steel!
But my mother’s heart is soft, even for such night.

Part Three: Journey’s End

I try to forget the dead as I think of life and living,
And I have no wish to be enshrouded any longer.
But the night holds what it can in arms unforgiving,
Even so I break free, and I become far stronger…
For I pierce the fog and mists, with my very spirit.
If only for the moment so that I can find my way…
As my feet quicken in pace the way I must see fit.
I would see the stars but once ere dawn and day!
The night has a will, and fights my effort to resist…
Becoming lost in the gray oblivion, with humanity.
I was ever apart from my peers, so I do persist…
Until at length, I have been granted a tiny victory.
I see the starts as the pale nothingness disperses!
The shroud is lifted, and I can find my way home.
Did I beat death, in a way: coldest, of all curses?
I see the distant mountain, and its’ crags of stone.
The fog drifts away from it, like fingers grasping…
One final time for some prize, which eludes them.
A raven squats upon some power lines, rasping…
As I return whence my journey did this eve stem.

Next Train to Springwood

Thunder cracks
it's ripping through
my mind,
and through my sleep.
Rain thrashes
my windows.
An all out assault.
Hail piercing the tiling
of my roof.
And a train
hurtles by.
The scraping
metal, of the gears
to the track.
Not as loud
that's a welcome change
tonight isn't
all that bad.

Too many
distractions.
I've learnt to
love it.
Like an ipod playlist
set on repeat.
Megadeth's the go tonight.
Rust in peace
my favorite album.
The night still
restless.
And wild.
Maybe a walk?
I suppose.

Dressed from head
to foot, in black.
A leather jacket
a pair of jeans.
And my overused
sneakers.
A poor choice
don't need
to tell me twice.
Reaching into my
jacket pocket.
I pull out an umbrella
cast it open
And set it above
my head.
At least
I won't get too wet.
The thunder cracks again,
almost hostile.
And sounds angered
that i'm about tonight.
In it's territory,
it's time.
Maybe I'll head to a bar..
or a bottle'o.
Woolies is always open
'til three o'clock
I think?

There we go
cheap piss.
I'll head to
the train station.
Enjoy the free trip
the cheap
midnight delights.
It's available to us citizens.
Until the sun
rises,
Or I pass out.
Good thing
Emu plains station
has a covering.
I'll be right.

The chill comes
through, usually at night..
Such a night..
The moon bleaming up
at me, wishing me goodnight.
Smiling back
giving it a nod
and a wink.
A train pulls in
and I'm stumbling aboard
to find a place
to rest.
Maybe I'll end up
in springwood.
Or in the heart of Sydney.
Either way,
I'm fine.

Awaiting Something Holy

Wander lonely streets with me
Before the risen sun of Sundays
Awaiting something holy  
And watch ones our world forgot as they lie in fitful sleep
Amidst piss filled rivers of intestinal stew
As they twinkle with that all knowing sparkle
That comes before the dawn

Bathe in bitter waters, wipe experience away

So you may walk the fabled halls of memory refreshed
Tell me now, is there any difference between the two?
In both, strangers lie in the fitful sleep of darkened dank doorways
Left to wallow in gifted rivers of piss and puke
That glisten in the crystal light which precedes the dawn
And reflect the secret knowledge

That someone soon will be along
To wash the cobbles clean
Someone to cry out with golden bells
And greet the sun sun as it wakes from a troubled sleep
To shine bright with feeble warmth once more
And soothe a frost nipped nose  
As we await a day that we might still call holy

Moving Homes

All my life I've had both many homes and none.
To set down roots is just daring fate to uproot them
and fate is an addict just waiting to be tempted.
I am a pilgrim on the way from the pillar to the post

Staying always a half step ahead of the sympathy symphony.
Each childhood memory distinguished not by events  
but by homes instead.
Don't think of me as a gypsy, they move their homes
I've yet to find mine, but after searching so long  

The definition of a home is something too holy  
to attribute to bricks and mortar alone.
Home is where the heart is, and mine is caged in ribs.

