Nymphéas, 1916-19 – Claude Monet

 

Lull me into your lily pond

beckon my vision

 

Your flickered ray

my scattered wave

 

Cleanse my soul

With your lily wave

 

And here we rest in peace.

 

 

 

 

Vase with Fourteen Sunflowers, 1889 – Vincent Van Gogh

 

Oh please, my Father

stroke me tender with your ray

or leave me with your holy grace.

 

 

 

 

Way to Rome

 

 

Falling asleep was difficult

in a berth that could hardly contain my tiny frame

Moonlight shimmered through the window

as the breathing of the stranger bellowed

I watched the flecks of light on my fingers

and felt my back rubbing against the rail,

“It must be moving quite fast,

I’ll soon be there”

 

I opened my eyes,

touched by the grace of the sky

It blushed at the caress of the first ray

The view before me was lined with catenaries,

I laughed, they looked like threads of a net

 

Dawn waited for no one

as she made way for the nearest star

to ascend its throne

Fields of sunflowers queued

as they looked up to greet their lord

He blessed them with warmth and lit my heart

summer never seemed so cheerful

and happiness never so easy.

 

 

 

 

The Scream, 1893 - Edvard Munch

 

 

Scratch the sky

And it screeches

through winding fields

of Oslofjord

 

Hollow my sight,

thrust a knife into my ears,

hammer with your fears

and take your turn

in leaving me.

 

But my feet still sink

in this bridge

across the field

of Oslofjord.

 

 

 

 

If I Had You, 2003 – Darren Almond

 

 

I may grow to be like you

having a vision that is blurry,

taking someone else for him,

calling him, his name

 

But I will not do, what you did,

revisiting places both of you shared,

evoking an oscillation

of memories

 

Hearing music both of you danced to,

remembering his body close to yours,

imagining your waltz through the night

 

I do not want to live a life like yours,

twenty years yearning

but still,

losing the fight.

 

 

 

 

 

Forget

 

 

I like to lie on my bed on a rainy day

and hear the random hits of silence

planted between kisses of rain

 

I like to look at trees on a windy day

and see their leaves making love to the air

as light filters through the swaying of couples

 

I like to take long walks at night

and drop my thoughts like breadcrumbs

in the comfort of daffodils sprinkled above

 

I like to take a long journey on a bus

and feel the fingers of wind soothing my hair

as I sit still against passing lives

 

I shall not empty my cries

for a dry well will be too ready for rain.  

 

 

 

 

Promise to His Wife

 

 

He held her stiff hands

asked her not to give up on him

for he promised to join her soon.

 

The next morning, he regained his senses by

the smell of white rose on her pillow

He refrained from smoothing

the pale linen next to him,

He knew his promise cannot be fulfilled.

 

In the afternoon, he listened to the absence

of activities in the kitchen

as he drank what was left of her coffee

He let her favourite songs play

till the sun sank.

 

In the night, he nestled in their bed

emptied of her warmth,

He closed his eyes,

wishing it would be the last.

 

 

 

 

Learn to breathe

 

 

What could you do when your river

refused to cease streaming 

after you removed the knife

 

So you prayed for rain to come, 

you lay motionlessly

waiting for pain to drain you of life

as you concentrated only on the breathing

a rhythmic kind of living that was cyclical

 

You started to feel the gentle palms of the sun

stroking your face and his body embraced yours

a kind of assurance, warm and firm

And the wind ignored your grieves

as it lulled you to sleep

The beats of thousand pebbles

dropped into the pond

Your lips curled into a kind of satisfaction

at the arrival of long anticipated rain.

 

You will be

a newborn soon.