Today I stumbled upon a ghost
An accidental apparition
Best not give it too much thought though
Or it’ll move into the loft
And exorcists are hard to come by these days
Tag: Short poem
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Unavoidable
If I were to find myself on the day of judgement
I’d tell God to join the back of the queue
There’s many more innocent hearts I’ve broken
And questions left behind,
within a lifetime’s silence
It is their eyes I fear the most
But I accept…
God?
God can have whatever is left.
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Putting it on paper
Am I writing you out of me,
or writing you into existence?
Does the paper take the weight of the words,
or immortalise a fleeting thought?
Oh the irony…
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Black dog
There’s a lone black dog locked out in the cold
His chain rattling against the pole staked deep
Pacing in circles, dawn to dusk an imprisoned sundial
His shadow snaps at weary ankles
As he ponders how bad a dog he must be.
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Clutching clouds
Don’t hold passing clouds to account
You only see what you want to see
Only when you thought ‘to be’
Did they become what they ought to be,
Ought for you alone though,
Wrought through thoughts you sought to see
Caught up in your overwrought thoughts,
The distraught cloud pleads,
“Please! Oh please! Just let me be!
I did not seek your sky,
It was just the wind that carried me
It’s time to let me go now
Please, oh please, just set me free!
To be must end with not to be…”
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Eye to I
We are no longer lovers,
This, I can see…
We are no longer one,
That is evident to me.
So I ask of you, old friend,
If our paths, ever cross again,
Please, do not meet my eyes,
For I cannot trust that my heart will agree,
That this was all we were ever to be—
To be once upon a time,
And then never to be,
From a gaze to a glance…inevitably,
That we are no longer lovers,
Whatever my eyes may see,
Whatever my eyes may see…
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Cloud candy
I was a sliver of silver-lined silk in the sky,
A wisp of a cloud, just floating by.
I was a teddybear, a rabbit—whatever you could dream,
The big bit was a dragon and the long bit was the steam, that split the sky asunder like a candy cotton stream.
That stream flowed into a lake, or was it a giant birthday cake?
Whatever was your recipe, there was nothing I could not make.
As time went by, you forgot all you could see,
Now I’m a just cloud again, craving flights of fancy.
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To forget your name
Jaan, I hold the memories close:
In the pause between breaths,
In the stillness between thoughts,
In the calm between moments.
I whisper your name—
How long since it danced on my lips?
How long since my heart skipped to its mention?
This self-inflicted torment—
Disrupting a sunny day,
Disturbing a mind seeking solace.
Oh, to forget it all:
The pain of losing you, yesterday,
The dread of remembering you, tomorrow…*Jaan = Urdu / Hindi term of endearment meaning life
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The dry cleaner
Spread, fold,
Stretch and steam,
Press, assess—
Then on to the next
Costumes, disguises,
Glad rags and sad,
Press, assess—
Then on to the next
Daily, nightly,
They come and they go,
Press, assess—
Then on to the next
Scraping, slamming,
Shutters pulled down,
Keep the actors dressed
Till the curtain comes down
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Senses
If I were to love with just my senses, then I’d forget you at goodbye
Senses are mere vessels to manifest you into this world
Goodbyes have no place here
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Long road
Nothing changed yet everything did
As I took each turn in the road
Every last time was always on time
As I took each turn on the road
Your names reclaimed, only memories remained
As I took each turn in the road
Never again was never the end
Another friend fell behind at the bend
To walk alone
Are we the condemned?
I still look for you at the turn in the road..
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Qué sera?
Searching for tomorrow
Daydreaming through today
Feels like I live half my life
And think the rest away..
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Wishing well
Such tranquility looking up from the bottom of this well
Quiet solitude and a beating heart
Where will you hide from the echoes in this chamber?
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Evening stroll
The quiet seclusion of an empty street before me
Walking alone, hands in my pocket though it’s not cold
Silence sweeps all the way around the bend in the road ahead
Between the street lights my shadow plays hide and seek
And I can’t tell who is following who
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Moon dreams
You
Me
And a moonlit night
Opened my eyes and it was only the moon and I
With jasmine on the wind…
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