Last Hold

The night sky’s amazing
protocol of the past
beckons with a surge
of flickering lights from
uncountable distant suns,
that might just be ghostly
messages of the vanished.

And, as always,
my eccentric mind
is doing somersaults,
dwelling on my own
sort of fancy philosophy.

What if we are the Last Hold,
our galaxy the last light
in a dark, and empty Universe.
Drifting, all alone,
but still drifting,
defying the laws of physics
through pure human stubbornness,
unaware until the last light
has winked out?

 

© Novemberchild

photo credit: H. Heyer via wiki commons

Defensive

I thought he was quite handsome,
fluttering back and forth importantly,
showing off those vibrant colours
on his tiny, fragile wings.

So endearing when he started
following me around. I wondered
if it was my perfume which
deliciously smells like summer.

He never left my side, even after
I went back inside, he just
settled in a safe distance and
stared at me in a pensive manner.

‘Look at you’ he said all of a sudden.
‘You’ve become boring. All earnest and
always busy. Where did your smile go,
and what happened to your soul?’

And I got a little defensive, not sure
if I still liked that cheeky rascal.
I really have no time for this when life
is pushing me this way and that.

After all, he is just a butterfly.
What does he know about
responsibilities?

 

© november child

photo credit: Neil Halin via Flickr

Distant

On the Edge

Remember all those cute promises
and good intentions?
And yet here we are,
standing on the edge
of a precipice once again.

Counting sleepless nights,
shed tears, and wasted efforts,
only to realise the balance
will never add up.

 

 

© november child

photo credit: Black Station via Flickr

Precipice

Quiet

It’s quiet, too quiet.
Freed from the shackles
of preoccupation
with everyday activities,
thoughts raise storms.

Fractured abstract syntax
interrupted by obscure symbols,
too speculative
for immediate grasp,
yet eerily familiar.

This feeling
of just needing to retrieve
that one missing piece of the puzzle
to understand the mechanics
of the Universe.

 

 

 

© november child

photo credit: wallpapersafari.com

Abstract

Intrusion

Nobody knows me as well
as you do, but it is not enough,
bared to the bone is not enough,
nothing is ever enough, is it?

You always dig deeper
in search of jewels and pearls,
I share with no one else,
so you can add them to your crown.

I can feel the holes in my mind
where your curiosity extracted
parts of me, the scraps and bits
that caught your interest.

And I wonder what will happen,
when my neural pathways dry up,
no longer retrieving juicy details,
when I have nothing left to give…

 

© november child

photo credit: EskiPaper.com

Arid

Juicy

Purgatory

‘How’s purgatory?’  he asks,
his pointed ears twitching
with curiosity, his purple eyes
fixed on a point behind my irides
in his usual, disconcerting way.
He rocks back and forth with this
strange, rhythmic movement,
a sure sign of his impatience.

‘I wouldn’t know, I’ve never
been there.’ I feel uncomfortable
talking about this. I hadn’t planned
on doing purgatory. I’m more the
heading-straight-for-heaven
kind of person.
With him, you never know if it’s
just nosiness or rather a hint of
what is to come.

‘Funny.’  He giggles, he always
thinks I’m hilarious when I’m at
my most serious. He notices my
consternation, his laughter trails
away and his little face turns serious.
‘You do know where you are, don’t you?’
That said, he pops out of existence
into whatever spatial dimension
he calls home.

 

© november child

photo credit: wikimedia commons

Rhythmic

Business As Usual

You’re dressed up again
in your corporate uniform.
Grey three-piece suit today,
striped tie, light blue shirt,
the upcoming board meeting
already on your mind.

Frowning slightly
you ignore breakfast
and hit the keyboard,
rechecking numbers,
last changes in your presentation,
predicting questions, preparing answers.

You’re hyping yourself
as if for a sports event.
Work has become another arena
where you go for the competition
with a killer instinct,
always aiming high, in for the win.

My thoughts have taken on
a momentum of their own,
spinning in their usual erratic circles
where all I can think of is,
you look damn sexy in a suit
and I’d really like to
make you late for work.

