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

 

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Over Again

Tags

creative, Life, Love, Over again, poems, poetry, Regret, verse, writing

Don’t wait until

The door has closed

Until the curtain’s drawn,

Don’t wait until

The dreams you had

Are flowers on the lawn.

Don’t close your eyes

And trust in fate

To open up the day,

Or wish upon

A star that won’t

Illuminate the way.

Don’t count the days

And with them all

The chances you have lost,

Or sit so still

In corners dark

And watch spring turn to frost.

Don’t hesitate

To speak the words

To those you hold so dear,

Just tell them now

And everyday

And wipe away the fear.

Take those you love

Into your world

And tell them they belong,

Love them now with

All you are then

Over and over again.

 

© All original writing copyright Chris Nelson 2000-2019

 

Turned Away

Tags

age, creative, dreams, faith, Life, loss, Love, nostalgia, poems, poetry, Relationships, thoughts, Truth, Turned away, verse, writing

She sits and waits the tv glows

Stares pictures on the wall,

She wonders if they’ll ever know

The days she turned away.

He watches faces on the screen

As nameless they pass by,

He sees her still in youthful dream

But would not change a thing.

She dreams of ships with billowed sail

Her foot upon their bow,

And moons that wax and moons that pail

Horizons silent now.

He thinks of doors that always closed

And wished them all away,

Each detail drawn each gateway posed

He’d climb them all again.

She pictures faces that she knew

And counts them over stiles,

How many seen how known so few

She wonders how they fell.

He holds himself within his shell

The bottle comes again,

The stories that he’ll never tell

Die slowly deep inside.

She sits and waits the tv glows

Stares pictures on the wall,

She wonders if they’ll ever know

The days she turned away.

 

© All original writing copyright Chris Nelson 2000-2019

 

Companion

Tags

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

I am the one who never lied,

The true companion at your side,

The words you said the words you lost,

I took them all and paid the cost.

I heard your voice and saw your face,

I touched your heart and found its pace,

The monsters came, some went some stayed,

Some welcomed in and others slayed.

Behind your eyes I am the ghost,

The one who’ll always love you most,

The line cut in your silken palm,

The storm’s cool eye the winter’s calm.

I am the cord you’ll never break,

The dream that’s lost when you will wake,

The faces and the names you knew,

A heavy price to prove you grew.

How easily we all forget,

The things we thought in stone were set,

The numbers on the coloured page,

That count our steps from cage to cage.

The ones who from our sight are lost,

A memory now turned and tossed,

We see them all just one last time,

Relentlessly we climb and climb.

Until we balance on the ledge,

A no-man’s land a broken wedge,

And caught between the past and dreams,

We see the view of older scenes.

And through it all I was so true,

A Grecian mask made just for you,

A thousand smiles a thousand tears,

To wipe away the fallen years.

I was the one who never lied,

The true companion at your side,

And this is real if you could see,

The leaves that fall to you from me.

 

© All original writing copyright Chris Nelson 2000-2019

 

On a different page

Tags

creative, Different page, Life, loss, Love, poems, poetry, story, verse, writing

On a different page

Where inkmarks told another tale

She stepped across the oceans blue

Left footprints in the sand.

On a different page

Where castle walls were no defence

She held the hands of many men

Her kiss upon their hearts.

On a different page

Where trees would bend and bow their heads

She smelled of cream and oranges

Was everything to them.

On a different page

Where cities threw their windows wide

And history fell from her hands

She talked in riddles wise.

On a different page

Where honey flowed from lip to breast

And rivers ran from town to town

To quench the thirst of men.

On a different page

Where through the trees she came to me

And all the things I never knew

Were shown at once to me.

On a different page.

 

© All original writing copyright Chris Nelson 2000-2019

 

Alone

Tags

Alone, creative, Life, poems, poetry, time, verse, writing

And the pages turn

And the numbers fade

Like they always have

And they always will

Wiping clean the slates

And erasing words

Hiding the faces

And fading the names

And we all look back

As we always do

Try to see the things

That were never there

And when out of sight

Means we’re out of mind

Did they really mean

Anything at all

If for just one day

We could see it all

Touch the ones we know

See if something’s real

Or just shy away

Like we always do

Afraid to make the move

To hide and die alone.

 

© All original writing copyright Chris Nelson 2000-2019

 

Slowly

Tags

creative, faith, Humanity, Life, poems, poetry, verse, writing

He bends slowly,

Kneels, with the grace of earlier years

Lost behind him,

Shuffles to the floor,

No longer shy

Of the days that he has seen,

Crosses himself with fingers

Worn to the bone,

Withered skin wrinkled

The scars of things

No-one else could know,

And thoughts turn

Like a ferris wheel grown old,

Rusted at the elbow,

Tired now of reaching up

And grasping only the disappointment

Of the crash,

Tearing at the sky

And feeding only the salted sea

With tears that dropped like feathers,

Waiting for the page to turn,

The wish to turn to truth,

The voice to speak his name,

He bends and sinks,

Half composed, half falling,

To the floor,

Hopes that his movements have been seen,

Been captured in the eyes

Of someone he cannot see,

And not slipped, unnoticed,

Between fingers grown arthritic

Through abandonment and regret,

He crosses himself again,

Head bowed,

Brought low by the burdens

Of those he had known,

Wishing now that his words would be heard,

That time would don its darkened cloak

And slip between the frame,

The doorway he had left ajar,

And wield its sharpened blade,

He bends slowly,

Kneels and crosses himself,

And sighs.

 

© All original writing copyright Chris Nelson 2018

 

Watching Suns

Tags

age, creative, faith, Life, loss, poems, poetry, Remembrance, Strangers, Sun, time, verse, writing

She sat and watched the suns

Come and go as if they were

Strangers passing on the bitter streets:

A nod, a glance, perhaps a smile.

They rose in the levelled east,

Fought their way to the highs of their days,

Then struggled to climb each obstacle,

The mountains of the west.

She watched from the window

The porch and the gate

As the clock stole the hours,

Spirited them away,

And filed them under ‘lost’.

Emerald vines grew like memories

Creeping slowly over the garden fence,

Tendril-fingers seeping into the grain

Tenderly choking the life unlived.

She watched the marks of the years

Engrave themselves into her hands,

Pathways followed and gone,

And so many dreamed,

Her face the scorched and dried

Map of ages,

Marked, but abandoned before the mark of treasure

Had burned itself into her.

And the suns still came

And the suns still died,

And someone else took her chair.

 

© All original writing copyright Chris Nelson 2018

Wooden Pieces

Tags

Communication, conflict, Creative writing, faith, history, Humanity, Life, poems, poetry, politics, Principles, religion, time, verse, writing

Above the birds circled

Silhouette patterns in the sky,

Monochromatic mosaics which shuffled like aging hands

Moving wooden pieces across a board

In some endless game,

Watching, always watching

Waiting for that killer move

That only Time knew

Would never come,

As far below, talking monkeys

Hurled sticks and stones across the fields,

Reached over the seas to tear the rage on others such as them

Moving invisible pieces across a board

As if they had a goal,

Forgetting that they had the gift

Of sound and word and voice,

Turning time upside down

As if it bore the blame,

And still above their sightless heads

The shadows wove designs,

Building plans like those before who came and failed and fell

Moving broken pieces across a board

As if there were a point,

Waiting, always waiting

Til aching wings gave way

Above the spinning rock

As silent Time fell still.

 

© All original writing copyright Chris Nelson 2018

 

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