Submissions by ImperfectedStone (The Gardener)
POEMS AND SHORT STORIES
Poet Introduction
💚
Raise the wolves
Raise the wolves
Hold back oceans, tear out walls,
march to the capital, burn it all down,
someone light pyres,
someone change laws,
someone believe women
like their fevers are more
than sailing through tides,
storms - all that matters.
Someone drum the Moon dance,
someone stir the pots,
tend to the harmed,
tend to the healing
and hold it,
like an elder might,
watch hungered embers
rise ever higher,
smoke colliding with a soft-pink sky,
feasting on those
who crashed our world's right...
Hold back oceans, tear out walls,
march to the capital, burn it all down,
someone light pyres,
someone change laws,
someone believe women
like their fevers are more
than sailing through tides,
storms - all that matters.
Someone drum the Moon dance,
someone stir the pots,
tend to the harmed,
tend to the healing
and hold it,
like an elder might,
watch hungered embers
rise ever higher,
smoke colliding with a soft-pink sky,
feasting on those
who crashed our world's right...
#anger
#women
#responsibility
122 reads
1 Comment
Dilution
After someone has cornered you, dominated you,
broken you down,
stripped you back until all that you are is their needs,
their wants, pain and rejection the closest taste of love,
after you grow a backbone enough to see the degrading dynamic for what it is,
they'll try bullying,
they'll try negotiating,
pacifying, lashing out,
gaslighting,
they'll try pretending they never understood,
or you never made it clear,
you never seemed in pain,
they'll try tears,
to call you home,
only to reject you again, ...
broken you down,
stripped you back until all that you are is their needs,
their wants, pain and rejection the closest taste of love,
after you grow a backbone enough to see the degrading dynamic for what it is,
they'll try bullying,
they'll try negotiating,
pacifying, lashing out,
gaslighting,
they'll try pretending they never understood,
or you never made it clear,
you never seemed in pain,
they'll try tears,
to call you home,
only to reject you again, ...
#anger
#regret
#abuse #bullying
#abuse #bullying
158 reads
4 Comments
Womanhood
We don't speak about it,
us females,
us one in four,
us, who worry we might trigger someone,
we don't,
we share spoken word about nature, about comedy,
about the way we circumnavigated the seas,
we talk about death and politics,
the human experience over tea.
But I want you to know I'd hold you
if you want to talk about DV,
or addiction or abuse or whatever chaos
occured that lingers behind the teeth.
I would hold space for the discomfort,
quietly bow to the silenced once before.
We are the one in three howling, ...
us females,
us one in four,
us, who worry we might trigger someone,
we don't,
we share spoken word about nature, about comedy,
about the way we circumnavigated the seas,
we talk about death and politics,
the human experience over tea.
But I want you to know I'd hold you
if you want to talk about DV,
or addiction or abuse or whatever chaos
occured that lingers behind the teeth.
I would hold space for the discomfort,
quietly bow to the silenced once before.
We are the one in three howling, ...
#women
#abuse
#DomesticViolence
167 reads
2 Comments
Ten years after the statement TW:SA
#strength
#hope
#home
42 reads
0 Comments
Plum juice
Plum juice
The wasp hears tribe in her body,
burns like the center of a matriarch's wake,
sings on fantasies of honey,
curls her wings, flits into bitterest night.
I've thought seldom on pity,
where the city holds casks of sweet cider.
She scents for it, and the actualisation
of a pint surpasses the idea.
You take a picture,
yet the picture never lasts in the mind,
she sends a warcry,
one that never reaches your ears.
Her warriors come gathering,
sisters and brothers buzz.
She's trapped...
The wasp hears tribe in her body,
burns like the center of a matriarch's wake,
sings on fantasies of honey,
curls her wings, flits into bitterest night.
I've thought seldom on pity,
where the city holds casks of sweet cider.
She scents for it, and the actualisation
of a pint surpasses the idea.
You take a picture,
yet the picture never lasts in the mind,
she sends a warcry,
one that never reaches your ears.
Her warriors come gathering,
sisters and brothers buzz.
She's trapped...
#hope
#gratitude
#responsibility
54 reads
1 Comment
The Elements
Aries was never the Sun,
horns dripping with war,
fear a pelt on their bonestead.
Taurus never more than a purr,
a promise in its infancy,
the allure of rose tinted glass.
Gemini were wild and adventurous things,
wise, scratching, empowered.
Cancer was both compassionate and villainous,
could fill whole reservoirs with their tears.
And Leo hosted warm gatherings,
soul fierce and wide for the pride.
Virgo was a steady, calm alchemy,
the creator, the joyful, passion element.
Libra was...
horns dripping with war,
fear a pelt on their bonestead.
Taurus never more than a purr,
a promise in its infancy,
the allure of rose tinted glass.
Gemini were wild and adventurous things,
wise, scratching, empowered.
Cancer was both compassionate and villainous,
could fill whole reservoirs with their tears.
And Leo hosted warm gatherings,
soul fierce and wide for the pride.
Virgo was a steady, calm alchemy,
the creator, the joyful, passion element.
Libra was...
#universe
#stars
#astrology #fiction
#astrology #fiction
103 reads
2 Comments
[[sometimes underground walkways, other times private parking lots]]
[sometimes underground walkways, other times private parking lots]]
We curled into each other,
in the parking lot,
hooked, lined and sinkered,
legs and arms and blankets
where electric lights and Mercedes cars
stayed dry from the wet gloom of the city.
He had a bottle of cheap cider,
they had cigarettes, passed them 'round,
called me the 'Angel',
we found this place as it was an alley away
from the youth centre we went as kids
when we had nowhere else to go.
