Lykren's Poetry Shop

[Lykren]

I'll stick with this thread for posting my poetry from now on. To start:

Tree light swoops down
to the travelled road
at its feet.
I wish and wonder
what the west will bring
this big and broad-shouldered evening.
All my fragile thoughts
like the stars
have collapsed into the thin horizon
where the moon flings herself up from
and deep blue frames the earth
with a loving touch.

Here and now
the shining filaments
protecting life
vanish
and beautiful forms appear.
The shadows
or the sun
and the clouds between them
exist as massive music
the desert applauds.

[The Truth]

I very much like the way this poem takes me on a journey, through nature as one. Flow is often said to be totally unimportant when it comes to the actual importance of a poem but I find it to ultimately be what makes good poems great. You do a great job of imagery, I look forward to seeing some more!

[Lykren]

Thanks Truth. Here is

A Sad Face

High clouds
sit motionless
the waves smash against the beach.
Quiet
has nothing to do with this place
birds scream
and the wind commits her violent dance
to memory.
I lift
a sad face
and faint rain
appears on its white cheeks.
Who speaks words like fruit
who makes dreams of
the fields bathed in sun
and strong boughs here?
Only
the wet sand
murmurs a justification.

[Lykren]

One more tonight!

Bromeliads

Bromeliads
by the piano
memorialize a life.
The painting gives
its jaunty colors
to the wall
and no one
sows silence
save the emblazoned reaper.

[E.A Rumfield]

Thanks Truth. Here is

A Sad Face

High clouds
sit motionless
the waves smash against the beach.
Quiet
has nothing to do with this place
birds scream
and the wind commits her violent dance
to memory.
I lift
a sad face
and faint rain
appears on its white cheeks.
Who speaks words like fruit
who makes dreams of
the fields bathed in sun
and strong boughs here?
Only
the wet sand
murmurs a justification.

This is good. Lines 10-13 are really good. Almost musical in a way. I'm impressed.

[Bar22do]

I love your delicate, yet profound writing, Lykren, in your Sad Face, I found the questions very strong:

Who speaks words like fruit
who makes dreams of
the fields bathed in sun
and strong boughs here?

[Lykren]

Thanks for your kind comments guys! Another one:

That is the sea I sometimes am
and arched above the rock in the center
(a gray core to the steel ravages of storm)
this is the angel whose wings I understand.
Like the flight of my own heart
through lighted clouds
it threads a stolen path
through the leisure of antique heavens
and goes low among the flowers
throbbing along the drownèd sea.
This is the lake I sometimes can be
calm as light early in the morning
and always seeking.

[Lykren]

On the mountain
certain drops appear
the result of fog.
A fury
emanates from me
like a snuffling boar.
The distant peaks
and fallen shadows
act as a terrible memory.
No news awaits me
on the long paths down
the gray slopes.
The pale colors of the clouds
grow paler over me
a soft powder
mixing with the invisible rain.
The clouds
are not my enemies.
Nevertheless
I turn from them
and walk down the road.

[Buh4Bee]

I enjoyed these. In a sense some of the poetry is about nothing, but a weaving of your thoughts with the landscape. It's refreshing and light- like summer. You capture yourself and your thought in a lovely space and time.

[Lykren]

Thank you Bee. I guess I have a hard time writing on a particular topic - I usually get caught up in the feel of the words. I'm glad you found enjoyment in these.

Like a cold bomb
waiting for
the present moment
to explode
my hand opens.
Or like a flower
clear in its implications
my eye bursts open
across my face
in the pink cross-light
of your room.
Whimsical seconds
assume their position
on the clock’s face
while we move
slowly.
The books
on your shelf
keep falling off
and never landing
but in our deeper selves
they do.
The love of the window
for the dim, autumnal yellow
light of the streetlamp
has never been more gratefully
received.

[Lykren]

Wrote this after watching No Country For Old Men, one of my favorite movies.