© november child

photo credit:  Craig Garner via unsplash.com

in response to: The Sunday Whirl Wordle # 277

Artificial

I feel like an outcast,
the only one
who hears the screeching of the brakes
and the closing of subway doors,
who smells the staleness of public transportation,
who sees them.

Their eyes glued to sacred phones,
tunnel vision for fear of missing
a chatter, tweet or post on the Net,
blocking the outside world
and any interaction with earphones.

Their faces eerily glowing in the artificial light,
blank masks captured by tiny, colourful screens,
the only apocalyptic event on this train
would be the loss of WiFi connection
or, worse even, a dead battery.

Their fingers wrapped around cups of coffee
like talons around prey,
while the other hand frantically scrolls,
uploads, reloads, downloads files,
and types messages to an invisible audience.

And as I watch the changing light patterns,
flipping back and forth between
grey landscapes and black tunnels flying by,
I am a bit disappointed that
of all the aliens who could have taken over the world,
we were invaded by a bitten into apple.

© november child

photo credit: commons.wikimedia.org

Sacred

The Sunday Whirl, Wordle 276

Echo

Your words still echo in my mind

your touch still echoes on my skin

I wait for them to subside
so I can remember
who I used to be

 

© november child

photo:  artist unknown

Echo

Autumn Mornings

A subdued morning sun’s
feeble rays
strain to reach
beyond closed eyelids.

Open windows,
forgotten relics
of a displaced summer,
deliver autumn draughts.

Cold settles
on exposed skin
ending the cosy inertia
of relaxed limbs.

Regret sets in
at the approach of
chilly, overcast days and
long winter nights.

 © november child

photo credit: Grant MacDonald via flickr

Subdued

Unsettled

In vain she waited for the phoenix
to rise from the ashes
of the years you carried off.
Instead she writes her screams
into the mess you left behind.

In vain she waited for the
frantic pounding in her chest to subside
after she rinsed you out of her system.
Instead she carves her pain
into the softness of her flesh.

In vain she pretended
to be free of  your mind games,
to have reclaimed a will of her own.
Instead she submits to the inferno
where suffering has no expiration date.

© november child

 in response to: The Sunday Whirl Wordle #267

chest/after/you/submit/date/rinse/will/free/scream/mess/ashes
and Pretend

photo credit: artist unknown

Dangerous Games

To trust you
is to play
a game of Jenga.
Every time
I turn around
you remove another block,
endangering the structure.

To trust you
is to play
a game of reverse Jeopardy.
Every time
I ask the correct question
the wager I lay on you is lost,
draining my resources.

To trust you
is to built
a house of cards.
Every time
I check the foundation
it has become more shaky,
ready to collapse any time.

© november child

photo credit: Dutch Simba via flickr

Fragile

The two glasses mist up
in the warm summer night,
single drops of water
slowly flow down fragile stems,
leaving wet rings on the table.

Our silence connects us
more strongly than words could,
for a glorious instant
there is no space between us,
nothing that needs to be bridged.

And I send a little prayer
that my mind will link
those two glasses forever
to this moment of
of pure perfection.

 

© november child

photo credit: Winniepix via flickr

Fragile

The Ego

In the gloomy space
you share with no one,
this sinister exhibition
of self-inflicted pain
you try very hard to hide
even from yourself;
in the introvert’s
chamber of torture
you meet it again,
the unwanted guest.

Its talk is convincing,
in a repetitive chant
of cunning words
as cutting as daggers,
it tilts straight for your core.
It probes your resilience
with stinging tendrils
of whispered gossip,
deviously planting
the seeds of doubt.

It leans heavily on flaws
blown out of proportion
and though you realise
there is no authenticity
to its random rambling
and the wild accusations,
your feeble mind is
so apt to listen,
so ready to forfeit love,
so willing to let it break you.

© november child

in response to: The Sunday Whirl Wordle #265

listen/meet/pain/wild/doubt/lean/talk/tilt/authenticity/break/love/gossip

photo credit: KingOfWallpapers

 

 

Fight For What?

Fight vb, (when intr. often foll. by for)
to uphold or maintain (a cause, ideal etc.)
by fighting or struggling.

© Collins English Dictionary 21st Century Edition

 

Fight for you
I would rather not,
this being a concept
that puzzles me.

What would I be fighting for?

