Beyond
there is life beyond
the salt shaker on the table,
the hand that moves
the curtain, unseen.
the empty bowl, rain walking
through the grasses...
the child, the nipple,
stars appearing in darkness,
moving oceans with silent
commands written in a shell,
left unnoticed on the sands
that have never known footprints...
life beyond the cup,
the fire, and the shadows,
opening the bloom,
as leaves fall and crumble.
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Related quotes
Ecstasy (As You Sleep)
ecstasy,
sheds the skin,
comes out of the shell....
leaves the firelit cave,
for the darkness,
and shadows' whisper
among the trees....
takes the kiss of wind
over the door well latched....
jumps from the ledge
never knowing how deep
or how cold the water below!
walks the forbidden mile,
fights the battle already lost,
with the conviction of desire....
brushes the nipple with fingers
piano key walking.....
almost kissing with fingertips
well worn and sure....
blows on the rain wet ember
believing in fire....
brushes the hair from your face,
watching, as you sleep!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Shadows She Said
there's no more place to go
the other bars are closed
the night the stranger came to town
how do you know
when you're right or wrong?
how do you know
if you hurt or if you don't?
so many people say so many things
but nobody agrees on anything
there's no more place to go
shadows she said
there's no more place to go
shadows she said
this night's an empty shell
shadows she said
and all the shadows followed after her
you burned the book of life
the cradle and the tomb
how could you ever dare
there's no more turning back
your stars lit up in flames
there's gunsmoke in the air
and yesterday you bought a brand-new car
but you don't feel like going very far
there's no more place to go...
there's no more place to go
shadows she said
there's no more place to go
shadows she said
this night's an empty shell
shadows she said
and all the shadows followed after her
here they come...
shadows she said...
and all the shadows followed after her...
shadows she said...
song performed by by Alphaville
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Nowhere Left To Stand!
angels made of dust,
stray dogs, homeless children.
righteousness invades,
who forgives the forgiven?
the hands on the clock prophesy,
and the darkness demands.
god stares back from the mirror,
moves with human hands.
empty houses on fire,
empty hearts strike with fear.
and all that remains,
words spoken, unseen tears.
pay the cost of the choice,
pay the price of a life.
but you cannot learn to live,
till you learn how to die!
faces without names,
names written in the sand.
praying for deliverance,
with nowhere left to stand.
when hatred takes form,
the identity revealed.
what we cannot bear to touch,
and wont admit we feel.
the candle burns on the table,
the self walks before.
we have to free ourselves,
before we unlock the door!
faces without names,
names written in the sand.
praying for deliverance,
with nowhere left to stand!
praying for deliverance,
with nowhere left to stand!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Truth... Demands An Audience
i keep watching
old people dying...
with unspoken living,
trembling on their lips.
truth...
demands an audience!
the silent screams
of mountains and rivers defiled.
even the trees whisper,
the sad hurt of poverty.
the wind cries of justice,
in the empty rooms of god.
do you tire of this flame?
wish i'd go away?
give it time,
even my footprints will disappear.
trees will fall,
mountains will crumble.
and the oil raped rivers
will stink of death.
hungry mouths will go unnoticed.
without faces or names.
cities full of empty buildings
will murmur in the night.
and nothing will return
to claim it's just reward.
the unmarked stone stays silent...
even the silence tastes bitter!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Your Footprints
You left your footprints across my life
I hate to see your photographs:
passing history impossibly frozen,
demanding out-of-date thoughts.
You left your footprints on my life
I hate it when people talk of you:
as if they were asking for my blood
to warm their own false memories.
You left your footprints through my life
I hate it when I find a letter from you:
I read a richness and a loss in them
and am torn apart by myself
You left your footprints in my life
Footprints claim nothing, offer nothing;
they do not ask to be preserved, or to be erased;
they are clean, yet they are there;
where they lead, I have yet to find
You left your footprints across my life
poem by Michael Shepherd
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It Is Strange
i find the coming days strange
filled with your silence and i am here feeling so abandoned
pampered once by your words of concern
like i am always showered by your rain
when i was once a vast dryland
with grasses all wilting and animals moving away
searching for water,
it is indeed strange when a day goes away without any word from you
when the night comes as black as tar
and as lonely as a house without its children
moving out to another place carrying with them their
conversations and laughter
and oh even the usual noise
those senseless ones that i begin to miss
because of their absence
i miss you and i will be missing you more for the coming empty days
of my life
i am like a window now always open as
the strong winds come and scatter everything that i have written
the night comes like an empty space of darkness where i surrender
without any word
i sleep and then wake up for another day
when the light stabs my face
piercing my heart
this time every change that comes
is pain
because you are not here anymore and without you
i will be always alone
feeling so abandoned like the shell without its flesh
like the skull without a face
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Song of Madness
Listless and empty, History revisits this winter
Slow moons on the icy river, pale and restless
Shadows jump out, from long abandoned moments
To flee the nights, painted on frozen windows
Darkness whispers his insane monologue
Waiting breathless on a nervous Christmas
Cloaked in brilliant rituals, Life turns up again
Crunching thoughts, to wake up sleeping Hope
Love and Impossibility sat around their dinner table
Passing gifts to eat out of their torrid lives
Some wrapped in tenderness, and some in secrets
Were all eaten in silence, sipping on blood-red thirst
Don't ask the dawn what she has for her new day
She cant sing, when History is still prowling
Everybody is waiting for Christmas to dance in
To slip out on Darkness, to Life and her moves
And so it goes on, Madness, Darkness, Life, and History
Walking around Love and Impossibility, and their dinner
Eating torrid lives with Hope, and waiting for Christmas moves
Fleeing nights and shadows, painted on frozen windows…
poem by Bindu Vijayan
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The Dead Dont Cry
the dead dont cry,
they weep...