Death is our father
his diary lies in our chests
by our beds.
Surrounding the fountain
sweet air
breathes a long melody
longer than despair.
He requires
his tax of contemplative mood
then returns it
as many-fold as the night
which is deep in its settling.

[Haunted]

I guess I have a hard time writing on a particular topic - I usually get caught up in the feel of the words.

Welcome to to the forum, Lykren

I think at some point you'll find an anchor which will enrich your words even further.

My favorite is "Bromeliads". It's very descriptive, both in imagery and mood, with only a few words.

[Lykren]

Thank you Haunted.

A Desolation

Of cloth
rainbows
the mud mutters
of their sad speech
and the sky
drifting
steps in.
It says
there are no more
authors of the void
only this color
and the rest.
And the bees stopped humming.

[Delta40]

I found post #10 interesting. Especially

my eye bursts open
across my face
in the pink cross-light
of your room.

It rather feels like an overflow of words spew forth in the moment as inspiration finds you. Definitely keep writing!

[Lykren]

Haha Delta40, you got it exactly. Here is another spewing of words:

Waves of contentment
can feel
like the displeasure
of the gods.
Bells ring
fulness drapes itself
in clouds across the sky,
the swelling theatre
of the moon,
and only dark thoughts
sit at the center
of that crowded forest
the mind.
Bitter sugar
this liquid gauze
filling the rays
of the eyes.
I am sad
but do not feel it.
I an weary
and sharp stings weary me further.
We misunderstand ourselves
our thoughts are novellas
of the sky at night
smothered with the usual light
and dust.
Tonight a girl sits next to me
as red as the sea
of rain bulging at my window.
If she stands up
and leaves
leaves
will come falling
from her hair.
Smoke,
wet,
drifts in
I dream
and the crowd shuffles off.

[Lykren]

The Passage

I find myself alive.
The dark
sputtering rain
washes my feet clean.
When I lift
my head
the horizon sings
white light.
If
in the tunnel
we find
leaves of gold
who would keep them
among us?
On the lake
ice repeats.
The droplets hover
and then crash
a fountain
of aerial liberty
the angels love
who speak
in tongues
lifting their bodies
to the river's surface.


It's raining where I am, an unusual occurrence.

[Lykren]

I wish strange brown birds
had not flown through heaven
while I was away
and that laughter
would come from this small thought
like light from the sun.
All this starry
mess
comes to one
indissoluble difficulty;
how to pray, exist, and entertwine
like a celebrant
of this bubble, here,
and of that raven, there.
Love has not such
problems. The mind
calls and calls for them
but the darkness
simply will not rise.
And why does one call?
For the hope of answering,
of course, and always
the soft quietude, that is with us
always, bearing down from above
like the blue of a warm day.

[Lykren]

A Barrier to Darkness

The frost
has walked in here after ten years.
Ten years’ absence, full of quiescent bliss
and unthanked warmth.
Now the sleet
and ice have come to call.
For ten years we shouted.
Now we whisper.
Our fantastic leaps
in the dark
are shrunk to tiptoe.
A great confusion of voices
is in the hallway, made of voices
present or not present,
of families in the hallway
both assembled and not assembled.
Descending the stairs
our White Lady
comes to us, and hushes us
with her finger to her red lips,
and says,
“Listen. This cold wind
is a barrier to the darkness. All light
all life
will spring from this new weather.”
And so
all light did.
But that is not the end.

[Lykren]

My heart sleeps
with the difficulty
of a baby's fingers
catching the air.

I dip into cold water.
The smooth reflections amaze me.
Dark trees swallow the hills.
In a space far overhead
the eagle's cry pushes back the sky.
All of this
breaks into ripples
when I step forward.

Empty
and clear.
Graceless
the soft dust
rises
then drowns again
lost in the mist
of heavy water.

[Lykren]

A clumsy fear
enters not here.
From the stung mouth comes
a nephilim's laughter
and the haunting touch
discovers no unknown well
no throbbing ocean
that pulsed unseen
beneath the skin
but instead satin
knuckles and impenetrably
dark hair
smooth as an ax.