AHHH i love your first image/poem so much, Que!! the creative use of spacing and carets (they look like mountains on a map!) and the desert(ed) omg. and digging up some info from a worldbuilding class i once took... rain clouds are blown inland from the coast, right? but if there's a mountain range in the way, the area beyond the mountain range doesn't really get rain... so the words "city / by the / sea" are on the coast and "under / the / rain shadow" is literally located in the rain shadow !!! this is genius ahh XD actually my favorite poem i've read this week :3
oh, i’m tight, i’m high strung, but rain shadows mean sun and this spring has brought buckets of light; here, where bird calls are sung and the shutters undone, i don’t know how to greet such delight.
the sweet greens of the grass and the scent as i pass the blossom-decked trees set in rows tell me how to slow down, plant my feet in the ground, and let dandelions teach me to grow.
the blue skies i’ve blessed that allow me this rest, though i used to be grateful for rain; under sun i forget the old memories yet i still feel a lingering strain.
This is definitely my favourite poem so far! It made me think Snow White for a second. I love the lively athmosphere that it gives off along with the message.
This is my favourite part yet ^^
under sun i forget the old memories yet i still feel a lingering strain.
I first saw you between the pages of Ulysses one fall, the words "The Irishman's house is his coffin," spilling out of your mouth, that line I forgot amidst dead mothers, midwives and jingling steps.
Years here and we’d never met.
Between the golden leaves and sunlit campus cafes, we could always meet eyes and instantly ask how was "Circe"? The Holy Joycean Relics held us captive halfway between laughter and awe.
A class competition spurred us to study every word, but of the seven students, it was only ever us.
When you won whiskey honey and I, the pirated Pomes Penyeach, we should have switched places, for you had the passion: for literature, for language, for hard things, for Joyce.
But I took first place.
Ulysses was the only thread connecting us, if we passed shoulder-to-shoulder in the brick halls, if we lingered after our spring semester course; enough for a smile.
But once, we found each other in a theatre, by chance, and talked of religion as if we had always shown such naked honesty and I never felt so similar to someone.
And I learned that maybe we had lost each other somewhere between Germany and France, and the languages that kept our paths from crossing were what made our souls even more alike.
I never did see you again.
Though we met just a pocketful of times, you return to haunt the philosophical halls of my academic mind.
You keep telling me the meaning of Joycean tragedy,
but I can never remember if there's a happy ending.
I'm flying over the promised land tonight & starting to think it's just like any other for it's people who make promises and people are everywhere now it's not a sanctuary God is a sanctuary & God is in our hearts God is on my mind when the airplane hits turbulence so bad I feel myself falling, again & again, like when I'm just about to fall asleep but then fall, and wake up. Your glory like a step too tall I trip over each time on my way up, finding myself on the floor again maybe it's okay to sit down and take some time, some Tylenol, so tired of trying it all and they say you'll catch me, like you caught the plane, catch me up into your arms and hold me fast. My people hold me here, but sometimes I let go, or they do, and if you're in all their hearts, how can I know you won't let me go, too? Tumbling, falling down into the promised land.
A promised land still breaks bones, and metal.
Spoiler! :
Just FYI, I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, so here the promised land or anything else I refer to like that in my poems is usually Utah, though I've never lived there! --> which is probably why it's ironic sometimes. Also note I wrote this on a plane and didn't re-read XD
my soul is a scraped desert, hollow and dry, but as spring comes i’m learning that these holes can be filled up with wildflowers, bluebonnets and indian paintbrush; a little moisture turns my caverns into lush hillsides of oaks and prickly pears; if i manage to fill in all the gaps where the outside still gets in, the air will turn humid and the stars will shine bright.
but if i tear down all my bridges, the bats won’t come out when the sun sets.
among the mounds there are wildflowers and butterflies along the highway, not quite fenced off yet like everything else. they still have the freedom to fly into our charging grille.
driving up and down through rolling hills, window rolled down, rolling the dice on which spot won’t get us caught? how long can we stay in the sun on a partly cloudy day? and will this whole trip pay off?
but stay; just watch, the wind whispers, let your eyes roam if you can’t go in their place; let the honeysuckle scent linger on each breath; enjoy the moment
A poem for early, misty mornings and a poem for the hopefuls that inhabit them, in predawn pilgrimage;
A space to store the way you wish the clouds away, to summon the sun.
This is a poem for the visitors here, the strangers to this land, gathered in a holy communion around their telescopes like a prayer to a higher power, clutching each other and crying afterwards like the answer lies in each of us;
And maybe this poem is itself a prayer, for the voyagers, stargazers, truck drivers and construction workers, gods and men; angels, who bear witness;
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