for the undone deeds
of the living...
for the work not finished,
the cup left half-empty,
the song that no one heard.
for the deaf ears,
and the blinded eyes.
for the callous heart,
the spirit left in chains.
for the house half finished,
and the home abandoned.
for the love left holding
the purse, and the scar!
for the holy child
born out of wedlock...
for the table left empty,
the chairs that long and pine.
for the touch that failed,
the quivering lip unseen.
for the pot left empty,
and the fire untended.
for the bodies walking
who have no face...
for the latched door,
and the candle unlit...
the dead dont cry,
they weep...
and the sound of their weeping
shakes the earth!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Mystic
wind,
whispering trees
clouds, stars
radiant,
unseen
and again, ever-
moving into darkness
pale riders on
night's mystic train
night, to day,
to winter, to spring
summer's
heat arises,
unforeseen,
as tender leaves breathe
as taps the rain,
as life remains.
poem by Steven Federle
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The World Movement
The world is keep moving
It is moving when seen
But the direction is unpredictable
It keep moving though unseen
Flowing its own rhythm
Though already do something
The unseen hand is running different way
Though try to stand still
The walking feet is marching as fast as wind
The world is keep moving
From one place to another
Never tired, never rest
The world is keep moving
Moving unstoppable
Grinding those who can’t swim, stubborn and arrogant one
poem by Maria Sudibyo
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One, Two, One... For You
the dust in the empty pockets
of the poor man,
walking home from work.
the plowed field just planted,
at the feet of sun and rain.
the simple house built by hand,
lifetimes written into the walls.
the last touch, the last kiss,
the moment never forgotten....
hearts wrapped in hearts,
live and die as one...
one set of footprints,
one name on the stone.
one set of wings,
one fire, one clap of thunder.
two words spoken, two empty vases.
one heart, one hawk flying,
two hands times two,
one dream!
two sparrows part,
one nest, and one tree!
two sides, two faces...
one memory!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Only The Bowl!
i am only the bowl!
i am not the rice.
i am not the fire.
i am not the rain,
nor the sun that gave.
i am not the fertile earth.
i am not the human hands
that gathered, that prepared...
i am not even the hand that offers.
i am not the table, not the chair,
i am not the spoon.
when day is done,
and my place is known...
i am only the bowl!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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From the biography of an unknown woman: xxxvi
She stood on desolate shores
...And looked up
The darkness of the sky
Appeared as if filtered through
The sieve of glow-worm-stars
And the hill yonder looked
A mammoth heap of darkness
She tried to trace their names
He wrote on the smooth
Sea-washed damp sands...
'How everything in life seems
As if a moment ago,
My life is a tale written on water...! '
And she traced her way
Through the coal-dark sands...
29aug2010
11.11hrs
poem by Indira Babbellapati
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The Death That Perfects Me
i like the way you show your back to me
i see you and you do not see me
that is the principle of my secret.
my world changes when you face me
in your being disinterested
nothing matters
i do not wish for more,
i do not need some stars
in my heavens.
my gaze to you is enough as
i go home again
incomplete,
like two hands opening to the sky
asking for light
or even rain and nothing
comes
to fill what my palms are longing
i close my hands again to cover
my face in shame.
For i have not changed.
No matter how,
i will never change.
i am this child and
i am the father of this man.
in my old age,
i am still my own child
the child whose mouth not any milk from any mother
can satiate
it is written in the skies
my name.
It is the name of dissatisfaction
and it wants to have a body
which must be reborn
until it finds what it has been searching
where is true love?
have you found it?
if sometime i find it,
that when i kiss i am also kissed back
when my fire is burned by another fire
when all of me is a forest
and consumed by wild fire
what can i ask?
i will not ask even for a dropp of rain
or a pinch of salt
or a syllable for understanding
i have enough.
But i do not have it now.
I know what is enough.
