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Under a Witches SkyAnd lo there he said: "I am darkness rising"
— ‘an apparition bleeding into a dreaming sky
Distilled in the timbre of windswept voices,
black feathers enchant earth in fevered-song
Magick ebbs & shimmers thru earthen veins,
seething like a migration of hungry wolves
Silvery eyes peer, drinking the ether of souls;
watching the spirit world fold into the mists
And where Shadows and Witches conjure,
— myriad talons beshrew Winter’s prayer

For eons I hath wandered in forgotten lore
— a sleep walker thru ash & fire, hunting ..
Beneath Moon solemn and drifting,
I covet thy ghostly figure velvet, undressing
Pools of

The Man and the MoonHer mouth corners hung themselves
and I began to wonder if that was the death of them.
A simple, quiet death;
without broken fingernails lining the walls
with the stripes of a despairing end.
I began to ache with the questioning in my heart
with the echoes reverberating in my capillaries
of her face scorching sunshine in her smile
right before it crumpled
and nothing was left but a frowning moon
set firm in its resignation to an upcoming eclipse.

SpeakeasyI can feel you like a phantom,
sensation without touch,
like breath in winter
or a misty mountain morning
that stays with me
until the stars fall in evening.

Your eyes contain the secrets
your lips would dare to betray,
but your body tells the story
and I am trying
to read between the lines
of your paperback smiles.

A grazing touch, a covert glance,
the memories remain
as skin grows warm and red
beneath lying fingertips
that claim incidental contact
a thousand times a day.

Of course,
it's not the kind of thing we say
when we are speaking
without talking and feeling
without touching
and thinking without knowing...

all of the things

Dandelion QueenI dream of the ocean;
that paper-thin line where
the current swallows the stars
and the water churns violet

(you tell me to be
quiet,

dandelion queen, we've
heard all these words before)

tonight
I will sleep heavy
and wake a few hours before dawn,
only to forget my name

my wave-weathered heart will cry,
I will cry (my biggest fear
is drowning in too many
of my own weighted words

you tell me to be
quiet
so I can hear the world breathe)

I want to go home

Overgrown ColorsRed like blood on a rose.
White like bone and stars.
Black like reclusiveness.
Green like dead air.
Orange like the savage instinct.
Purity like a god's heart.
Red like thawing hatred.
White like a frozen, severe cry.
Black like the night's deprived shadows.
Green like the wind in the grass.
Orange like the light in the shadows.
Purity like the sun rising.
So discharging through the moon in a wheeze is like luminous white, dispersed red.

We Can't Be Together.Every kiss you plant on my lips,
Takes a little bit of my soul away.

You're stealing the passion,
You're invading my heart,
And killing what emotion I've left untouched.
Stop this.
I can't love you.

I've tried to before,
Oh my god,
Have I tried.

Tried to unlock the doors to myself,
Tried to open up,
And let you in.
But as soon as I took one look,
Negativity took it's opportunity,
And struck the hot iron I'd been molding.

Every word you mutter
My knees falter under
You're killing me

You're my kryptonite
I'm your paradise
But in this odd peace that seems to be approaching
I can't find happiness.

We aren't meant to be together
But this

WindowsHere am I, repeated,
and beyond waits everything
but everything is more
than I can bear.

I am not built for altitude
nor looking far afield;
groves and granite-sided mountains
stop my gaze

like rest for every tired wing;
a cover in the coldest time
snugged up beneath my chin.

Windows nothing more,
but safe lies there behind them
as the chambered hours pass;

safe sleeps there behind them
on the soft side of the glass.

Poet as PainterThe world
Your dusty palette,
The pen
Your muddied paintbrush:

Dip into
The impossible
Colour
Of imagination

And stain
The pristine slate
With an
Image distilled.

with thanks to frosttwo roads diverged in a soulless dawn
and you pull over,
idling on the shoulder of route 50.
it's a polaroid morning and
the world is as grainy
and sleep-heavy
as your eyes,
and one million miles
is not far enough.
it plays back, filmstrip,
blurred along the length of
optic nerves,
and here you are:
facing a choice between
on
and
out.
and this?
this loosejointed, hollowbodied
weightless ache--
this is what
gone
feels like.

Dry Spell I am immobilized by time.
by the idea that it is somehow slipping,
fleeting,
evaporating
through the cracks of
my fingers and high

above my head.
I am terrified by the incessant notion
that no combination of thoughts,
words,
silences,
or actions
could possibly satiate it.

I realize only now that it can never be filled:
all which is tossed into it is swallowed in haste
or stretched
so far
that it dissolves into non-being.
I find that I am caught within its furrows
much like the words it devo

BoyfriendI thought you were good.