BUT I NEVER INHALED


Went to school in the 60s

Was a hippie from head to toe

Look at those clothes

The bell-bottom jeans

The headband on long hair


We demonstrated against the Vietnam War

Dinner TV showed us all that gore

Daddy screamed at brother

What you got that long hair for?


Momma stayed home

Daddy went to work

We lived in all white suburbs

As white flight took place

We were just learning

The equality of the human race


Momma called me a whore

Said: "What are those pills for?"

"Keeps me from from getting pregnant:

Remember why you and Daddy got married?"


My brother left, the day he turned eighteen

Made the Buffalo shuffle to Toronto

To avoid the draft it seems

Sent us letters, found a Canadian girl

They were getting married

She was putting him through more school


We first cried when the President died

Then his brother, then Malcom X

Martin Luther King....he was the best

How could we lose the champions of our freedoms?


Life was a sit-in, a love-in, a drug-in

But I never inhaled

We shouted: " Make Love, Not War"

Passed the toke, took a smoke

But I never inhaled


Went to Woodstock in "69

Listened to Janis and Jimi

Believed Timothy Leary:

"Turn on, tune in, drop out"

"Think for yourself and question authority"

Cannot remember a thing

But I never inhaled


The 60s turned into the 70s

They say the 60s were really until 1975

A good year to remember

The end of graduate school had arrived


The times they were a changing

Married did I get

To my hippie boyfriend

Who had grown up too


We were too young and idealistic

The world stayed as nasty as it was

For along came the 80s

Greed was good and belonged to us

How the children of the 60s

Become the Gordon Gekko of the 80s

Is a mystery to me

My mind goes back to those times

When we all thought we were free.

Drowning Ghost





The Curse was born in darkness.
drowning in a sea of emotion.
stretching and reaching round thy brain,
thoughts have over taken, so i go insane.
clasping uncertainty mesmerized by fears,
demons of the night take souls and tears.
Aware of the bottomless ocean below,
Frightened by the improbability of it all.

trapped in this mirror...of this drowning sea.
 
Each direction takes a pull at thy limbs.
screaming and chocking on emotional box.
Faint, faint, there is dark in its eyes,
screeching howls from numerous cries.

Giving our eyes,a floating world,
creating the many arms and legs of evil.
this cures darkens my spirit each day.
encased in the fetor of a hessian tomb.
slinking into tired,tissue-thin walls.

Faint, faint words scrambled in my head,
its to late know, your limbs are dead.
thy beautiful corps drown in a tunnel,
so thy lay in brittle walls..
thee equation boast humanity,
struggling as time picked up speed.
Faint, faint, my mind will lead,
tiring nots her limbs will bleed.

Faint, faint, my voice grew dry.
fading to nothing her body began to dry

-Kumiko Yamamoto

Thank you for all the great entries so far everyone!

AlexnEmoLand said:
Drowning Ghost





The Curse was born in darkness.
drowning in a sea of emotion.
stretching and reaching round thy brain,
thoughts have over taken, so i go insane.
clasping uncertainty mesmerized by fears,
demons of the night take souls and tears.
Aware of the bottomless ocean below,
Frightened by the improbability of it all.

trapped in this mirror...of this drowning sea.
 
Each direction takes a pull at thy limbs.
screaming and chocking on emotional box.
Faint, faint, there is dark in its eyes,
screeching howls from numerous cries.

Giving our eyes,a floating world,
creating the many arms and legs of evil.
this cures darkens my spirit each day.
encased in the fetor of a hessian tomb.
slinking into tired,tissue-thin walls.

Faint, faint words scrambled in my head,
its to late know, your limbs are dead.
thy beautiful corps drown in a tunnel,
so thy lay in brittle walls..
thee equation boast humanity,
struggling as time picked up speed.
Faint, faint, my mind will lead,
tiring nots her limbs will bleed.

Faint, faint, my voice grew dry.
fading to nothing her body began to dry

-Kumiko Yamamoto


I love that poem, Kumiko! Your poems are always fantastic.