Layered
Veiled
Beyond restraint
Smoke-filled keeps
The secret safe
Dear Agnes,
How are you
How’s your dog
And that garden you grew
Have you had good weather
My best to everything in your life
She read the letter
And began to weep
Cringing inside
How much is a poem willing to hide
The paper planes
And a magic lamp
Were all they possessed
As a relic.
The boats sailed and soaked,
The letters crumpled,
The pen stands inked
To rewrite an episode —
This time pitifully,
With plastic pride
And effervescence.
No more memories
Shall find their haunting inn
In the archive of those
Rustic envelopes
Which they called a heart.
The only thing the world
Needs is more love
Yet we go out of our
Way to hurt and destroy
The people that matter the most,
Yet we think we are
The dominant species
Who think know what love is,
If we truly did would we destroy it?
Under the cover of darkness,
Skies full of stars
Are softly tempting:
To lift your head
Stop
Re-calculate route.
—–
Zohar Teshartok lives in Ramat-Gan, Israel. He is a graduate (BA) from Bar-Ilan University in Israeli literature, Jewish art and Information Science. His stories and poems have appeared in magazines, anthologies and in electronic format in Israel and abroad.
Deep sleep at high noon
Shut eyes wide at midnight
I put up and fight
The guns will cease soon.
I dine, I write
I sleep, see day of no lights
On my paths
Of broken glass
Shattered psyche
And humbled might.
The deep and shallow waters
Upon them I ponder
I wonder
Will I ever reach yonder
Should I, rather,
To save my broken skin
Let go, surrender?
No longer do doubts blur my mind
I will let me wander
Into the fancy fountains of fate
Worn and in languor
Lost of time and date
And settle here, my bare bones
It has been long, the wait
This task, grand in weight
Now no longer holds me up late
At the ends,
I rest in knowledge that I fought
And made life of mere thoughts
As it was, by faith or by fate, ought
Even when the labours, in tatters, came to naught.
Then it is
As the smouldering ashes
Embrace my sore soles
On the fallen boulevard of broken dreams
My future flashes through the memories
A wonderful journey it has been
What a great future I have seen.
More at http://kirakaderrickm.blogspot.com.
Was it just a word?
Or was it sneaking in
And stealing my soul
Whilst I slept,
Hearing me playing my
Favourite song that inspired
Me, a tune that helped
As I wrote those deep and dark
Inspiring sonnets, trying not to
Plagiarise the lyric, that hidden
Meaning within a song,
My thoughts coming to life
All because of a song,
Something it awoke in me
As I typed and typed
Erased and erased
As my brain thought
It’s too like the song,
The never ending
Thoughts of a poet
Are always just like the song.
A shortcut through the graveyard
a headstone inscribed
I didn’t know
how much
I loved her
until after
I had died
I sat listening to his story
my ear pressed to the stone
We never fully know ourselves
dead before I met her
she really loved
seeing things in me
I came very close
I played a few notes on the piano
never came to much
she believed
I was Rachmaninoff
igniting savor in her heart
Doodling on a napkin
I’m Dali the surrealist
my pallet over-spilling
a golden sun
her beaming portrait
breaks through old walls
and she melts over me
from head to toe
I wrote three lines in simple rhyme
who knows knows what my words are worth
free verse floating everywhere
genius pouring feathers and quills
engaged in self discovery
she said I helped her find
the poem in her life
every invention
ends with a poetic kiss
I am Socrates the philosopher
she nestles in the contour of my side
considering each word and line
reveling in my brilliance
she is breathing me in
lovingly re-invented
I am breathing too
I’ve become Atlas
a very strong man
as she touched my skin
whetted imagination
a world of beauty
rests gently on my shoulders
She helped me pack and move
and inhabit all these living places
forgiving sin and weakness
and survivals essential lies
From the dust of desolation’s
disbelief in green things
a memory weeping
so softly
a buried conflict
comes back to life