Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 
I lean on you;
You need me;
We’re in debt to each other.
It’s simple, you see.

You work hard
And bring home the bread;
Without you, I’d starve
In my solitary bed.

You live in our home
Like a worker drone;
Without me you’d freeze
And be all alone.

Without you, I’d starve
Or live in privation,
We’re the lone citizens
In a private nation.

Though we never make love,
And rarely touch.
We must stay together;
For the world is too much.

Year after year,
We’re apart yet near.
No one dares rock the boat;
We’re so precariously afloat.

We could languish like this until we die;
We seem quite normal to the untrained eye.
And apart yet together, we could stay,
Until the tides of time just wash us away.

Finished on January 3, 2011
Through a narrow tributary flowing down
Flanked by rustling reeds on either side
The small boat made its lonesome way
Carrying two souls from all distractions

The current was dotted here and there  
With floating masses of water hyacinths
With lavender blossoms peeping through the green
That drifted to and fro as the boat made its way

Pleating gentle curls in the water’s swell
The boat moved, carrying him and her
Gliding away unhurried and unrushed
Over the heaving crest of pure delight

As it entered the river’s wider mouth
Waves began lapping on the boat
And jets of water splashing neck high
With their cool embrace, raising the spirits

Bobbing over waves, they quietly watched
The cobalt sky hugging the mountains far
Hills looming large, with clumps of trees
And their foliage swaying in summer breeze

Before them, the river gallantly stretched along
As a flood of fluid crystal, a current of liquid light
Expressing in turn, the silent meditation of a sage
And the noisy ebullience of a naughty kid

Leaving all cares behind, on the sullen shores
Hearing the lovely chanting of songbirds
Enjoying the river’s shifting loveliness
The two entered into the river’s inner heart

As the magic moments mesmerized their senses
They knew they had found a new love
A flower suddenly blooming in the wild
Drifting them to a world sans any fences !
Winter draws closer day by day,
Autumn leaves are around my feet
From far, is heard
The screeching of a lone bird,
Voicing its dismay aloud
Over the advancing fall

Here the moss scrawls
Ugly pictures on the bark of trees
Where black spiders weave their gossamer
Moving, sig sag across the trees’ leprous trunks
I see the yellowing leaves
Torn down from their sturdy limbs
Sliding down noiselessly one by one
And landing on the ground
With a mournful sound

Acorns from the pine trees drop
And swell the ground and fall to sleep

Life too takes a downward spiral
I feel the autumn seeping into me
And my heart feels a languid grief
The days of my youth
Seem to fly away in a flurry
Like autumn leaves whirling in the gale
Reminding us, that we are not here to stay

The withered leaves
Which shriek and screech under my feet
Recall to me the cry of martyred youth
And all tenacity overthrown
Like them, we too will fall and be dead to the world
Wrapped in frozen silence, forgotten by all
And ****** back into primal void!
 May 2019 Arif Hifzioglu
Eloisa
I again visited my garden of despair
Watered with tears of woes and neglect
And now that the pond of bliss is arid
I once again asked myself
What flowers can thrive on these barrens?
Then I glanced at the blossoms of withered memories
Scattered as wreckage from a landslide
The bushes of harrowing pain I found
Arranged in a line of endless thorny shrubs
Decayed trees bearing the fruit of deceit
Still cast a shadow of contorted lies
I then trod as lightly and slowly as I could
Then plucked a fruit from a rotten tree and got its seeds
And with a chalky smile I hummed a quiet tune
Even in the death of my garden
I saw the promises of healing
As I walked past the rusty trellises and tarnished fences
I welcomed my sanguine memories of perfect and scented blooms
Visions of sun-drenched leaves greeted my anguish with a sliver of silver lining
It doesn’t matter if my garden left me with nothing
What now matters most is here in my hands are seeds of hope
Next page