Change

Tags

Change, creative, poems, poetry, verse, writing

A change is coming.

I can taste it in

The butterscotch sky

Hear it in the song

Of the midnight clouds,

As the winter birds

Cast their wings out wide

Leave these barren shores

Steal a final glance

Frozen in their eye.

A change is coming.

I can feel it in

The dancing willow

And for a moment

Hold to me the scent,

Of dreams taking flight

Their fingers touching

Rainbows in the blue

To drift their passion

Falls like rain to us.

A change is coming.

© All original writing copyright Chris Nelson 2000-2021

Shells

Tags

Change, creative, faith, history, Humanity, Life, poems, poetry, Revelation, Shells, thoughts, time, Truth, verse, World, writing

She sells shells from off the beach

Lifts the pennies from their eyes

And then fades away,

Slowly drifting through the crowd

Clothes that cannot mark her time

Whispers in their ears.

 

Hand scratch scars upon her face

Trace the days she never had

Curled upon the ground,

Rock-pool tears that kiss the shore

As the sea calls out her name

Disappears once more.

 

And for awhile we see

All as it’s meant to be

Until we turn away

Back to the world we made

And all the things we see

How we want it to be

A world we’d never change

Or seek to rearrange

 

Angry tides rise up again

Sweep away all that she knew

Kisses on the sand,

Faces lost amongst the clouds

Trapped forever in her box

Buried out at sea.

 

She sells shells from off the beach

Lifts the pennies from their eyes

And then fades away,

Slowly drifting through the crowd

Clothes that cannot mark her time

Whispers in their ears.

 

© All original writing copyright Chris Nelson 2000-2019

 

Afraid

Tags

Afraid, Change, creative, Fear, loss, poems, poetry, Truth, writing

Afraid

Of the night

The truths that hide in the shadows;

Of the day

And the light that reveals the flaws.

Afraid

Of the sounds

Which fill the rooms with laughter and tears;

Of the silence

And the demons which it feeds.

Afraid

Of the crowd

The sense of estrangement which grows;

Of the solitude

Which settles like an unfriendly ghost.

Afraid

Of inertia

Trapped in the mire of eternity;

Of change

And the loss of the ground beneath.

Afraid

Of the page

Its whiteness screaming in my ear;

Of the words

That give away far too much.

Afraid

Of death

And leaving so much left undone;

Of life

And all the doors left unopened.

Afraid.

 

© All original writing copyright Chris Nelson 2000-2019

 

Ice-Ribbons

Tags

age, Change, creative, dreams, faith, Life, Planes, poems, poetry, verse, writing

I watched the planes trace ice-ribbons

Across the sky before

They were lost to the

Cirrus wisped blueness

And their tails faded

Like promises written in

Tide-threatened sands,

And hopes took restless souls

To the promise of utopian shores

Not realising that they

Like all that came before

Wore the mask that hid

The fault-line masquerade

That spread like disease below,

I watched them come and go and

Taxi slowly on the grey

As if discarding the seeds of doubt

That grew beneath their wheels

Like ancient gods burying

Defeated foes unaware that

They would rise again,

And as the stuttered raging roar

Splintered hearts like candy then

Tore holes into the sky

Which like starving angels

Swallowed fleeting flailing dreams

Cocooned within a safety shell

They never saw,

As standing rooted in my

Futures past and present

I watched the planes

Trace

Ice-ribbons.

 

© All original writing copyright Chris Nelson 2018

 

Stations

Tags

age, Change, creative, Life, poems, poetry, Stations, time, Transience, verse, writing

Young man stands

Shoulder propped against the pillar

Its concrete cold, harsh, pock-marked

Echoes his mood

Like the burned tar smoke

That spirals like a dragon

From a hand which hangs,

A pendulum weight within the sleeve,

Detached at his side.

The girl waits

Hair scented with expectation

The flower-musk brushed skin

Alight and aglow –

She knows that he will come

And lay his cloak across her fears –

Painted hues of love

Which grow like the wisteria

Around her heart.

A man forgotten by time

The pages of his days

Scattered on the dust

Like flakes of decaying skin

No testament to the things that passed his eyes

And cut their mark into his flesh

Knows that days are numbered

But he no longer counts

As he waits for welcomed arms.

