Submissions by Ahavati (Tams)
POEMS AND SHORT STORIES
Poet Introduction
Don't make me take my pearls off.
SPIRITUAL POEM
Published
13th Jun 2016 11:03pm
13th Jun 2016 11:03pm
Xylophile
Let me inhale dirty wood
raw with bloody after-
birth of unbathed soil.
Let me feel a compass
of conduits beneath bare
feet, those gnarled arteries
whose arthritic limbs
stretch deep into
petrified bone and egg.
I yearn to hear the creaking
back of pines keeping
peace with the wind,
shooting their prickly
coat of quills over
the dampened floor
beneath my steps.
To taste feral blood
from the Hawk's beak;
from the shadow… ...
raw with bloody after-
birth of unbathed soil.
Let me feel a compass
of conduits beneath bare
feet, those gnarled arteries
whose arthritic limbs
stretch deep into
petrified bone and egg.
I yearn to hear the creaking
back of pines keeping
peace with the wind,
shooting their prickly
coat of quills over
the dampened floor
beneath my steps.
To taste feral blood
from the Hawk's beak;
from the shadow… ...
1290 reads
16 Comments
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
8th Jun 2016 00:18am
8th Jun 2016 00:18am
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
1725 reads
40 Comments
SPIRITUAL POEM
Published
4th Jun 2016 1:41pm
4th Jun 2016 1:41pm
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...
1280 reads
25 Comments
LOVE POEM
Published
31st May 2016 7:15pm
31st May 2016 7:15pm
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...
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...
#SylviaPlath
1365 reads
36 Comments
SPIRITUAL POEM
Published
27th May 2016 3:32pm
27th May 2016 3:32pm
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...
1148 reads
21 Comments
SPIRITUAL POEM
Published
24th May 2016 5:17pm
24th May 2016 5:17pm
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...
1134 reads
36 Comments
SPIRITUAL POEM
Published
22nd May 2016 00:57am
22nd May 2016 00:57am
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
~
1117 reads
15 Comments
SPIRITUAL POEM
Published
18th May 2016 5:18pm
18th May 2016 5:18pm
Air Castles III: Inheritance
Like visions, places nudge us
through inheritance, striking
remembrance rooted in sulfur
rekindling the Spirit of blood
Communion was Love, an ancestor
soft reminder of its ever-presence
When I woke, I couldn’t remember
its Castle of crystal compass
Then from his room, dreaming away
dawn, my grandson began to laugh
and I slowly remembered
from where it was I came
and smiled at the prospect of hope
~
through inheritance, striking
remembrance rooted in sulfur
rekindling the Spirit of blood
Communion was Love, an ancestor
soft reminder of its ever-presence
When I woke, I couldn’t remember
its Castle of crystal compass
Then from his room, dreaming away
dawn, my grandson began to laugh
and I slowly remembered
from where it was I came
and smiled at the prospect of hope
~
1153 reads
9 Comments
SPIRITUAL POEM
Published
13th May 2016 8:41pm
13th May 2016 8:41pm
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...
1148 reads
18 Comments
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
8th May 2016 11:20pm
8th May 2016 11:20pm
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,...
1449 reads
23 Comments
SPIRITUAL POEM
Published
4th May 2016 7:43pm
4th May 2016 7:43pm
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
2549 reads
17 Comments
SPIRITUAL POEM
Published
1st May 2016 4:48am
1st May 2016 4:48am
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
1245 reads
13 Comments
DU Poetry : Submissions by Ahavati (Tams)
