Non-erotic poetry (that is, Poetry)

[Angeline]

I have been travelling in the most desolate places of Australia, and enjoying the Australian landscape, and its minimalist plenitude (I am aware that is a contradiction).

In this one I used a dactylic verse, and still with my eyes on Lorca, I tried to introduce his duende idea (dark, elusive force that seems to push forward toward truth. But it is born of struggle, death, when beauty is about to die, when beauty reaches its edge. ) and the Japanese conception of Ma, which is a kind of stillness that occurs between two events or moments.

Silver of silence, the mountains are listening,
orchards of shadow breathe slowly between.
Hollow of heartbeat, the hush is a lantern,
holding the nothing that trembles unseen.

Cicadas fall quiet, the dusk is descending,
river unbraids through the ghost-gum and reed.
Moments are thresholds, eternal, dissolving
emptiness flowering, space where we bleed.

Ash of the spinifex, wind is lamenting,
ghosts of the wattles lean over red stone.
Every pause ripens with ache of departure,
every still interval crowns the alone.

Black cockatoo cuts the sky with its shadow,
cry like a wound in the salt-laden air.
The dark spirit wakes in hollows of silence,
born in the pause where the heart strips bare.

Not in the flourish of surf on the shoreline,
but in the crack where the desert is raw,
sits the earth-cry of moment’s undoing,
teaching us terror is kinship with awe.

So let the stillness of gum-leaves be burning,
let the red dust bear the weight of its flame.
The hidden fire waits, and the pause is its cradle,
emptiness trembling, yet never the same.

This poem is also very good. I do feel it expresses duende as Lorca interpreted it moreso than the Japanese ma, although the line "teaching us terror is kinship with awe" strikes the balance between the two imo. It's an ambitious effort that really conveys the emptiness of the landscape with vivid yet stark images and the ominous emotions that can grow in such spaces (or in between them, which I guess is the duende idea as I understand it).

I prefer the other poem, probably because it's human and universal so easier for me to relate to it. It's harder with your second poem, well for me, I think because the landscape is so alien to me. But you're sharing some excellent poetry here (you always do!) and I look forward to reading more.

 

[Xenofidelity78]

We fiended for light
because we wanted to see
and we longed for the night
because we love to dream

and somewhere in the middle
everything became dark
muddled with complication
and all spread apart

but now we drive iron horses
and set fire to the skies
harness the power of difference
and see distance beyond our eyes

It's all common place to us
but once this was fantasy
what else will turn from magic to truth
what else will become reality

 

[_Land]

The Forever Child

Mama,
I was first light,
the breath that came and went
before your arms could keep me.
I am still here
not as flesh,
but as the hush between your heartbeats.

To my sisters,
to my brothers,
I remain.
Not in birthdays,
but in the way I guard the nights,
the way I carry laughter
into the quiet sky.

You count the ones you hold,
and the one you thought you lost,
but I am not lost.
I am stitched into you,
woven into their faces,
their smiles carrying
the echo of my own.

Mama,
your arms grew heavy again,
a new child placed there.
I leaned close,
kissed that soft crown,
and whispered:
“Call me kin,
for I go ahead of you,
making space,
clearing the path.”

To the ones who play in the living room,
to the ones who chase light in the yard,
I walk beside you.
When you stumble,
I am the hand steadying.
When you dream,
I am the voice that sings you onward.

Every step you take,
I walk in front of it.
Every dream they chase,
I fan with breath of wind.
I did not vanish.
I became a shadow wide enough
to cover you all in light.

So when you wonder if I see,
I do.
When you wonder if I hear,
I do.
When you wonder if you are still mine,
you are.

I am the forever child.
The one carried in story,
the one who carries you in spirit.