Time

Tags

age, creative, Innocence, loss, Love, Memory, poems, poetry, time, verse, Wisdom, writing

Time turns the page,

Its benign eyes watch

As hands stretch out,

Offering the wisdom of experience

In exchange for the innocence of youth,

And we grasp at it

As if it were the only way,

As if it somehow offered up

An answer to our lives,

And how so easily we part

With all that we once knew,

And concepts such as hope and faith

Now gather dust on shelves,

That lie beyond our sight

And so far from our reach.

Something New – I Wrote Your Name

Tags

creative, dreams, fantasy, hope, I wrote your name, inspiration, loss, Love, Memory, poems, poetry, verse, writing

I wrote your name

Upon a page

Within a book

To keep it close to me,

I locked it up

Inside a safe

Within my heart

So no-one else could see,

I wrote it with

An ink so black

Indelible 

So it would never fade, 

And kept it with

My treasure trove

Of precious gifts

Safe deep within the shade,

But then one day

I took it out

With gentle hands

And held it to the light,

And felt my eyes

As sorrow fell

Fill up with tears

As it had left my sight.

Paris

Tags

creative, Love, Memory, nostalgia, Paris, poems, poetry, Romance, verse, writing

And I remember Paris

In the heat of eighty-nine

When the sheets floated like shadows

And our words tasted of wine,

When the streets all spoke in whispers

Hid their faces under oil

The passion of their children

Drowned by kisses that would coil,

And wrap themselves around the vine

That blossomed fruitful in the sun

Etched smiles upon the faces

In passing cars now all as one,

And I remember scented skin

Melting into sacred flesh

All the looks we planted there

Every sigh and every breath,

When all the pasts fell from our lids

And all the streets that led us here

Became the only things we ever knew

Like every smile and every tear,

And all the things within my heart

And everything within my hand

The traces left by word and touch

Like golden kisses in the sand,

And I remember seeing you

And all the things you woke in me

Like ghosts emerging from the cracks

To find the jewel they could not see,

And I remember Paris.

Summer Died

Tags

creative, Longing, loss, Love, Memory, nostalgia, poems, poetry, Relationships, Remember, Summer, verse, writing

I remember the hurt

When the Summer died,

And words fell worn like leaves

The look in your eyes,

Oh, I remember the fall

The hole in your eyes,

Silhouettes on gallows

Against the sky.

 

And I would walk, walk with you

Beyond the edges

Beyond the fringe

Live  all your secrets

If you want me to,

And I would dance, dance for you

To a silent tune

Played by your heart

Run with your shadows

If you asked me to.

 

And I would love, love you still

Beyond the words

Beyond the lips

Hold you forever

If you needed me to,

And I would leave, leave for you

When the air was dead

And nothing rhymed

If you asked me to.

 

I remember the hurt

When the Summer died,

And words fell worn like leaves

The look in your eyes,

Oh, I remember the fall

The hole in your eyes,

Silhouettes on gallows

Against the sky.

 

But if you’d stay, stay for me

Just a moment

A moment more

I’d turn these tears to wine

If you asked me to.

 

© All original writing copyright Chris Nelson 2000-2020

 

Casual Hands

Tags

creative, fantasy, Memory, nostalgia, poems, poetry, thoughts, Truth, verse, writing

I remember

The Sun on our backs,

Shirts tossed aside

Like gum

Deserted by its flavour

Which hung on our lips

As bitter-sweet future memories,

Ones we could as yet

Not see,

Nor wish to have

On endless days,

Days which built the frames

From which we’d have

The clearest view

Or merely hang,

Clothed in success

Or failure

For all to see,

Not realising that, as

In childhood’s garb, we pass unnoticed

So our shadows would fade

In time’s relentless passage.

I remember

Days that stretched far

Beyond the hours

Swept aside by casual hands,

Days in which the rooms held promise

And the ceilings were so high,

And my hands held

All that I knew,

And I forget the things

I buried in the yard

Hoping that they would stay

Beneath the earth and rock,

Not realising that their ghosts

Like the silence of the night,

When even the sweetest dreams won’t rise,

Would haunt the shadows

That I could never set free.

I remember

A Sun that burned

Only in tales

That I’d wished were true.