Category: poetry

After the Storm

by Lindsay, posted in poetry 
After the storm 
And hounding waves,
 The coastline changed.
 I haven’t the memory
 Of where rocks used to be
Or sand banks curved.
  
 This boat has drifted 
 Further from shore.
 In the mist, I peer
 Over the edge to find
 Sunken dark shadows and
A quivering reflection of myself.
  
 The seagull’s long soliloquy 
 Echoes across a glass bay.
In my mind of fogged mirrors,
 I squeak-rub clear patches 
With my shirtsleeve 
 Only to catch my own eye.
  
 Buoys scatter across the harbor.
 I tie off my boat and follow, 
 Downward with my eyes,
 The mucked chain 
 Toward its foundation,
 Dissolving into darkness.

The dVerse prompt for today, provided by Anmol, is to write a confessional.

dVerse Poetics: The Art of Confession in Poetry

I Found You in a Closet Curled

by Lindsay, posted in poetry 
I found you in a closet curled
and mopping up the dust

Now I've hung you to my bedroom wall
and framed you up in glass

To reminisce my summer youth
Peaks, valleys, gushing streams

And promise of adventure's future
Under snow and leafy green

Although somedays I cannot see
Beyond the sunset of tomorrow

For now I doze beneath your frame
And mountain dreams I borrow

This was written for a prompt by dVerse Poet’s Pub (link below) that I stumbled across today. The prompt was as follows: “So – here’s what I’m asking you to do today. Walk around your house and look at all the things hanging there: on walls, in closets, on your refrigerator door, etc. Pick something that “speaks to you” and use that as the basis for today’s poem.” This was fun! I look forward to more prompts 🙂

https://dversepoets.com/

On the Shores of Infinite Diamonds

by Lindsay, posted in poetry

On the shores of infinite diamonds, we were
all bronzed skin and limbs,
under a late summer sun.

Ever gently a rose glow
caressing our eyes, saturated our world,
as light retreated beyond mountains.

On the shores beneath infinite stars, we were
all tender skin, twisted limbs,
surroundings obscured in the dark.

Seoul

by Lindsay, posted in poetry, travel, writing 
The rain came down on Seoul.
My soul it bathed and seduced.
For a sole wanderer far from home,
Seoul filled my sole soul with youth.

It’s raining today and I don’t want it to be. It’s a cold, dreary January rain and I want nothing more than for it to be snowing. I am deeply craving the quiet that comes with powdery snow, and the even deeper cold that comes with that snow. I am not quite sure why. I have always identified myself as a “summer person.” Despite the fact that I want it to be snowing, the current weather reminded me of this brief poem that I wrote some time ago while reminiscing about living in Korea. I lived there ten years ago.

Summer came early that year in Korea, bringing heat and heaviness to the air. The trademarks of summer that I was used to–blue skies, clear sunshine–were not there. Even on cloudless days, the sun was obscured by haze. It rained a lot in July, and even when the clouds left the sky, the sun was but a blurred glow, having the same effect as viewing a light through a frosted window. In those days I welcomed the rain. For a few years after I returned from Korea, hot and rainy summer days often flooded my mind with memories of my time overseas. All weather talk aside, I loved spending time in Seoul and would go back again in a heartbeat.

Although as I am writing this, it is not hot and humid, and is in fact January, and on top of that I want nothing more than two feet of snow, I still could not resist posting a blurb about summer rain in Seoul.

I Wear This Winter Like a Cloak

by Lindsay, posted in poetry 
I wear this winter like a cloak
 Unlike past winters that have worn me.
  
 Each visible puff of breath 
 Proof of existing (and
Nevertheless rosy-cheeked),
 In spite of northerly wind
 And bleakened landscape.
  
 As I breathe life out into this bitter world
It breathes it back into me.
  
 For on these cold winter nights
 We are all chimneyed-factories,
 Burning heat within and
 Emitting puffs of steam 
 Against the long night sky.

I Want to Be a Poet.

by Lindsay, posted in poetry, writing 
I want to be a poet and a painter
 A writer and a dancer
  
 I want to capture the world as I see it 
 And dissect it to be examined
  
 I want to empty my mind 
 With the light and dark of the world
  
 And spend my days beneath broad leaves
 Or even bare branches
  
 The roots of trees hugging me 
 Without ever touching me
  
 Pulling me in through the dirt
 As I remain on top soil
  
 Though I am not a plant
 I would be lucky to be so green
 And growing towards the sun

Happy New Year everyone! For the first year in a while, I don’t have any concrete resolutions this January first. What I do have is this: a new year with new thoughts, new energy, new longings.

The Ghost and The Moon

by Lindsay, posted in poetry, writing 
I dreamt of a ghost beyond my window, 
Standing at the edge of my yard,
Translucent below the marble moon. 

She stood erect beneath the formidable night sky.
With an upward tilt of her head, hair grazing her waist,
She stared the bald moon back with her vehement gaze.
When I opened my own eyes, I was under the sky.
Color in my cheeks and blood in my veins,
Dewy-grass feet firmly in the dirt.

And so I walked inside to dream of a blank sky. 
Not unlike the blackboards the morning of Sunday school:
Washed clean, ready and inviting.



For so many weeks, months, I felt haunted. Everywhere I went, every experience, was a reminder of what had happened. That I was not who I used to be and I was not who I wanted to be. That I had made mistakes and simply did not measure up. I was empty.

I don’t know exactly when it happened or how it happened, but I felt life breathed back into me, or maybe I breathed it into myself. Perhaps it was simply that enough time had passed. (And perhaps I had just written enough poems).

It is funny how simple things can represent complete opposites depending on the experiences occupying our headspace. The moon, for example, represented something that I felt saw right through me, something that followed me no matter where I went. It was watching me and I could not escape it. Now I am again able to look at it with a sense of wonder.

It is simply the moon and it is beautiful.

How I Feel About You

by Lindsay, posted in poetry

Do not ask me how I feel about you,
Because I cannot answer that.
 
Instead ask me what I feel.
I feel warm sunlight.
 
Ask me how much I feel.
I feel the number of leaves on the gingko tree behind my
old Cambridge apartment.
 
There were warm, calm days spent across six summers looking up
from my hammock through endless spirals of leaves catching
glimmers of dancing sunshine.
 
The memory of those days feels the same,
As the way that I feel about you.