Oasis.

[Namaste]

where the wild things are

I come to you by the ocean under the gaze of an azure sky, a delicate strand of shells wound about my wrist. I've pink and white freesias in my hair; the heady perfume of the delicate blooms floats lightly on the wind.

I come to you on winged feet, the warmth of a billion grains of sand wriggling between my toes. You smile at me, and you take my breath away. It's cast upon the waters, dives within the waves sighing gently on the shore.

I come to you glowing with love, with joy, with anticipation. My light illuminates your darkness, chases it away. Energy flows between us, blinding us, bonding us, binding us.

I come to you with open arms, my heart and soul laid bare. Everthing I am and everything I will be is for you. There is no one else here, here where the wild things are.

This, our wedding day.

This, my dream.

 

[Namaste]

Paint The Sky With Stars -- Enya

Suddenly before my eyes
Hues of indigo arise;
With them how my spirit sighs.
Paint the sky with stars.

Only night will ever know
Why the heavens never show
All the dreams there are to know.
Paint the sky with stars.

Who has placed the midnight sky
So a spirit has to fly?
As the heavens seem so far,
Now who will paint the midnight star?

Oh…

Night has brought to those who sleep
Only dreams they cannot keep.
I have legends in the deep.
Paint the sky with stars.

Who has placed the midnight sky
So a spirit has to fly?
As the heavens seem so far,
Now who will paint the midnight star?

Place a name upon the night,
One to set your heart alight.
And to make the darkness bright,
Paint the sky with stars.

 

[Namaste]

Venetian Glass -- Amy Lowell

As one who sails upon a wide, blue sea
Far out of sight of land, his mind intent
Upon the sailing of his little boat,
On tightening ropes and shaping fair his course,
Hears suddenly, across the restless sea,
The rhythmic striking of some towered clock,
And wakes from thoughtless idleness to time:
Time, the slow pulse which beats eternity!
So through the vacancy of busy life
At intervals you cross my path and bring
The deep solemnity of passing years.
For you I have shed bitter tears, for you
I have relinquished that for which my heart
Cried out in selfish longing. And to-night
Having just left you, I can say: "'T is well.
Thank God that I have known a soul so true,
So nobly just, so worthy to be loved!"

 

[Namaste]

I remember you so clearly, lying in that big bed. Early morning sun wandering through the slatted blinds, the sounds of the waking city rushing past outside. You, bathed in soft light, peaceful and free, your chest rising and falling gently.

Sometimes I wondered where you were, those hours when you slept. What demons you were vanquishing, whose lips you were kissing, what dreams you were living.

Maybe I loved you best in those moments. I know I guarded you so jealously as you slept, my breast aching with fiercely protective love.

Tonight, as the moon sails across the sky on her inky sea of lonlieness, I'll dream of returning to that big bed, I'll dream of returning to us. And, as the long-dead stars shine as brightly now as they did millions of years ago -- so, too, will my love shine once more.

For my love, like the stars, shines on even when we -- you and I --are gone.

 

[Guest]

 

[Namaste]

Thanks for your kind words, LionessInWinter

 

[Namaste]

Memories rush in, and I can't hold them back. Though I will them away, they come and they come and all I can do is embrace them, for I will never deny them.

I remember the first time we became one. Your voice, so smooth, probing, pushing, prodding, until you found what you sought.

Carefully, gently, you peeled me and, as you stripped layer from layer, I split like a juicy, red pomegranate -- naked and open, the hidden secrets of me, the essence of me, displayed like ripe seeds.

I was so vulnerable.

Your voice, your presence, cajoling me, carressing me, encouraging me, commanding me.

Then, release. Relief at last, after long, lonely years.

I laughed then, joyful peals that rang through the room and I remember your astonished, bemused silence as tears poured from my eyes and blissful relief streamed from my pores.

The hidden secrets of me, the essence of me, laid bare.

It's just me now.

But I thought of you tonight as I searched in vain -- my fingers delving, probing and fondling -- for the secret part of myself you hid within me when you left.

Then, release. But no relief. Just long, lonely moments.

No ringing laughter this time, just silent tears, and I wonder if I'll ever laugh that way again.

Memories.

I must control them, because they will not, cannot, control me.