I have long defined it
in my series of deaths.
i know when it comes,
i can recognize completely its face
when it arrives.
when i hold it, i shall die
but i shall not
ask to be born again.
for by that time,
i am rested as a stone
beside a hill
i do not wish to be rolled again
neither shall i ask
Sisyphus to put me back to that same
place on top
for by that time
i am dead and so complete.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Lily
Oh thou, who givest sustenance to the universe
From whom all things proceed
To whom all things return
Unveil to us the face of the true spiritual sun
Hidden by a disc of golden light
That we may know the truth
And do our whole duty
As we journey to thy sacred feet
Well I said
Lily, oh lily I dont feel safe
I feel that life has blown a great big hole
Through me
And she said
Child, you must protect yourself
Ill show you how with fire
Gabriel before me
Raphael behind me
Michael to my right
Uriel on my left side
In the circle of fire
I said
Lily, oh lily Im so afraid
I fear I am walking in the veil of darkness
And she said
Child, take what I say
With a pinch of salt
And protect yourself with fire
Gabriel before me
Raphael behind me
Michael to my right
Uriel on my left side
In the circle of fire
song performed by by Kate Bush
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Prayer For Elizabeth
In the morning
of my memory
you bake
apple pies.
And grow very tired
and sit very still
and sit very silent
as the camera
undresses reality
leaves you
alone
sculpted sunlight
naked as a
lonely as a
photograph.
In the evening
of my memory
the touch of
your hand asks:
'Donall? '
The cradle of my arm
answers:
'Yes, Elizabeth? '
And although nothing is
said:
the fire's glow
nods & knows
the quiet secrets
we share
between us.
In the night
time of my memory
now when darkness
sees you
(again a little girl)
hear you tell
how you thought
every woman
dressed in black
on the white ribbons
of distant roads
was your Mammy
walking towards you
though she had gone
and never come back
(the grownups mentioned Heaven)
from the Spring sunlight
and the white white clothes
drying on the currant bushes
(her heart stopped its beating
your heart skipped a beat)
and the rope fell from
your hand
and the game was left
unplayed
and everyone forgot about
the white white clothes
and...they rotted on
the currant bushes.
Now in the night
time of my memory
when I long to touch
your hand
(and my heart
misses you)
and the fire smiles
upon my face
and the shadows
fall upon
the empty chair
then thought
becomes you
and you
become a memory
and your memory
becomes my prayer.
poem by Dónall Dempsey
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The Sisters
In the vine-shadows on the veranda;
under the yellow leaves, in the cooling sun,
sit two sisters. Their slow voices run
like little winter creeks, dwindled by frost and wind,
and the square of sunlight moves on the veranda.
They remember the gay young men on their tall horses
who came courting; the dancing and the smells of leather
and wine, the girls whispering by the fire together;
even their dolls and ponies, all they have left behind
moves in the yellow shadows on the veranda.
Thinking of their lives apart and the men they married
thinking of the marriage-bed and the birth of their first
child,
they look down smiling. “My life was wide and wild,
and who can know my heart? There in that golden jungle
I walk alone,” say the old sisters on the veranda.
poem by Judith Wright
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The Magdelene Poems
magdelene
be it so...
they would name
the holy one's lover
a whore...
and so give her a cross
to be borne for generations!
magdelene, # 2
what secrets we shared,
in the breathless moments
just before dawn...
while creation and destruction waited,
and the stars themselves wept,
as if knowing!
magdelene, # 3
perhaps then,
the final price of the gospel,
be not nails...
but love!
magdelene, # 4
twas the book of kisses,
rare intimacies unspoken,
that lingered like very breath...
on graveclothes left empty.
upon the stone rolled away,
the lovers' cross etched,
by hands unseen,
and somehow more than human!
magdelene, # 5
those tiny footprints
on the sands of eternity...
are those of a child,
who never met her father
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Muddy Footprints
blue lights in the parking lot,
faceless cars speed by
on rain swept streets....
ghosts march in pedantic rhythm,
in the land of 'no touch, no feel'....
the gas pumps beeping,
always beeping.... shadows
feed shadows... a stray dog
dead on the side of the road....
'can you spare a coupla dollars? '....
heads turn, and walk away....
a young couple walking the tracks....
going nowhere, hand in hand.
you can smell the vacant buildings,
can hear the glass break
on the boarded up windows.....
has anyone a hand, an eye to eye,
muddy footprints where
life should have been!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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In The Gravel!
the trees all cut,
lay across the path.
all signs of life have vanished.
an empty hamper
where clothes once lived,
not even the scent of living remains.
lifetimes fall like words
in a vacant room....
swept to the side by indifference.
nothing remains of the fire,
even the ashes are cold....
the air itself gone stagnant!
from a whirlwind to an echo,
a kiss to a door lock turned,
the sound of a stranger walking away.
and all that we are,
and ever have been,
footprints left in the gravel!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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