Away, if I could but go
And climb like days of old
The hidden hills, clinging
‘Mid the horizon’s lowest folds
Tell me when the greys will brighten
And ease recover haste
And sharper relief lay to rest
The years that went to waste
Away, if I could but go
And climb like days of old
The hidden hills, clinging
‘Mid the horizon’s lowest folds
Tell me when the greys will brighten
And ease recover haste
And sharper relief lay to rest
The years that went to waste
You are no more
Than the smell of memory
As the rain brings you down
From the wisteria
Back then the forest growled when you were to stay away, and if you still went in, the bracken ate up every little piece from fingertips to ribs. And in the creaking of the boughs the trees would be licking their lips.
These days Margaid is bent almost double, yet she still watches the forest as it grows tame alongside the village pastures.
The sheep no longer shy away when the sun dips low and shadows lengthen over the knolls; they chew absently and they wander, heedless until one of the dogs comes bounding up. The shepherds are no longer suspicious, but let the sheep graze almost until nightfall.
Margaid watches the forest and grumbles, thinking it does this to spite her. Perhaps only when she is dead and buried will it come back, gnaw up the stray sheep, and set nightmares loose among the cottages again. She is being stubborn but would it not stand to reason that roots can be more stubborn yet?
As the light fails she rises from her seat and stiffly turns for home. Each day, she might not be back again. Each day, she longs to hear the trees as they used to be.
You’ve left me with a square-ish space
These four walls and hours baked
With horns, insults, demands pounding through.
The drywall can’t hold back the swell
So my space shrinks and time retells
The same stories of trippy, sleepless, broken nights.
Squished and squished and cut down some more
To fit your size, should I go out the door
Not daring to protect my face, my heart,
My lungs that cry to breathe apart
From the taunts that follow masks or medicine.
God forbid that we should be free
To live in peace or quiet or safety
That we should learn from what has kept us whole so far –
So scream and pollute and tear from me
My flags, my stoop, my grocery
And call it your freedom, duly crowned.
I want to give more than I can
All those years without you
The baked grass of my childhood
And the nights in red and black
It comes with wanting more of you
The yous that I can never meet
Samson hair and fresh-eyed grin
You as you are now
With all you were then
What place is this
A hostile defense
A victim and a tyrant
That I heedlessly chose
For myself
When we step into time again
Memory is slow to show
The truth of discontinuity
And the silence that has grown
–
What time has left, what we have lost
A spectre blooming overblown
Conversations we still carry on
With the ones we used to know
–
If the unspoken can be a legacy
If disbelief can make life so
We can forget what has been changing
And the silence that still grows
–
https://ottawacitizen.remembering.ca/obituary/michael-ip-1082083615
Ironically, they have begun levying taxes. Or “tithes” as they prefer to say.
What began as an earnest protest, and journeys downriver to avoid the tollbooth on the very road they had helped preserve and protect, has ended as do all journeys towards regional importance.
The thing about protecting places is that it inevitably costs money – a militia, walls, wells, equipment. And if you, the ruler, pay for it all out-of-pocket, you might create enough inflationary pressure that monsters become a lesser concern. The dragons, they could deal with. The forces of macroeconomics not so much.
So the Righteous Tax Evaders are in the process of quietly burying their old moniker, much aided by the fact that until recently – despite all their giant- and undead-slaying – no one had really known who they were.
One could say they are disgruntled, but above all, they are realists.
You told me I was missing Monster
And until I saw the insides of
Doki Doki Literature Club
I would be incomplete
But I am always looking
Away from darkness, unless
Mundane worries lurk
Or there is the perfect niche
To hide my messes away
I believe you even though
I will never watch or play them
And if you were here, I’d gladly hear
You saying it all again
https://ottawacitizen.remembering.ca/obituary/michael-ip-1082083615
Night grows reflective
When on your way home
There is another tempo
For being alone
–
Image from Wallpaper Flare
| Heart on Fire |
Thoughts, Stories, Poems
Un poème n'est jamais fini, seulement abandonné. A poem is never finished, only abandoned."Paul Valéry"
The Poetry of Emotion
Read on, it's good for the brain.
Scientist by day 🌞 poet by night🌛// business inquiries: huffinesc16@students.ecu.edu
My Own Paradise: Life on Seven and a Half Acres