Submissions by Ahavati
POEMS AND SHORT STORIES
Poet Introduction
Proprio Vos Sanguine Pasco
In Your Face
What you say to a poet should be
carefully measured, not edited.
Do not mistake caramel
and the sweetness
of silence for censorship.
If she is blind, she will still peel
one good layer of your laugh,
she will have an analyst come
to your window in the night
and scrape the breath
from your pane to ensure
you are not sneaking a secret --
if she is not blind she will
poke holes through the air,
a pocket to insert your 7th
grade fear of mundane,
you're exquisite talent
for evasion as a child, ...
carefully measured, not edited.
Do not mistake caramel
and the sweetness
of silence for censorship.
If she is blind, she will still peel
one good layer of your laugh,
she will have an analyst come
to your window in the night
and scrape the breath
from your pane to ensure
you are not sneaking a secret --
if she is not blind she will
poke holes through the air,
a pocket to insert your 7th
grade fear of mundane,
you're exquisite talent
for evasion as a child, ...
#anger
#frustration
#disappointment
1611 reads
40 Comments
Goodnight, Moon
I.
A mockingbird nested
In the childbirth of my youth.
I don’t remember when
Just that its hatchlings
Demanded to be fed
Fear to survive.
I was scared so complied.
As moon cycles
They return each year
Constructing more nests,
And more hatchlings
Demanding to be fed.
Each spring multiplied
Their swollen eyes
And soft cartilage.
II.
Last night I watched a waning crescent
its eyelid heavy with sleep
Stumble across the bedroom of
its celestial sphere.
Its gimlet eye also
Spied...
A mockingbird nested
In the childbirth of my youth.
I don’t remember when
Just that its hatchlings
Demanded to be fed
Fear to survive.
I was scared so complied.
As moon cycles
They return each year
Constructing more nests,
And more hatchlings
Demanding to be fed.
Each spring multiplied
Their swollen eyes
And soft cartilage.
II.
Last night I watched a waning crescent
its eyelid heavy with sleep
Stumble across the bedroom of
its celestial sphere.
Its gimlet eye also
Spied...
1189 reads
25 Comments
Blood jet is poetry: after Plath
Blood jet is poetry: after Plath
And here you come, with a cup of tea
Wreathed in Steam.
The blood jet is poetry,
There is no stopping it.
~ Plath
Your poems: I feel like I enter a forest
of toothpick trees, a rigid summer
where shadows fossilize
the lungs of poetry asthmatic—
wheezing air does not absorb;
but, there is a silence here—
I do not feel alone.
I seek artifacts, pooled
in the sweating hollow of your verse
I read and read...
And here you come, with a cup of tea
Wreathed in Steam.
The blood jet is poetry,
There is no stopping it.
~ Plath
Your poems: I feel like I enter a forest
of toothpick trees, a rigid summer
where shadows fossilize
the lungs of poetry asthmatic—
wheezing air does not absorb;
but, there is a silence here—
I do not feel alone.
I seek artifacts, pooled
in the sweating hollow of your verse
I read and read...
#SylviaPlath
1237 reads
31 Comments
Elasticity
Laughter heals a lot of hurts.
~ Madeleine L’Engle
I watch my grandson
expand and retract on
the oval rubber band he
pedals his bike around.
Near enough to reach out
and catch the laughter he
tosses, and, in just a matter
of seconds, far enough to
transform into a tiny winged
hawk gliding over fathoms
of stretched octopus limbs,
seaweed dangling from their skin
in underlying currents dappled
with sunlit wind and shade.
There’s peace in a child’s
laugh that adults rediscover,
a long forgotten secret by...
~ Madeleine L’Engle
I watch my grandson
expand and retract on
the oval rubber band he
pedals his bike around.
Near enough to reach out
and catch the laughter he
tosses, and, in just a matter
of seconds, far enough to
transform into a tiny winged
hawk gliding over fathoms
of stretched octopus limbs,
seaweed dangling from their skin
in underlying currents dappled
with sunlit wind and shade.
There’s peace in a child’s
laugh that adults rediscover,
a long forgotten secret by...
1065 reads
21 Comments
The West Window
Wooden chimes outside my
window sound memories of
peddlers on the mountain
side, their mules laden with
trappings of nature. Metal
utensils knocking against a
feed strap buckle, silhouettes
blocking the light. Rain sliding
like shale under their hooves
and feet over the slanted surface
of leaves toward the lush green
canyon below; a turbine of wind
blows across a shoreline of lace,
its gust extinguishes a constellation
of tea lighted stars and planets.
This pen, with its extension of
fingers...
window sound memories of
peddlers on the mountain
side, their mules laden with
trappings of nature. Metal
utensils knocking against a
feed strap buckle, silhouettes
blocking the light. Rain sliding
like shale under their hooves
and feet over the slanted surface
of leaves toward the lush green
canyon below; a turbine of wind
blows across a shoreline of lace,
its gust extinguishes a constellation
of tea lighted stars and planets.
This pen, with its extension of
fingers...
1051 reads
36 Comments
once in a flower'd moon
from water to wine
the wizard conjures belief
not in word but deed
the more you label
greater the distance will be
including yourself
the moon is engorged
a bloom'd orb bursting with seed
stop and smell the hope
how deep is your love
for no one but you
~
the wizard conjures belief
not in word but deed
the more you label
greater the distance will be
including yourself
the moon is engorged
a bloom'd orb bursting with seed
stop and smell the hope
how deep is your love
for no one but you
~
1051 reads
15 Comments
Air Castles III: Inheritance
Like visions, places nudge us
through inheritance, striking a
remembrance rooted in sulfur
to rekindle the Spirit of blood.
