Poetry

Good Grief 21 /  by Ruth Temianka

Grief is a lens,
a gift of love and life,
through which the course of every particle,
birthed in solar rays,
acquiesced by the invisible universal,
is altered.

Rendered into us as waves
crashing into consciousness,
with the power to suspend all matter
in a vacuum.
Space-time without continuum.

Grief amplifies.
A magnification of love,
an excavation of sorrow,
a heightening of senses
detecting transmuted memory.

The self,
smothered by a thousand golden threads
each winding and binding
tight yet featherlight,
surveys numb sensation
and thought.

In its place,
frozen space erupts into a thousand colors,
a million moments.
Each sharp

cut 

suspended together.

Crisp pages sit,
their words spun in plain sight,
a vibrant and
richly fragranced filigree
of fallen
autumn
leaves.

Grief is the salt to the spirit,
sugar to the sharp;
the counterweight
that elevates being
into transcendent exaltation.

The heat of the orchestra's echo
still seers through skin
as if masterpiece
a mere prelude.

A hum beneath the surface.

Atomic light,
burning bright,
carves retinal ridges,
overlaying the Other
onto every waking viewscape.

In these unfathomable furrows,
love still grows.
Its fertile soil
gives birth to beauty,
whose bold shadow
shades all others
into submission.

In its respiration and repose,
elements of life,
continue to cycle on their orbits.

D Day 20 /  by Ruth Temianka

These frequencies of energy,
making melodies
as we wend our way.
Heartbeats syncopating
to the oscillations
of fragments and filaments,
humming soft velvet,
growing heavy with gathering stardust.
Settling deeper into each exhale.

Still this remains.
light inside and out, 
burning elbow-deep over a cold set of tracks. 
A guiding note,
whispering away the dark,
calling to the flame,
the fallen footsteps,
to move
out,
forward and away 
from smudged embers. 
Starting into the unknown, 
To see what is.

All this 
will be,
just as it is.

So,
tongue-tied tune that is;
Licked flicker,
Dusty traveler!
In time
inconsequential. 
Light still,
in spite lightening inhale.

Tend to the fire
of future-bound feet,
fall forwards and
dig deep.
Simply learn to gather 
patience
and love,
how to be.

Do it for me.

Lyrics: Walk with Me ('11) /  by Ruth Temianka

[Written for Mike Rosenberg, aka Passenger, under my former creative moniker Dilettantisme]

Walk with me

Did you feel the earth move,
Did you see the ocean sway,
When you walked side by side with her down to the bay.
You talked about beginnings,
You walked hand in hand,
She whispered soft goodbyes, you drew lines in the sand.

The light flickers in our hearts as the flame struggles to breathe
Passion kindled and not dwindled makes it hard to ease
You say it all as shadows start to fall
My dear, love me dearly, please.

Was it hard to speak,
Was it easy not to say,
Why right can be wrong but we sing along anyway.
She suffered fools gladly,
She played piano in a marching band,
You remembered the music but forgot the stand.

The light flickers in our hearts as the flame struggles to breathe
Passion kindled and not dwindled makes it hard to ease
You say it all as shadows start to fall
My dear, love me dearly, please.

Will you hear the silence,
Will you touch the space,
Created by two dreamers waking with the day.
We can see the waves
Rising up from the land
In this sunny place between two worlds, our Samarkand.

Resilience /  by Ruth Temianka

Is a book,
that was never written,
Yet gets writ,
Every day.

Challenges daily -
Unforgiving,
Testing
In every way,
Bring this quality
to the fore,
To keep
What might,
could conceivably,
hold sway,
At bay. 

Rising up,
Sisyphean promised,
Stumbling forward,
Lugging to allay,
Part inert,
Cramming
Kindling
Life asunder,
To delay. 

The page curls,
To reveal,
Bright new light
- and words
Cast away. 

Elemental Connection /  by Ruth Temianka

Look into the light
cracked,
Refracted,
and
Tell me it’s worthless.

Pick up this stone soil
stacked,
Compacted,
and
Tell me it’s weightless.

Run across cold heat
tickled,
Restricted,
and
Tell me it’s lifeless.

Get out of this well
capped,
Confounded,
and
Tell me it’s waterless.

Tired?

So rest in this place,
A while,
Protected.

Then,
Tell me where,
Located,
and
Loveless!

I’ll toil to unearth,
Expose life to light, warmth and dew
To nourish,
and
Sacred!
Departed!
Disenchanted!
Bring sweet life anew.

Tell me
all this,
Lest I,
Forget
To tell you.

Another F’ing Firebird /  by Ruth Temianka

Firebird,
Alight in your descent,
The past ablaze.

Wreck as you swoop,
Unravel golden threads
and
Prise open soft flesh,
Exposing matter to matter.

Sing as you go;
Your first and last elegy,
ever the panegyric narcissist.

Life turns earthwards.
A lull.

Swift shift —
Subtle yet substantial.
You again.

So, the muted arisen
Begins to breathe,
Flexes feathers,
and?

It
Slowly starts,
its
Ascent anew.

Ode to Oxalis /  by Ruth Temianka

It feels good to plant new things,
tender stems, leaves and
flowers new,
for others with wings
and fast little hearts,
to feed
and drink the dew.
Doing all this,
so they must live.
And, all the while,
I do this,
Tend
and
Beat
and
Live longingly so —
O tiny ox!
Just to be with you.

TabulaR /  by Ruth Temianka

From dust and rocks
to his dust on rocks,
birthed from collected fragments
now dispersed.

For our love for his land
to my love on no man’s land,
a rising star saw and now sees
but sinking sun.

May its descent warm his feet
and cool this burning brow.

Blazing a golden path,
They long for nothing
but to have stopped
the passage of this day.

Solstice Frog /  by Ruth Temianka

My world,
Your world.
Spins with the seasons from ocean to lake,
Fringed with desert flats and forest.
My world trembles when it rains, and
Quakes when the rains grow silent.
New mountains rise up in yours
To suck out the sky. The rains run away.

I spy a fly with my little green eye(s) while you
Stare up above like some omnipotent owl;
The earth and the sky are yours!

My domain, ever-shifting, shows nothing but your skin
And stars.
Yet,
Equally cloaked in clouds of dust
I contemplate. And wait.

Two worlds draw together but
As my world inclines upwards
And yours downwards
With a kick,
And a flash -
A glistening green streak!
I’m gone.

Visions of the Dark /  by Ruth Temianka

The vision,
I have of You 
Is not, 
the vision,
I would have wanted
of You.

The dark, 
The dry dread
of the Dark;
The dread, 
of the vision
Darkest you.

It grates, 
Tries, and executes, 
Repeatedly. 
The dark. 

It,
fills space with a face, 
Files Face under darkest vision. 
You bring to me, 
to bring Me down to the Dark
where I execute.
Your face, 
It
Faces
Me. 

Repeatedly, 
I face it.
Your vision.