 

[Namaste]

Breathe -- Carl Newlen

Tonight the room is so still
I forget to breathe - and earlier
the sun was warm - the birds
coming back as you are leaving.

And I'm stuck on words to write,
tip-of-the-pen stuck - so close to something
I could say to make us magnificent,
better than 'blue light in water', or
the words that start with 'Q'.

I should have counted the endless stars
with you that night - those stars behind
the stars - your hair wet and dark
on your shoulders - the things
you said about the crescent moon.

I should have breathed in more of you.

I'm just not ready to forget things,
like books we could open and quietly read -
our breath calm before we sleep -
to live a life like that, happy, forgiving,
forgetting to worry about tomorrow.

There are hollow places in our lives
of which we know nothing - not know
how you were able to fill mine, or know
how long I'll fall through this new open space
now that you are gone.

 

[Namaste]

You As You Were -- Carl Newlen

I open my heart

(because I didn't know what you feared I feared everything - thought 'a cold swift river emptying into nothing' - too afraid to lose you as you were and I as I am

because it felt like endlessness when I looked at you last, I thought 'bury these notes in a box in the earth and turn away' - remember you as you were, I as I am

because now I know, and like the past we are not ending - we ended, so forget I said forever, then begged for a moment - but oh how it was! - you as you were with me as I am

because I don't know what to feel this far from your life - through the window I watch that tree the wind keeps batting around - so worn out and still I am far from anything)

and let you go.

 

[Namaste]

Places To Return -- Dana Gioia

There are landscapes one can own,
bright rooms which look out to the sea,
tall houses where beyond the window
day after day the same dark river
turns slowly through the hills, and there
are homesteads perched on mountaintops
whose cool white caps outlast the spring.

And there are other places which,
although we did not stay for long,
stick in the mind and call us back--
a valley visited one spring
where walking through an apple orchard
we breathed its blossoms with the air.
Return seems like a sacrament.

Then there are landscapes one has lost--
the brown hills circling a wide bay
I watched each afternoon one summer
talking to friends who now are dead.
I like to think I could go back again
and stand out on the balcony,
dizzy with a sense of deja vu.

But coming up these steps to you
at just that moment when the moon,
magnificently full and bright
behind the lattice-work of clouds,
seems almost set upon the rooftops
it illuminates, how shall I
ever summon it again?

 

[Namaste]

After You -- Veronica A. Shoffstall

When the love went bad
you packed with careless anger
leaving artifacts to taunt me;
I slept in your nightshirt
because it had your smell,
and drank from your cup
so my lips could touch yours,
and listened to your music
so I could feel your heart beat.
You returned to try again
from a safer distance
but we had already come unmoored
and we were drifting.
So I wore your sweater,
cooked your favorite meals,
and slept on your side of the bed
curled around your pillow.
And when you called I wouldn't answer
until I'd controlled the need in my voice
and I could sound just a little annoyed.
I should be thankful
now that no one else will have you,
and that I mourned you so
while you were still here to be denied.
It should be easy to let you go
after all that practice.
But your memory haunts me
like an unconfessed sin
and to be alive is penance.

 

[Namaste]

Communion -- Rebecca Lu Kiernan

When I whimper your name
Breathlessly against your skin
Without caution, pride, restraint,
Three little letters
Turn into
Some kind of prayer.
"You're shining.", you coo
And I am glad I believed in you
Long before I traversed the earth
To your sugar white beach
And neon emerald waves
And unblinking eyes.
Everyone drones how
Much
They love.
I'll spare you that.
But if you knew
The specific style
Of my worship,
You would pack a small bag
Not even of sensible stuff,
Your swimming trunks,
Shiny blue shoes,
A lime green tie,
And run to me.
You would be a merciful god,
Not a god of locusts and floods
And I would gladly
Fall trembling
To the feet of you
And it would not be
Inappropriate or excessive
To tell you
You were my life.

 

[Guest]

Re: You As You Were -- Carl Newlen

 

[Guest]

Re: Communion -- Rebecca Lu Kiernan

 

[Namaste]

Hello, Lioness

I think sometimes the hardest part of loving is knowing when to let it go.

And so, a monument for lost love, a tribute to fleeting happiness that slipped through our fingers like quicksilver because we weren't strong enough or clever enough or brave enough to hold it, or perhaps it was because we held it too tightly.