You WERE good.

You played with my hair.

You held me when I cried.

You were a gentleman.

You made me laugh.

You kissed me.

You loved me.

I loved you.

It was then that I learned the truth.

The dirty, rotten, stinking truth.

About you!

You cheated.

You played with her hair.

You kissed her.

You loved her.

You made her laugh.

I saw you – don’t you dare deny it.

I saw you giving her that love.

That same love you gave me.

I break up with you.

You don’t even seem to care.

Did you ever love me at all?

Or was it only ever her?

Much later, you’ll realize what a mistake you made.

I

You Don't Know ItYou don't know it, but you kept me sane
I nearly went over the edge
With a knife in one hand and a gun in the other
But you grabbed me
Pulled me back on my own two feet
Emptied my hands
And when you realized that I couldn't stand on my own
You hugged me
Like a mother would do for her child
Like a friend would do for, dare I say, another friend

You don't know it, but when you saved me
I felt free
I felt wanted
I felt needed
I felt, dare I say, loved

You don't know it, but when you showed me kindness
I fell in love
In love with your kindness
That same sweet kindness you saved me with
It felt like I found a new home
One that I could be, dare

untitledGold abundant at your feet,
Heart ripe and pumping on your sleeve,
And eternal admiration;
To say happiness has evaded you
Would be asylum-esque lunacy
For you have nothing to lose,
Fate is on your side,
The odds are in your favor infinitely
Do not waste the gift you’ve received

Pull Her Hair/Stare At The StarsThe ghosts have crashed their ship
on the other side of town,
you can see it from the second floor
all the way over here.
You can see the white clouds
rising from the wreck
and a nova of heat, a big bright
nova of warmth pulling the moths and wolves
out from the woods (with their noses up and searching).
You can smell the yearning like bees
leaving the hive, like the grizzly brown bears
on the jagged white mountains (concrete and imposing).
They call it fear,
but I see these ghosts
scrambling up into the sky
and I like to think it's
something different entirely.

PocketLeftover religion in the pocket
Of my trenchcoat
A key that unlocks nothing
A penny, a scrap of paper
With half of your name
Written in black ink

A song that is usually in my head
In the shriveled carcass
Of a long-dead dream
In the pocket
Of my trenchcoat
With the lint

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#4warm my hands between
your thighs, shake your hips
until we're both hot

Kittya missing bird in spring
no more twittering, just a
broken social scene.

Nature's SlaveDear, sweet, heart-
Your angelic laughter fills the room
The voices around you pause,
In earnest reverence of the bloom
That unfurls as winter thaws.
Yes, springtime suits you best,
You smiling, silly boy,
And you wear it like a crest,
An old, beloved toy.
The voices rise again-
They're asking you to dance,
So lift your auburn hair
And finish this romance.

Turtle BeachOn moonlit beaches
the abandoned turtle shells
made up his pathway

Hangovermy head is pounding
from last night's debauchery:
too much sangria

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Winter Skin

by ~penlender, Dec 18, 2012, 7:41:22 PM
Literature / Poetry / General Poetry / Free Verse

In Romania, the gypsies wander
the streets, cold and weary.
Seven times the gypsy boy asked me
for the scarf I wore, haggard and old-
the weight of diaspora is heavy.
Each time I refused. His poverty
made him beautiful, and in the cold
of that December I let him freeze,
to wait for bird songs in the ceaseless din
of city noise in winter skin.

Winter Skinby ~penlender

Literature / Poetry / General Poetry / Free Verse

©2012-2013 ~penlender

Written for #PoeticalCondition's Contest. Theme: "A Winter Only World"

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~The-Obsessive-Artist Jan 11, 2013 Student General Artist

Beautiful. It has a lot of impact too. My father's Romanian and he was poor so I connect, if in a secondhand sort of way. He wasn't a gypsy though

Reply

Mood: Winter Downs

~penlender Jan 11, 2013

Thanks, I'm glad you connected with the poem.

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~tiajones Dec 30, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

lovely <3

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~penlender Dec 30, 2012

thank you!

Reply

~Other1here Dec 18, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

My best friend is a gypsy

Reply

~penlender Dec 19, 2012

Mine too

Reply

*RiseandBe Dec 18, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

Beautiful! I love what you did with the theme we gave you. Good luck in the contest!

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~penlender Dec 18, 2012

Thank you! It's a lovely thing to be able to share poetry with others in this cold month.

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*RiseandBe Dec 19, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

My pleasure! It most definitely is.

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