Still

By Alysaria

Within the cold shadows of the deep
A creaking corpse. A skeletal husk
Sightless socket staring,
An empty gaze.
Wounded and broken by unforgiving seas,
Now at peace beneath the churning waves,
At rest in the dark and vast.

Men no longer toil on this vessel.
Suffering, celebration, have ceased
Silent, haunters lurk,
Weaving through the worn planks.
This boat no longer sails
It’s voyages are a memory, a whisper in the pages of a story:

Sirens of the deep, black hair flowing
Sing, but not the songs of David
The bare, scarred, half-forgotten echo of the past,
A reminder of mortality, a tribute to all that is lasting.

Children of the Eastern Garden!
Speak with words made sweet by bitter fruit.
A golden tongue sweeps away the world in fantasy
Weaving fact and fancy into one.
Seek not truth.
Mystery is the life of imagination,
Brutal fact a fatal blow
The force to crack a mighty hull,
The grasp of greedy waves, dragging ever down.

Water soaked logs bear no tales.
Cling to the crinkled pages of ages past.
Within the deep stillness, there are no answers
Fathomless questions, unanswerable, stare up from the gaping hole.

But if you must,
Seek me.
Gaze upon the nameless
Faceless.
Blood red sky - an indifferent warning
Grim shade flashing blade bright across the waves.

 

very nice! I wanted to make a poetry section/thread for the forum, but felt like it would be cheating, since I don't write poetry and couldn't post anything myself.

That was very pretty, though.  Thank you

Okay then...

Blue Man

I got the biscuit dropped
in my cup of tea blues.

I got the slight tear in the armpit
of my favourite jumper blues.

I got the loose connection
in my headphone earpiece blues.

I got the loud bathroom fan
that wakes people up

when I go for a late night piss blues.
I got the went to the corner shop

for a paper today and they didn’t have
the Saturday Guardian blues.

In the pines, in the pines.
I got the intermittent

broadband connection blues.
I got dem ol’ fresh parsley

doesn’t last very long blues.
I got a letter this morning;

what do you reckon it read?
It said: “O% until June 2010

on balance transfers.”
Boom boom boom boom

A-haw haw haw haw
Hmmm hmmm hmmm hmmm

Really great poems, you guys! I enjoyed reading them.

xD You inspired me to go digging through my poetry folder and I found this old one. Starting to rework it.

perhaps you still dream of civil war

the south:
a burnished gold,
cotton tinged with slight
smears of yellow (honey-light),
lazy humidity and dusty roads.
magnolia blossoms break
along the lines of your skin,
hanging on to the past, each reminder
a fresh bruise, a fresh crack—
translucent and fragile.

your dreams change to sepia.
you wake up, heart pounding,
remembering only smoke, bitter burning.
the tendons on your neck
stretch as you rebuild yourself:
crossed beams and skyscrapers
replace your fragile bones.
your eyes change, baby blue to gray.
your back aches and your ears ring
from humming shuttles and iron.
you forget how to breathe easily,
oaks rattling as you cough smog.

your skin is patchy with memory.
parts of you that want to forget,
[outer edges, manicured nails]
and parts that still remember:
[your stomach, the scar that runs across your legs]
your tan lines show as you
run your fingers across your wounds.
[burn marks and the crack of a whip]

you stretch your syllables
languorously, like a cat
but you are not, you are instead
a ghost that solidifies erratically.
you are tainted fog that blows away
to reveal steel, structured so
you’ll never fall down again.