Communion was Love, a ghost’s
soft reminder of its ever-presence.
When I woke I couldn’t remember
its Kingdom of crystal compass.
Then from his room, dreaming away
dawn, my grandson began to laugh.
~
through inheritance, striking a
remembrance rooted in sulfur
to rekindle the Spirit of blood.
Communion was Love, a ghost’s
soft reminder of its ever-presence.
When I woke I couldn’t remember
its Kingdom of crystal compass.
Then from his room, dreaming away
dawn, my grandson began to laugh.
~
1045 reads
9 Comments
Sacred Contracts XXV: Closing Distance
I.
Truthful words are
cataclysmic meteors
penetrating the atmosphere
of human deceit
until extinct.
Beautiful anomalies
closing distance, a
Universal syntax
from a black hole
of spatial knowledge -
its dark poetic verse
misunderstood by a
human fear of loss.
II.
Much of human life
waits to close distance;
a planetary alignment,
shooting stars shearing
the divide with...
Truthful words are
cataclysmic meteors
penetrating the atmosphere
of human deceit
until extinct.
Beautiful anomalies
closing distance, a
Universal syntax
from a black hole
of spatial knowledge -
its dark poetic verse
misunderstood by a
human fear of loss.
II.
Much of human life
waits to close distance;
a planetary alignment,
shooting stars shearing
the divide with...
1051 reads
18 Comments
Rock-Paper-Scissors
I.
I can compose no verse for you,
even 38 years after you’ve gone.
Father’s was easy, dropped from
my mind as the IV into his collapsed
vein the rainy night his spirit passed.
And, even though you suffered as
much as he physically, maybe more –
I don’t remember that part of you.
I remember the cruelty of your
efforts to dig out tiny bits of belief
hidden in the dirty fingernail beds
of a dreaming child,...
I can compose no verse for you,
even 38 years after you’ve gone.
Father’s was easy, dropped from
my mind as the IV into his collapsed
vein the rainy night his spirit passed.
And, even though you suffered as
much as he physically, maybe more –
I don’t remember that part of you.
I remember the cruelty of your
efforts to dig out tiny bits of belief
hidden in the dirty fingernail beds
of a dreaming child,...
1336 reads
23 Comments
Tree of Life
Spring storms, flash bulbs
of paparazzi lightening
illuminate silver linings
of silhouettes clinging
to their branched life.
Thunder rolls in, crashing
against silence, vibrating
limbs with applause; spindly
fingers littering debris and
blossoms across the grass.
A dogwood’s leaves bend
in prayer, baptizing meaning
from their dripping tongues;
drops unknot, disperse as ants
into their burrowed nests.
Clouds dissipate, leave
residual aftermath...
of paparazzi lightening
illuminate silver linings
of silhouettes clinging
to their branched life.
Thunder rolls in, crashing
against silence, vibrating
limbs with applause; spindly
fingers littering debris and
blossoms across the grass.
A dogwood’s leaves bend
in prayer, baptizing meaning
from their dripping tongues;
drops unknot, disperse as ants
into their burrowed nests.
Clouds dissipate, leave
residual aftermath...
#trees
#universe
#nature
#spiritual
#metaphor
2471 reads
17 Comments
Sacred Contracts XXIV: Trust (napowrimo #30)
Thunder strikes a match against
the earth's surface repeatedly from
the box of cloud it grips. Nocturnal
life hides quickly under rainy sheets.
Nature has reached her balance in
reflective glassine coating her skin.
Each leaf is dripping twilight from
its distant galaxy of darkened tree.
Incense is burning with white sage,
the candles' flames are strong, steady;
I offer the sacrifice of time and silence
to the will of the verse, and resist at first.
Thoughts canoe hard against the poem. ...
the earth's surface repeatedly from
the box of cloud it grips. Nocturnal
life hides quickly under rainy sheets.
Nature has reached her balance in
reflective glassine coating her skin.
Each leaf is dripping twilight from
its distant galaxy of darkened tree.
Incense is burning with white sage,
the candles' flames are strong, steady;
I offer the sacrifice of time and silence
to the will of the verse, and resist at first.
Thoughts canoe hard against the poem. ...
#love
#spiritual
#courage
#nature
#humankind
1147 reads
13 Comments
Ecclesiastes (napowrimo #22)
Heavy rain silenced
birds this morning,
muting their voices
with a procession
of muffled cymbals
upon metal rooftops,
sodden steps, and
the weighted spirits
of an atmospheric
funerary service.
The raw puncture
of vortex stripping
emotion to the bone -
the strongest mountain
crumbled in submission,
fire burnt out to ash,
the sacred wind and
water somberly placid.
Those yearning for
the secret solace
of knowledge have
eternal access...
birds this morning,
muting their voices
with a procession
of muffled cymbals
upon metal rooftops,
sodden steps, and
the weighted spirits
of an atmospheric
funerary service.
The raw puncture
of vortex stripping
emotion to the bone -
the strongest mountain
crumbled in submission,
fire burnt out to ash,
the sacred wind and
water somberly placid.
Those yearning for
the secret solace
of knowledge have
eternal access...
#NaPoWriMo2016
1105 reads
9 Comments
DU Poetry : Submissions by Ahavati