web analytics

Stephen Pickering

Category: My Poetry

  • A New Original Poem | “Will We Dance Again?”

    A New Poem: “Will We Dance Again?”

    The dream is the state of being
    I’m so out of sync with what my soul’s truly feeling.
    It’s like a dolphin dying off the Tel-Aviv coast,
    Circling her only friend, the one she loved the most.
    My true soul purpose is to fly,
    To go back in time,
    To talk with her over a glass of wine,
    To climb the Capitol and jump
    from it’s Christmas lighted banners,
    To swim the seven seas
    And to come up to swallow the sunset breeze.
    A shower over mass
    The vestibule is swollen with people who pass
    A shimmering paten and ciborium captures their soul’s eyes.
    Once inside the star in their hearts is brighter than the sky’s.
    A grand night with a dinner over roast
    To the arch angel of the East China sea I’ll toast.
    The bread lines extend from the Dukes ashes to the Prussian square.
    Hot dogs and steaks and the golden calf are served there.
    We can’t wait to go in
    And sing for the promenade to begin.
    It’s dancers and spritzers and lemonade pie
    It’s where the soul comes to be born
    And the armies of the night to die.
    God bless him under the sea
    who with a vodka on ice holds up
    All of eternity.
    I’ll look in the glass glazed with Christmas breath
    She’ll turn away, but God will only know why.
    We’ve exchanged gifts.
    The consummation is done.
    The wood of desire burns crisply
    a burgundy glow of the ash of our first blush.
    What’s left defies gravity, floating to the sky.
    At first it was all sex and white, Cakebread wine.
    Now the deacan has turned
    No Latin mass is served.
    The towers of ice return,
    Flattening mountains into prairies and only leaving traces
    of our bones’ outstretched, unfulfilled reach
    for the diamond lit sky inside the Sorcerer’s chamber.
    He who lasts forever is dark in our soul’s
    Buried mine.
    He’s stolen the chalice filled with our saviour’s wine.
    So we clutch the top of the Andes afraid to fall;
    Unaware that since the glaciers of the soul have collided
    The the distance between what was and what’s now
    Is infinite and yet, if only
    we would let go,
    Not very far at all.

     

    ©2009 Stephen K. Pickering

  • An Original Poem | “Wall Paintings”
    These brick buildings, well they won't help us now. It's not what the soul wants. The soul wants to open up Coconut shells and rain from clouds and hang leafy shells on your ears as an engagement ring. The Hungarian tribes inside it are unfrozen by the wandering Danube. They are on their way to the black sea to wash their rusty hands clean Of the poison the stag men cursed them with For dripping the cave dark without homage. Their hands' ache is released by the goddess of the river Second cousin to Athena due to be married any day now To the sea's never ending unbounded completeness. The hand that skims the shoals learns Russian Under the water and can speak to the wood carp now As the whole caravan is guided eastward by the alps breath. Eli's sister is swept down the Blue Ridges to the village That she spent her childhood running from To spin cotton into gold. A thread long enough to stretch the Atlantic and be sold. She's happy to have work again but has reseigned herself Of ever marrying. The soul doesn't want these things. The hand only wants water And the nose only the red and orange leaves Floating on the God of the Appalachian's breath. But she will come back. If you pray enough they shall release her. We'll sit in coffee shops in Paris all night writing lines Hoping the girl shall find him and the string reach the Hungarians in time. What do the poet's strike out at when they sleep? Do they think when they dream Or only dream of sleeping with her When the journey has been made And the cave stags can rise up their sacred hole again Lighting the darkness in the world above?

  • A New Poem | “Pre-Nuptials

    HANS TIETZE AND ERICA TIETZE-CONRAT

    Imma gonna marry you
    I can’t take it when eyes are so sullen and blue
    I’m just not interested in pokin’ round this hay anymore
    I’m interested in the stars and opening their spring bottom door

    Take it slow
    Let all the rest of it go
    We’re gonna be a much happier Kannon
    Workin all week saving up for the weddin’.