A love withdrawn,
to me, is a worthless thing,
a pas de deux robbed of its elegance,
last page turned in an already torn book,
a remnant I refuse to reclaim.

A love gone astray,
to me, is a pitiful thing
the faded, yellowed copy
of what used to be grand,
a replica I refuse to recapture.

I am prepared
to make every effort for love
but fighting is not on my agenda.
I would rather ride
the waves of pain and sorrow
as long as it takes to recover.

I prefer to relinquish
what should be a gift
than live with an ill-gotten trophy.
So never ask me
to fight for a lost love,
I will not consider it worth my time.

 

© november child

Elegant

Into the Storm

Into the storm we run again,
the proverbial flock of lemmings,
just one quantum step from the edge,
one second from hitting the water with a plop.
With the imprudence of children
we run ahead without a plan,
models of remote-controlled ignorance,
victims of oversight and custom
we are left to beat the odds.

Brazenly we face obvious disaster,
ignoring all transparent warnings.
We refrain from proper precautions,
ravelling things further with our discursive patterns.
Our common sense is tempered by arrogance
and we feel so sanguine about our ability
to weather anything that bars our way,
we callously dismiss the fact
that those storms were created by us.

 

©november child

in response to:
Plop

Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie Wordle Special Addition Contranym “September 5th, 2016”

weather/refrain/temper/left/discursive/sanguine/transparent/custom/oversight/model/ravel/quantum

photo credit: Stephen Wolfe via flickr

Lies

Lies have eight arms
like a monstrous cuttlefish
attaching to the deceived
with a smothering grip,
dragging them  deeply
into the vacuum
of anger and betrayal.

They have tentacles
that reach into the fabric
of everything sacred,
tearing the delicate tapestry
of faith and respect
whose intricate weave
took years to build.

They have stingers like bees
and with uncanny precision
they aim for what is unprotected,
gorging on lightness and purity,
a threat to innocent bystanders
by leaving overall distrust
in a festering swelling.

They have sparkling veils
of shiny, insincere promises
which flake off in a heartbeat,
their devious whispers
no longer mutable,
once the desperate wish
for ignorance has been released.

 

© november child

in response to: The Sunday Whirl Wordle #264

tapestry/precise/sparkle/threat/bee/mutable/lightness/veiled/cuttlefish/flake/shine/ignorant

photo credit: Shannon Tompkins via flickr

I Am Not Her

I am not her

so let me not walk
in the shadows of your  past,
do not force me to enter
the labyrinth of wrong  turns

make me not feed
off an empty plate,
do not let me starve from
your fear of getting close

let me not hear
the whispers of bygone days,
do not chain me
to the post of revived clashes

make me not dig
in the ruins of the departed,
do not force me to brush off
the dusty bones of past deceit

make me not part of
what you left behind,
do not crucify me on
the cross of your flashbacks

count not my mistakes
on old balance sheets,
free me from
lapsed mindsets and regrets

bring only yourself
when you come to me,
bless my innocence
by remembering

I am not her

 

© november child

photo credit: Carol Mitchell via VisualHunt

in response to: The Sunday Whirl Wordle #263

Mistake

Layers

If we were to shed all our skins,
peeled off all our layers,
got rid of everything
that seems to define us
what would remain?
Who would we be?

Would it help
to take a long look at ourselves,
and muster up the courage to
be brutally honest with ourselves?

Would it help
if we recognized all the restrictions
we impose on ourselves?
Or those that we let other people’s
expectations impose on us?

Would it help
if we saw all those walls we build
around ourselves?
The ones we use to shield us
from our own fears and insecurities.

Would it help
if we realized all those activities
for the diversion they are
to keep us from looking inside
and finding our truth?

Would it help
if we got rid of all those layers
that were never ours to begin with?
And if then we only kept
what we chose of our own  free will
and  what was chosen with love

would that finally be the real us?

© november child

for Mistspell

photo credit: bambe1964 via flickr

Landslide

You are the landslide
I did not expect
ripping the floor
from underneath my feet.

Untethered from my world
I stare at your back
as you head for new grounds
to bury in your wake.

And all that remains is
the ghost of a smile.

 

 © november child

photo credit: Sherri Terris via flickr

Ghost