With no one else to listen,
they taught me...
We curled into each other,
in the parking lot,
hooked, lined and sinkered,
legs and arms and blankets
where electric lights and Mercedes cars
stayed dry from the wet gloom of the city.
He had a bottle of cheap cider,
they had cigarettes, passed them 'round,
called me the 'Angel',
we found this place as it was an alley away
from the youth centre we went as kids
when we had nowhere else to go.
With no one else to listen,
they taught me...
#parent
#teens
#home #healing
#home #healing
101 reads
1 Comment
Aftermath
The sky is deliciously clear,
a hundred white irises stare down on this,
this dilapidated Eden, this night
where the owl rings clear and the smoke billows steady
from corners of an upturned, chill coloured mouth
pouring out those cups of tears I've been carrying for my sisters,
I don't let on the barrel is heavy,
I don't let on I have no second vessel,
instead I sit on the porch and sing
quietly to the Moon
imagining I could still talk to you,
recognising there were so many tears when I could've
that even ten sisters couldn't carry...
a hundred white irises stare down on this,
this dilapidated Eden, this night
where the owl rings clear and the smoke billows steady
from corners of an upturned, chill coloured mouth
pouring out those cups of tears I've been carrying for my sisters,
I don't let on the barrel is heavy,
I don't let on I have no second vessel,
instead I sit on the porch and sing
quietly to the Moon
imagining I could still talk to you,
recognising there were so many tears when I could've
that even ten sisters couldn't carry...
#sister
#rebirth
#healing #emotions
#healing #emotions
127 reads
2 Comments
Round we'll go again
Round we'll go again
We sing to the stars,
the cirrus clouds that collect over Moon,
rock, there by the fire,
in the looming of light, call
in father Sun, his lift back to hours,
our fingers weaving
warmth that'll curl
into being, seeing
the lessening of night.
We chant incantations into breath,
to stain the dusk as wives,
witches bound to Almanac
we thrum, drum Capricorn highs,
where stones sit, rest,
shape of full De Lune,
shadow daughters
darkening further
to rise upon his dawn.
...
We sing to the stars,
the cirrus clouds that collect over Moon,
rock, there by the fire,
in the looming of light, call
in father Sun, his lift back to hours,
our fingers weaving
warmth that'll curl
into being, seeing
the lessening of night.
We chant incantations into breath,
to stain the dusk as wives,
witches bound to Almanac
we thrum, drum Capricorn highs,
where stones sit, rest,
shape of full De Lune,
shadow daughters
darkening further
to rise upon his dawn.
...
#moon
#winter
#nature
95 reads
1 Comment
Journal December
She wants the bite of slick country memories,
to drive over county lines, take that long hike
--
A place that greens far from dark whiskey,
another space foreseen she'd lose sense of time.
It's the hue of wide pine rows, the crag, small leat
that leaks from aloft and bleeds off a hill.
It's the ache after walking,
the weight of her kit,
the scent of still mist
evaporating from land.
It's the quiet, an ice
that kisses each freckle
and reminds still muscles
to be steady but roam.
...
to drive over county lines, take that long hike
--
A place that greens far from dark whiskey,
another space foreseen she'd lose sense of time.
It's the hue of wide pine rows, the crag, small leat
that leaks from aloft and bleeds off a hill.
It's the ache after walking,
the weight of her kit,
the scent of still mist
evaporating from land.
It's the quiet, an ice
that kisses each freckle
and reminds still muscles
to be steady but roam.
...
#home
#water
#nature
48 reads
0 Comments
Go boldly
Go boldly
"You should run,
gun it across Ditsworthy,
barefoot, down-sunken,
peel off your skins,
the scarves, hats and jumpers,
unleash every wilderness
sheathed by your palms -
where silence goes bleating,
above every birdsong,
whistles through ear-beds,
tongues through your hair
and here, where you're lingering
you'll hear the peace in equilibrium."
"You should run, kid," the old ghosts go calling,
hoarse throats that seldom hold salvation or care,
and so I disrobe, ...
"You should run,
gun it across Ditsworthy,
barefoot, down-sunken,
peel off your skins,
the scarves, hats and jumpers,
unleash every wilderness
sheathed by your palms -
where silence goes bleating,
above every birdsong,
whistles through ear-beds,
tongues through your hair
and here, where you're lingering
you'll hear the peace in equilibrium."
"You should run, kid," the old ghosts go calling,
hoarse throats that seldom hold salvation or care,
and so I disrobe, ...
#freedom
#escape
#healing
82 reads
0 Comments
Laser focus
Laser focus.
I want to write always
in a bar with a woman who owns beautiful hats
and her husband playing music on a small, stacked piano,
her fingers dusted in paint,
the dogs skipping her feet,
on headlands where the sea cries,
whips up and kisses our skin,
in the reedbeds,
in the darkness
where two white beeches fell,
to hear what's out of bounds
come screaming to life once more,
on the stage, whilst holding gaze,
the audience like a cloud.
I want to write until I'm greying
and tales hold...
I want to write always
in a bar with a woman who owns beautiful hats
and her husband playing music on a small, stacked piano,
her fingers dusted in paint,
the dogs skipping her feet,
on headlands where the sea cries,
whips up and kisses our skin,
in the reedbeds,
in the darkness
where two white beeches fell,
to hear what's out of bounds
come screaming to life once more,
on the stage, whilst holding gaze,
the audience like a cloud.
I want to write until I'm greying
and tales hold...
#happiness
#home
#WritingPoetry
58 reads
1 Comment
DU Poetry : Submissions by ImperfectedStone (The Gardener)