Letters of Love

Tags

creative, hope, Letters, Letters of Love, loss, Love, nostalgia, poems, poetry, Seasons, time, verse, winter, writing

He knew that Winter was coming,

Felt its ice-brushed roots

Wrap themselves around his thoughts

And choke the words

As they hung

Like swinging men

In his throat,

Remembered then

The invincible spring

That offered him

Letters of love 

Through the mail

Which fell at his feet like kisses

Pirouetted on their toes and wove

Themselves into words 

Which danced in his head

Then tumbled in passages that came

From who knew where,

The Summer when his passion

Turned thoughts like cartwheels

A windmill grinding

Gathered up things he’d never seen

And lay them like a lamb on the page

At his feet

Like a sacrifice 

Of sorts,

The surety of Autumn’s voice

As it echoed through the caverns

Emptied now

Not driven by desire or need,

The comfort of the leaves

And the colours that they spread

Beneath his feet

Within his heart

As the doors behind him slowly closed,

He knew that Winter was coming.

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.

Turning Wheel

Tags

creative, dreams, faith, hope, Love, poems, poetry, Progress, time, Turning Wheel, verse, writing

And the wheel still turns

We get caught between

All the things we’ve done 

All our hopes and dreams,

And the days move on

Like we’d never been

As our faces fade

On a clouded screen,

All the promises

Hanging in the air 

Like the memories 

We no longer share,

And the lives we thought 

We had touched in time

Dancing once again

To a different rhyme,

Drifting silently 

From your field of view

Wipe away the scars

On a canvas new,

And the wheel still turns 

We get caught between 

All the things we’ve done 

And our hopes and dreams. 

As It Ever Was

Tags

age, As it ever was, creative, Depression, hope, loss, nostalgia, poems, poetry, time, verse, writing

And when at last the dust

That had crept into our eyes and

Scratched its frozen images

Deep within our hearts and minds

Began to fall

Did we find that we had found

All that we were looking for

The prizes and rewards that we

Had promised ourselves

So many lifetimes before?

Or did our vista still contain the

Dreams that we had always known

Were nothing more than that

No more than the pictures that we

Had painted with the hands

Of children fleeing from the night?

And all the promises that we had cast

Like yarrow stalks, now pebbles on the beach

Had given up their secrets to the sea

And washed themselves with the briny tears

That we had shed so freely

Thinking that they would be gone

Spent like the pennies we cherished in

The youth we dreamed away so soon

Before we learned to mourn its death

And let the black sank deep within

A storm that never passed

The ghost of all the days we thought

Would one day come to life

And take our hands

And lead us to all that grew on trees so near

So far from reach

But now through thinly veiled eyes

The scratches fall away

And through the sinking mists we see

All as it ever was.

© All original writing copyright Chris Nelson 2000-2021

Set Free

Tags

Communication, creative, hope, Love, poems, poetry, Set Free, time, verse, writing

And one day all of this will end

And all the pain will go away

The days that in our hands we held

Will take their flight and set us free

And I will watch you rise once more

And hope that you will take my hand

These days we grew within our hearts

Will take us deep into our dreams

And one day all the clouds will clear

And all the things we ever saw

Will shower down before our eyes

These days we hold within our hands.

© All original writing copyright Chris Nelson 2000-2020

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

 

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

 

Waste the Time

Tags

creative, dreams, Life, nostalgia, poems, poetry, time, verse, Waste, writing

What did we do before we had

The time to waste the time,

When every moment seemed so full

Of obligation’s ties,

And commitment pulled us closer

Then swallowed up our days,

When hands were full and red and raw

From dawn to dusk to dawn,

Of all the things we ever made

For lives we never knew,

From pit to fire they came and went

To lay the tracks from now,

And love was just a distant dream

In books and silver screens,

We washed away the dirt of day

And with it all our hope,

So tell me now with hindsight’s eye

When dear time’s time we kill,

What did we do before we had

The time to waste the time?

 

© All original writing copyright Chris Nelson 2018

Kitchen Window

Tags

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

She stood at the kitchen window

Still her eyes looking out

Over the fields of wheat

Now clothed in concrete and stone

Salt-moist with the days

She had given away

And moments she had sunk

Her tired hands into

Too deep to ever catch the dreams

Which swam in the shallows

Transients in the currents

Which left their lip-stain

On shores she felt that she

Could never reach

Not seeing that they

Like the hours lost

Were nothing more than shark-bait

Driven onto rock-scarred shores

Wishing that the story book tales

Had not been quite so tall

And that true love’s lips had kissed

A promise of truth

That the dragons had left some bridges

For her alone to burn

And that the rainbow had borne

Her happy ending

Still, her eyes looking out

She stood at the kitchen window.

 

 

© All original writing copyright Chris Nelson 2018