PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

A heart able to hallucinate flowers

Their petals – I lay them down

So I may remember my way

Maybe, once again, they would become something

like a deck of cards  I could shuffle, then deal

With some luck: a Last Gamble.



But…

Here and now, I have built and will marvel at my walls

So rough to my touch, so sturdy for the coming winter

I see old tears like dew have dried to diamonds on the parapet

As for the whys?.... they have taken flight to the stars in droves.



And while I was at it

I thought I should brick up the door I’d left for you

Though it’s true, I cannot keep the ghosts at bay

They were always this side of my spine anyway

I feel their hands call and reach out from glances

in my rear-view mirror.



The diamonds: I keep them in a box named Seasons

Buried far below the foundations – something I imagine to be

A pure white coffin, a fine resting place

And beneath the lid – memories a restless scent and still warm whispers.



Morning, as the swallows have deserted the treason of trees around me

Certain songs they’ve taken with them or have perished here

This is what had to be done, no other way to be true

This is what I do with exposed illusions; the still hair of trust

had been plucked from right under my nose.



And though the streets of my inner Berlin are cold and seam endlessly through me

It is secure, for now – no checkpoints through which the outside can pass

These walls: someday maybe someone offers me

a hammer and reasons

They may just come down with the dust of a thousand mile journey

At the break of dawn like a tumbling Jericho.



NJP 13 June 2005