He Says...

He says, "You revealed yourself once, took it all off in the name of love. Dance, how you danced, free in your tie died skirt the color of the sky, barefoot and arms extended, a tiny dancer of dreams. I remember your hair, it was long and flowing, made of golden sunbeams, your eyes as green as grass, and your smile, man your smile was an infectious disease with no available cure. Your heart was so full of life and flowers, you smelled of jasmine blooming late in the night, one just had to follow where you led…"

He pauses, wishing she would look at him as he continued, "...don't you understand? No one really knows when your light dimmed, if it happened all at once, or if it were more of a slow death, you were so bright, no one seemed to notice when the shadows started to creep in, some say it was the drugs, I say it was something far more sinister. To hear you tell it, it was always there, fools blinded by something you couldn’t maintain." 

Never looking at him, she breaks her silence and says, "It is you who does not understand, you see, I was more like a supernova, a star that suddenly increases greatly in brightness because of a catastrophic explosion that ejects most of its light only to disappear leaving those who witnessed it, the question of whether or not I was there at all."

She breaks into a smile, turning to look at him, she takes his face into her hands and says, "It’s just like you, to bring this around again, you long so much for what used to be, you refuse to look to the single event that caused such beauty to expand and retract. There is only so much a heart can hold, joy, pain…no one will ever know which consumed me." 

She looks away, her eyes drift off and in whisper she says, "Perhaps it is for the best, so few will ever know the experience, not everyone can claim to be a supernova…I am made of the stars, no matter how short lived, in spite of the shadows, I still shine...."

a tear escapes and she looks to him again, eyes searching, "...can you not see me?" 

BAN January 26, 2015 8:12 am

The Lines That Tie

When these sighs
no longer draw your lies
with finger pressed

between the ties
no longer binding,
you hold me firm

in the absence of your breath

ragged and calling my name.

Who's name is it
that now escapes through
your lips,

is she written in permanent ink
across black and white print

or was that another lie
to keep me coming

back to watch yet another
hold you at rapt attention
standing tall

begging for ego driven
catch and release...

BAN March 14, 2015 11:36 am


The lines that tie, even when severed, are taut with the weight of all that could have been. 

Self Portrait in Shadow'd Perception

 

Another late afternoon
leaves me in shadow,
eyes heavy with the weight
of unshielded hurts
seen only in the seconds

of dusk
when the sun begins to descend
beyond the horizon line.

These charcoal greys,
a play of positive and negative space
fill my thoughts
in the narrow hours

of another day
slipping away,

waiting for the night to swallow
all that remains

unseen.

BAN December 26, 2013 4:35 pm

Simulacrum

A kaleidoscope image
with each experience another turn.

Pieces emerge more beautiful than the last.
An arras of complexity;
spectral colors
assemble a chromatic simulacrum
that is me.

Please handle with care
and always hold me to the light.

BAN © March 2008

Yellow Pinafore

The first dress I remember
was a yellow pinafore
I felt so pretty...

A series of dresses followed
ill fitting and awkward,
I tried to hide my skinned knees
my dirty hands...

and the smile I didn't really feel.

Today, the dresses no longer feel awkward
but they've grown in length
to keep things hidden,
things you found so easy to plunder

in shorter dresses...

and I still feel contempt
for the color yellow.

BAN August 2, 2013 11:23 am

Skinned Knees and Bumblebees

Innocence,

I don't remember innocence,
even in dreams,

a time when freedom
is a taken for granted
by most

to run in the grass,
skinned knees and bumble bees.

Funny how a memory will trigger
a spiral of thoughts,
feelings resurface
and I,

reminiscent of all that was taken from me.

My Mary Jane's ill fitting
for the adult I was forced to become
when I was still too young

to know what was right....

I wake with eyes wet,
just enough to catch the moonlight
to reveal the child still lives,

and waits for the one
who will love her...

BAN 2/16/13

Absolved

Does my darkness scare you?

Or is it my ability to shine my own light,
to expose my demons
that makes you uncomfortable.

You see,

anyone can face the sun,
follow its wisdom
and tout its goodness

but it takes courage
to stare down the shades of deep

in a beam of light,
and welcome them without fear.

What scares me,
is your inability to admit
my darkness is a reflection
of your regret

and I refuse to conceal my shadows
just so you can shine
without guilt.

BAN 1/31/13

Reverb

These thoughts within my mind,
is yesterdays reverb

needing an exit point
so I can begin again
with something new.