Dance Me To The End Of Love -- Leonard Cohen
Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Oh let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone
Let me feel you moving like they do in Babylon
Show me slowly what I only know the limits of
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to the wedding now, dance me on and on
Dance me very tenderly and dance me very long
We're both of us beneath our love, we're both of us above
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to the children who are asking to be born
Dance me through the curtains that our kisses have outworn
Raise a tent of shelter now, though every thread is torn
Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic till I'm gathered safely in
Touch me with your naked hand or touch me with your glove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

 

[Namaste]

An Offering For Jackals -- Lisa Brown

You wandered in these desert places,
a man-god
among scorpions and scavengers.
You let them sting you, snap at your heels,
watched them with hourglass eyes...
You laid your heart on the burning sand,
a desert flower
an offering for jackals...
When you were rain, they cried for blood,
when you were an oasis
the green of your soul was too much to bear
for the lovers of the wasteland.
When you return
it will be as a sandstorm.

 

[Namaste]

Modern Emilies -- Kim Hodges

We are all Emilies
in a more electronic fashion
with mail and phone
reaching out in messages for muses
from darkened separate rooms
long-distance love affairs
hoping for an Emerson
but in all this quickness
something fails
we have come too close
now endless bickering
and no formality of cursive script
to cloak our ragged selves
or blotting paper and pots of ink
to slow our thoughts
words collapse
in terse short lines
all charm and brilliance
ended --
and no face seen.

I still recall
your soft-silk voice across the lines
like Alexander Godunov
murmuring in my ear.

 

[Gusty Wind]

Wish you well Natmaste

 

[Namaste]

In A Lonely Place

"I was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me. I lived a few weeks while she loved me."

-- Humphrey Bogart

 

[Namaste]

Wish you well Natmaste

And I, you, Gusty Wind

 

[Namaste]

Hungry Sky -- Karen Tellefsen

When the moon is wan as bread,
when stars are pale as crumbs
that scatter on dark carpet, fed
to any insect child that comes

across the hungry sky, I flee
on wings of cobweb dust. I trip
on six small legs, and carefully
I stroke your brow to take a sip

of you. Oh, you are fine as rare
currants; your tender veins are blue
as flight's delights. The garden air
is warm and only smells of you.

 

[Gusty Wind]

And I, you, Gusty Wind

I stop coming to this thread... coz it's makes me cry....

 

[Namaste]

Sometimes I think tears are Mother Nature's housemaids

 

[Namaste]

The Square Root of 36 -- Lorraine S. May

Would you know what I see when I look at you,
A simmering day years ago,
Hands hanging freely, plastic apricot lips,
A thundering heart pressed against my rib cage like a magnet,
Braided summer grasses through I ran,
Could I catch you?

What would you say if I told you I fell in love with you last summer,
As we drove through an asphalt mirage,
And I hurled jargon at you.
What fine lovers peaches can make,
When I saw you devouring my heart,
I wiped its juices off your chin.

And later, when pears mold and drop banging in the bin,
And in fruit uneaten I hibernate and scrape my wrists with dried pits,
I hug myself in a tiny silver box as the stillness of reality settles in for the night.

Do you know I love you?
You'd say you understood,
but the moat around your castle would deepen.
Would you blink your fire green eyes,
Making me shrivel into a sticky mud puddle,
dripping down and covering the bottom of your sandals?

In a summer past,
I could tell you about the dullness in my chest,
and the fierceness of the blood flushing my sunburned palms,
But I am silent now by a truth that you can see,
Only sometimes, the sticky truthful darkness of my heart leaks,
just a little bit onto you.

 

[Namaste]

The Night We Called It A Day -- Diana Krall

There was a moon out in space,
But a cloud drifted over its face.
You kissed me and went on your way
The night we called it a day.

I heard the song of the spheres
Like a minor lament in my ears.
I hadn't the heart left to pray
The night we called it a day.

Soft through the dark
The hoot of an owl in the sky
Sad though his song
No bluer was he than I.

The moon went down stars were gone,
But the sun didn't rise with the dawn.
There wasn't a thing left to say
The night we called it a day.

There wasn't a thing left to say
The night we called it a day.