A restaurant doorway

Arms flung wide like a distant aunt

Two lovers embrace

Clinging to the space that grew between them

Remembering it like childhood

Before they squeeze its life away

A moment that they trust

Will hold them in the perfection that they feel

Their private slice of heaven.

And the trains they come

And the trains still leave.

 

© All original writing copyright Chris Nelson 2018

 

Broken Rainbows

Tags

Change, creative, faith, Life, poems, poetry, Truth, verse, writing

I saw you in the quiet light,

The shadow of your disguise,

That slipped away as long days

Withered on the calendar pages,

The numbers that were once laced

With the beauty of mystique,

A stairway to the clouds,

And angel’s voices which swept

The cobwebs from our eyes

That hang now like veils across our hearts,

I watched you count those special days

And hang on those yet held

In infant arms,

Unaware of the quicksand which kissed your ankles

And seduced you as you slept

Whilst the snow fell like broken rainbows

And froze the party-promises,

Which we never truly held,

No song, no spell, no magic door

Ever rose beyond the mist,

And even though I saw you,

In silence and in chaos,

My hands still stretched forever

Grown tired with impotence.

 

 

© All original writing copyright Chris Nelson 2018

Different

Tags

Change, creative, poems, poetry, thoughts, verse, writing

Is the world any different

Now

Our hands and heads are bound

By circuitry,

Invisible waves that pass

Above, through and beyond us,

Weaving webs spider-like

Catching us all with a silk that we are

Powerless to resist,

In wonder gazing at the virtual

World

Ever expanding

Its horizons and ours,

And communication exists

In waves unseen –

Yet hasn’t that always been;

Words face to face lose meaning

Somehow

So why not talk to the invisible,

The creations of wishful desires,

The imagined fulfillment of

Imagined dreams,

The love that was always an illusion

Born on the ether,

But isn’t this the world

Unchanged from when youth held promise

And dreams fell from one hand to another

And to the ground,

So we move on

Ever led by the New

Which searches just as we do,

So tell me, please,

Is the world any different

Now?

Nighttime

Tags

age, Change, creative, Forgetting, lyrics, nostalgia, poems, poetry, time, verse, writing

Looking at you there

Laying on the floor,

Never thought such little time

Thought there would be more,

Eyes that see right through

Packed your thoughts away,

Never found the words I need

Thought I’d more to say.

 

Sun chases dreams

Across the sky,

We look for wings

We try to fly,

And we won’t let the nighttime

Steal the hope from our hearts,

 

Time shows its hand

Sweeps us aside,

Seducer of all

Love’s promised bride,

But we won’t let the nighttime

Steal the hope from our hearts,

 

Face falls away

Etchings of age,

Bodies so frail

Burning with rage,

And now we feel the nighttime

Steal the hope from our hearts,

 

Looking at you there

Laying on the floor,

Never thought such little time

Thought there would be more,

Eyes that see right through

Packed your thoughts away,

Never found the words I need

Thought I’d more to say.

Never Change

Tags

Change, creative, nostalgia, poems, poetry, verse, writing

He watched the shadows lengthen

Like an old man’s coat

Tails torn by the wind,

Stained by love and loss,

Gone the Alaskan Summer

He’d wished would never change,

When high-hung Suns like mirrors

Kissed each waking hour,

His child-eyes blindly clinging

Translucent lids now closed

Still see the dreamed of constants

Beneath the milky dew,

And as the shadows embrace the night,

A lover’s furtive tryst,

He feels the loss ripped from his skin

And draws his own coat tight.

 

Rust Bitten

Tags

Change, Creative writing, poems, poetry, Principles, verse, writing

Staring like twisted iron railings

Rust bitten and chilled,

Stealing kisses from

A washed out Sun

Which hung with fickle deceit,

I held my ground

And principles that tore and cut

Like paper,

And were they worth what they

Were written on?

The view from my

Side of the road,

Once heavy thronged with

Vibrant promise,

Now ringing hollow

The shell of ghosts now gone,

Limping shadows in temperate climes –

The far side of the street,

The one we cursed with vitriol

And swore we’d never walk,

In slippered steps

Your feet now soundless fall,

As I still stare

My silent roar

The tears beneath your eyes.