My knees are bruised,
tired prayers left unanswered,

my loneliness leads me astray,
in these moments of rare animation.
I draw you near,

only to push you away,
when the shadow falls.

These whispered psalms
become a desperate supplication,
in my hour of need...

will you be my saving grace,
or yet another failed attempt
to connect to something real...

to something meaningful.

BAN 1/25/13

How am I gonna make each moment better than the last
How am I gonna make it better if I can't go back

I wish that I could be...

Sweet Darkness

Sweet Darkness

When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone

no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.

There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your womb
tonight.

The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.

You must learn one thing:
the world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.

~ David Whyte ~

The Analyst

"The Analyst"

Prepare yourself to meet a girl who can not sleep
Dividing every question 'til the questions are complete
Every twisted tongue she studies everyone
She won't leave any stone unturned the night is oh so young

Oh oh she's traveling back in time
Questioning every line that someone said
Oh oh she's trying to understand

Free her mind she's always the analyst
Silent space the culprit the catalyst
Trying to make sense of her life
Digging around in the dirt she's a slave to the work
She's always the analyst

Can you be sure we haven't met see the eyes they don't forget
They wander through the passage-ways that tease a restless mind
Can't afford to slip the picture's gotta fit
Her world's a photograph that gets dissected bit by bit

Oh oh she's traveling back in time
Questioning every line that someone said
Oh oh she's trying to understand

Free her mind she's always the analyst
Silent space the culprit the catalyst
Trying to make sense of her life
Digging around in the dirt she's a slave to the work
She's always the analyst

Re-living the mistake she's made not a moment for the curious girl

Free her mind she's always the analyst
Silent space the culprit the catalyst
Trying to make sense of this life
Digging around breaking it down
Neurotic thoughts
Burning the ground
Every sight every sound
She's always the analyst

Seeds of Love

Towers and temples,
skyscrapers and streetlights,

I can’t see the sky
from the littered streets
and the crowded horizon.

Signs and billboards,
neon lights and parking lots,
highways stretch
and our dollars do not.

Black and white thinking
replaces the color,
drags us down
fills our thoughts
with violence and destruction.

I wanted to do something
so I grew a sunflower for you.

Planted it in your mind
scattered the seeds
for all to see.

It is not too late…
 

(I pray it is not too late)

Look for me in the forests
in the wind in your hair,
and the sun on your face.

Life will continue…
and love will grow,

with or without us.

©BAN

Delicate

You used to watch me
curious to know where I traveled
when I got that far off look
writing in my time worn pages.

Letter after letter
forming works of art
holding me in rapture
 

(you always were jealous
of the words).

You listened as I read to you,
captivated
 

(or so I thought)
 

by the tears running down my face,
poems sung
and you never heard a one.

Stanzas written for love,
for sorrow
for a longing you couldn't fulfill...

you knew that didn't you?

You would wait until the last word was spoken
reaching for me
knowing what came next.

Entering me you felt something...

something you couldn't define,
and when I cried out,
you knew it wasn't for you,
and when the last tear
rolled off the pillow

you realized how delicate
I really was...

BAN ©

As promised ♥ 

This is one of the most intense songs I've heard in quite a while.  Damien always a favorite, I'll be back later to post another of his songs and the poem it inspired :)

Silence Calls

My dark trembles in
tremolo sounds
do you feel the ache of release
held too long?

Eyes search
the quiet in between
breathless sigh
and fearful taint,

I whisper touch through
burnt umber'd shades
I need your warmth
to soften my hue.

Breath suspended,
syllables stilled...

(silence calls)

© BAN

Beauty in the Fall

 

I stand to see the falling,
water beads outside
the window,

I recall the question,
held within his mind,

why your sleep be troubled?

Eyes reflect through
window streams
tired and weary
with far off gaze.

Mind wanders in puddles
muddied with earth
long kept dry

in desert heat.

Lips utter a whisper,
my sleep be not troubled,

(clouds hide the lie)

and I share a picture
within my vision,

there's beauty in the fall,
and in the broken.

© BAN

Words fall...

The hum of the mmmm in my head
carries a tune unfamiliar
and familiar all the same.

I close my eyes,
allow it to lead me where it may,
the tune fades,
but the melody hangs on.

Syllables unsung,
effervesce to the surface,
mind awash in sensation

and I float among
the pictures formed there,

colors tell the story
until the words fall
upon my page

and find their way to you.

