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  2d Mike Adam
Grace
When I am old will this river know my name,
when I am old will the sky remember me,
who walked in spring and winter without aim,
who dove into the currents for the sea

When I am old will the forest harbour me,
when I am old will the grass regret
how I walked across its back so tenderly,
or will they too grow old and so, forget?
The night sings,
through the foggy glow of streetlamps.
The lethargy of emotions floats
in the street’s dark alley.

She came to take away the questions
never spoken,
and now I think of myself,
of the world,
of those who cannot sleep
in this nocturne time.

It would be easier to rise above
and cast soothing words.
Much harder to endure
like a thought shut in a tin
that escapes at last
when water appears.

I meant well,
Yet it slipped away from human logic.
That is why on many nights
I tear out hours, minutes,
to write what I feel.

Autumn is in the air.
Morning light reveals
golden-green shades,
slowly entering red.

In memory glows the smile
of summer landscapes,
of heat,
of promises unfulfilled
that fade with the light.

Today, everything falls into thought
like gossamer on ploughed ground.
So much beauty there is.
How could I live
without metaphors?

To call things by their names,
not to drown in longings,
not to color them,
to make shapes less painful?

Autumn has come.
I float between breaths.
I don’t know what will come.
I only know I write
in the silence of this night,
in search of lost time
more precious than sleep,
than stillness,
than a brief dream.
the wolf howls, no reply.
the clock ticks but never chimes.

who outlasts the tomb?

we walk the halls
to remember footsteps,
shout at the walls, why!

who do walls remember?

whispers and laughter,
the weight of every sigh.
the shadow that weeps
and the child who cries.

the wolf howls, no reply.
the clock ticks but never chimes.

what do windows see?

faces pressed close, lovers kissing.
the tears from a bleeding sky
when the rain
taps gently for all lovers.

walls echo laughter and longing,
and windows dream
of time gone.

the clock is ticking.

who outlasts the tomb?

the wolf howls....
each heartbeat a plea against the void.
_ for North and South, for dusk and dawn, for cider and jasmine_

The axis tilts
not toward, not away
just enough to hush the rush,
to gather breath
between bootprint and barefoot,
between cider simmering in a northern hearth
and
jasmine blooming in a southern breeze.

Pause.
Now.
Pause again.
The Earth inhales.

Amber dusk settles over woollen shoulders,
while indigo dawn slips into linen skin.
Somewhere, a spark dares to rise
golden, blooming, a hum in the chest of the South.

Somewhere else, a hush falls
rusted leaves scatter,
falling like memory into the North’s open palms.

We are tilted,
but not broken.
We are mirrored,
but not the same.

Harvest gathers in one hand,
budding dares in the other.
The bootprint of winter presses into soil,
while barefoot spring dances across it.

Cider and jasmine.
Woollen and linen.
Gather and scatter.
Breathe and breath.

The equator is not a line,
but a pulse.
A dare.
A rest.
A hush that hums.

We rise, we fall.
We fall, we rise.
Golden rusted.
Light shadow.
Shadow light.

And in the centre
the pause.
The now.
The breath that belongs to both.
To all.
  Sep 12 Mike Adam
Agnes de Lods
Letters not sent
Words untouched by hands,
There is no softer gaze,
Opening radiant ways
With rapid pulse of breaths,
In spoken sentences.
The invisible margin of lost attention.

I saw unsettling light,
The sun glinting on the window,
An ordinary building across the street
And an elusive, surreal reflection
Of a blurred sphere, not giving warmth.

I stare at this distorted image,
Wanting to endure it directly,
Longer than I could bear,
In a motionless pause
The side effects of this manifestation.

My eyes were slightly closed
To hug the contours of an unclear shape.
The luminosity from a distance
Safely stays at a fragile layer,
So as not to freeze and not to burn
Before the piercing, conclusive truth.

Being for so long and perfectly alone.
So many hours punished by the silence,
The long days in tamed anger,
Waiting for relief,
All those good wishes in letters were never sent.

The gleams turned in the blunt, painful light.
Just two living spheres and a clear, cold glass
In the ocean of rigid duties,
A star’s slow implosion,
Reshaped colorful memories, grasping at remains.

The vivid balloon with the air gone—
No longer flying above our heads.
Nothing else, just indifference that forgot
How it used to cry.
  Sep 12 Mike Adam
guy scutellaro
the moon lights a bed of frost.
the wind a storyteller.

are the stars and the sea
still there
when the sky weeps white?

the moon lights a bed of frost.
the wind is a storyteller

and the griffons know the failure
of flesh, flesh and bones

and feeling the bones
in my crooked nose,
I understand sunrise
is not a guarantee.

the sky weeps white.

but the nightingale sometimes
sings to me of you in my dreams.


...(if the nightingale sings of me
then know I hear her too.)
  Sep 9 Mike Adam
Agnes de Lods
In apparent silence,
Raindrops play their music.
I look at the strings of stretched water
Before they touch the soft, damp ground.

Fog has covered the distant hills.
The Spirit of those Mountains
Existed only in the past chants
Of those who, without bodies,
Return to their abandoned homes
As a breath on a wet glass.

I don't know their language,
But I hear their words:
The fog,
The rain,
The hills
And memories
Hidden in the soothingly cold rocks
And streams of clear water.

I cut out a piece of earth and sky
I've always been sad to leave that place.
I stay a few moments longer,
Before walking ahead
I drink the peace,  
I eat the rustle of the wind,
Absorbing the steady pattern of raindrops.

I long to be invisible
A drawing of the unearthly landscape
And come back here endlessly
After long absences.
In the green valley,
Immersed in the rain
Where I leave and find myself
Again,
Again,
Again…
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