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Ends and beginnings
cycle perpetually.
Yang dances with Yin.

RecitativeYou're right. I have chosen the uniform of mourning,
At first it seemed that I had made my choice pragmatically.

I thought the dark mode would enhance my performing,
nothing in my appearance would distract from my words.

Then I realised that I was mourning indeed. Each poem
experience once lived avidly, now but a wordy husk.

Dance

Pure form, becoming
the protean flow of dance,
endless shifting shapes.

Fluid movement, creating
amorphous variations.

Sequel

They ignored sharp thorns,
the sting of separation
too far off to see.

Did their season of pleasure
leave them painful memories?

AfterwordFunerary goods
always include coin to pay
the ferry man's fee.

What if we had always been wrong,
If none waited by the river?

The end of the line
had ever seemed likely
to leave the traveler

abandoned in empty space,
no hope of resolution.

Stranded 2

The end of the line
had ever seemed likely
to leave the traveller

abandoned in empty space,
no hope of resolution.

ColloquyWhere, I asked, does the sun set?

Have never heard? It's swallowed by the Western Sea.

But how then can the sun rise?

Child, your dazzled eyes are too easily misled,

How can a hero rise again after he's dead?

Yet I see what I have seen. Are so many heroes then,

that they're extinguished every day?

You have seen what you have seen,

we faithless creatures can only watch and pray.

Touch

Did her fingers dance
across the keys long ago?
Her child's perfect face

might now be shadowed. Does she
still coax sound from inert keys?

Moonlighting

Our eyes always aspiring to see behind vision, as if
to discover what lies hidden beneath the flood of light.
Always we're trying to peer beyond the moon's bright cloak.

SagacityDid he love wisdom?
His love was unrequited.
In his heart he knew
.
none could cultivate the void
from which alone all else grew.

A City Augustine Never Dreamed OfSuch strangeness stalks these dream haunted alleys and lanes.
At noon the city's byways still remain submerged in subterranean shadow,

sunk in a motionless reverie. No creature stirs, Within enclosing walls
murmurs, even cries might be heard, were there any curiously listening.

The sun vanishes abruptly. The day ends, precipitating all the activity of night,
the sensual argument of the drum, flares providing erratic, dancing light,

and shadows whirling suddenly like dervishes, across the crumbling plaster
of close packed walls. The alleys seethe with the flesh of strangers,

lives that pass too close to each other, remaining unrecognis

Hypnopompic

A key too rusted
to turn, a door once solid,
now rotting away.

As sentience stirs again,
the dream's images decay.

Blindfolded

The seen, the unseen
so close together. Only
our indifference

makes them all invisible.
We prefer not to see them.

Tank Over 8god-tyrant dead;
a strange void, newly opened
on our vast chess-board.

Long winters end in slow thaws.
The lifeless hand still grips tight.

SpeechlessWhat happens when some one too close to you dies?

When in the shaded room, the high tide of pain abates, when the room is filled with final silence, when organic motion at last has ceased. The familiar face becomes a mask, no longer illuminated from within. You hold a hand mirror before the transfigured face. The reflection remains clear, unfilmed. The breath of life is no more. Solitude blossoms around you (like those chaste lilies that will decorate the funereal church).

Neither staying or going will alter the implacable truth.

you can speak only
in regret's sad dialect,
sighing your losses.

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Complacency

Corridors, staterooms
for those who believe the sea
can easily be harnessed.

Yet the luxury
of Titanic is rotting
on the ocean's rocky bed.

Desiccation

Lifeless, like parchment,
pickled in formaldehyde,
yet tinderly dry.

He can still feel rejoicing.
Something important remains.

What Might Have BeenThe moment is now behind us.
Did my hesitation cost us so much,
or did it belong to you? We were sharing the last glass,
the seabirds had shrieked their way into a past
that was already closing ranks behind us.

Our fingers failed to touch. I was paralysed with longing.
blinded by you, I desired so much that eluded us.
Your eyes, illuminating your regretful smile,
no longer hid in riddles I could not have understood.

Departure 2

Empty waiting room.
She sits alone. When will he
be collecting her?

Explorer

He is wrapped in his
own imaginings. Who knows
what landscape he sees?

An elfin adventurer
explores a land of giants.

Finale1.
Final solution:
continents inundated
by great polar thaws.

Civilizations, cities,
cultures no more, all destroyed.

2.
As life's blood is drained
the tiny flame dims, flickers,
sinks into the night.

Life extinguished, nothing
but cooling flesh left behind.

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Air Force Revisited.

by *AlecBell, Mar 15, 2012, 11:55:09 PM
Literature / Poetry / Nature / Haiku & Eastern

Flying fortresses,
dense enough to deflect light
yet insubstantial

Water drops suspended in
the high, thin air, wind sculpted.

(Originally:

Flying fortresses,
solid enough to impede light
yet made of nothing.

Water drops suspended in
the high, thin air, wind sculpted.)

Air Force Revisited.by *AlecBell

Literature / Poetry / Nature / Haiku & Eastern

A commentary on Shall We Dance by *locoland

My commentaries are written and posted in a spirit of collaboration, and always with the consent of the image's creator.

You can see this deviation at full size here: [link]

11/2012: I realised that the haiku part of this poem contains an extra syllable in the middle line.

A reason for second visit is rarely wasted!