© BAN

Inspired by a conversation flow, a give and take of words shared between unknowing strangers in the getting to know, shared knowledge and feeling undescribed with mere words in this craft of writing, creating...evolving thought into sensation, pictures painted with syllables written and unwritten.  Thank you my friend...♥  

We all have a nameless path we follow,

mine is borderless

unscripted

unpaved and uncertain.

I follow without a vision,

only my intuition

leads me to take

one step after the other.

Light guides

even on the days

it is dark and lonely.

I pray

I find it is worth

the pain

I have suffered.

I pray

 I find love awaits

this tired soul,

and allows me to know

this life had some meaning.

© BAN

His Eyes

His eyes are the color
of stories unspoken,
he sees right through me
as if he has the secret of the world

held within.

I want to allow him to take a peek,
penetrate the dark corners,
archived memories
I haven't unlocked in ages.

(Would he understand?)

He is the sage,
the seer,
an ancient soul
who seeks his kind.

He searches for the one
who will allow him to
feel as if his journey has not been too long,

in this cold world
that has forgotten to appreciate beauty

forgotten to feel...

It is there,
in his eyes...

I hope he sees,
he is not alone.

BAN

He will never know what I see when I look into his eyes.  We've never met, and probably never will, isn't that the way it always is?  

Be Ignited, or Be Gone

What I Have Learned So Far

by Mary Oliver


Meditation is old and honorable, so why should I
not sit, every morning of my life, on the hillside,
looking into the shining world? Because, properly
attended to, delight, as well as havoc, is suggestion.
Can one be passionate about the just, the
ideal, the sublime, and the holy, and yet commit
to no labor in its cause? I don't think so.

All summations have a beginning, all effect has a
story, all kindness begins with the sown seed.
Thought buds toward radiance. The gospel of
light is the crossroads of -- indolence, or action.

Be ignited, or be gone.

Growing Panes

The growing panes of yesterday
once clouded with fear and uncertainty
appear crystal clear
with the rain of time
and finally I see.

I loved you once upon a time,
the very nearness of you
would set my heart on fire
flames of want
threatened to devour the whole of me.

The soft voice of my name
spoke through your lips
the way your eyes looked at me,

these panes of time...

streaked with the tears
of the insane wishes of a girl
who just wanted to lay in your arms.

The contrasts were too much,
black and white
faded to gray
and they put me away
painted my panes
to mirror what they thought I should see.

Labeled and medicated,
they tried to mold me into the perfect doll,
posed my arms, my head and my smile
placed me on a shelf for all to admire.

Years have passed
and I've found you again,

I'm no longer that doll
who shattered soon after
heart broken for what was not allowed to be.

And through these panes of time,
I finally see,

how little I meant to you.

© BAN

I was contacted by an old flame, someone I cared for very much when I was younger.  He was a bit of a forbidden love my parents separated me from, and all that followed was a difficult period in my life.   

Seems this man thought he was going to waltz in and have what he wanted, in spite of the fact he was not only attached through marriage but also had another on the side, where does that leave me?  

I didn't let it get too far, I wrote to him and stated I deserved better, and I am so much more than a good time, I am after all a human being with feelings, and I have so much more to offer to someone who wants to get to know me...and I happen to think I am a pretty special person who deserves someone who will allow me to be the best I can be.

It's good to speak your mind, allow others to know where you stand, when I stated this, he apologized and we were able to have a nice chat about where things were left between us and it is good to be on level playing ground and to move forward knowing as adults we can speak to each other without hurting one another.   

I was broken...but it's over now

For a long time I was so weary
Tired of the sound, I've heard before,
The gnawing of the night time at the door,
Haunted by the things I've made
Stuck between the burning light and the dust shade

Invisible

How do I write the scream,
let it out
release years of quiet suffering,

how do I...

I live in self imposed isolation,
afraid I might be seen,
nervous laughter

covers how I really feel.
Known as one who allows others to shine,

while I,
more comfortable with the dark,
hide in the shadow
of others happiness.

I sit up late at night,
write these words
no one will read,

and it is all I have,

written in whisper
so as not to draw
attention.

BAN
 

Shaken not Stirred

I reflect on my life,
one thing stands out...

alone.

No friends,
family is strained.
No social life to speak of,

(no life to share)

few know anything about me
and yet, I seem to know
more about you

than you know about me.

Is it me?
Do I care more about others
than I allow them to care about me?
Do I push you away?

(or do you push me away)

I look away from the mirror,
reflection over...

I pour another drink,
shake the ice around

just to have sound in the room.

BAN