    A horse of turnips and emerald glass
    The neighbors will all sigh and wave as they pass
    Who’s that button poking his nose through the glass?
    Wait up too late and the fading lights will dimly ask.

    Send him to Cancun we’ll sport the bill
    His last shot at dancing getting a thrill
    No mammas too tough to ask back her babe
    We’ll leave so early so she won’t know ’til light we got away

    Stay all night get drunk til dawn
    Then fly back home and curl up on the lawn.
    Babe hold on to the last string in the score
    We’ll wrap it around the 12 headed monster bursting outta the sea’s silky floor.

    No no don’t drink that sour old milk
    We can’t chalk it up ’til we’ve sealed the deal.
    I know, I know you want to be brought to the village door
    Hear the reverend’s sacrament and the townsfolk roar.

    The only life worth livin’ is just outside of town
    The cityfolk sayin’ those bastards are clowns
    I think back dark how cold it was
    Christmas was soon the square was abuzz

    Too brave to start
    All strung out didn’t have no heart
    As long as I was threatening I had to go
    I wanted to see the ice caps crystalize in the snow.

    I’ll never forget the tears you shed
    Or the lives we led.
    We’re brave souls in the nest we made
    It’s all headed to hell, but at least we’ll have each other right up to the last day.

    Sent from my iPhone

    Posted via email from stephenpickering’s posterous

  • In Their Glow

    We’ll stake the embodiment.
    A deadly priestess dresses the aisle during Lent.
    Depressing as it may seem,
    the little lecterns take their places in the scene.

    Washing Mary cold and foot,
    the diesel engines blast down to the blessed root.
    Actual fire stretches the islands leg,
    and individual pieces can only stray out and beg.

    It wasn’t their fault in the beginning.
    They thought this ritual had an ending.
    A pitied the boy dressed up in a mask
    Answered questions that no one could ask.

    Watch the candles out there. Watch the candles fall.
    Dressed up like an Angel. Dressed up like a doll.
    All winter she waited for the snow dove’s feathery song.
    It flew through the flickery flame the darkest, most silent of them all.

  • Back at the Lake House

    IMG_0066-B

    Each relationship different, bare
    The lakehouse is empty, but our soul’s still there.
    Under the water, near the island of trees
    the shallows have grown years of mossy memories.

    We swim the narrows into the mauve and purple light;
    The boat dock’s restless, and the dog’s are howling for the night.
    We don’t think about people anymore but fish.
    Our slick rubber noses run us through the cool eddies motionless.

    They really are on Cape Cod
    Scotch plaid shorts, knit polo, feeling like gods.
    Thinking of what people really like to do
    A beautiful woman, bright red shoes
    (Come see through me, sing the blues!)
    I wish I could go back to my time
    And lose my ever friggin’ mind.
    The whisper handed slew
    The bobble banded boo
    The only thing I worry about this late
    Is avoiding the sticky eyed gate
    I can beat this with a smile
    I can wait up for you for a while
    We’ll tease the clouds to crack a blush
    And escape the mind numbing feeling of the morning rush.
    I dance like a cloud
    I choose to be free and wild
    I’ll perch in the sycamore tree
    Jump and then be free
    I choose not to be better
    As in choosing to write a letter
    There are boring people know more than me
    Who’ve dug up a hole underneath their dreams
    A new path is ground
    Sssh, don’t be too loud!
    Let’s dance the boogie dance
    Get all cute and caught up in romance.
    Big blocks of iron are thundering down
    Except these don’t make a sound.
    We’re the ones who have the need
    To take the bastards out and punish them with greed.
    Have you noticed it’s not the being
    But the leaving?
    Ballyhoos streak the sky
    Desperately knowing just where we lye.
    Let’s capture the blue eyed goat at his door
    I don’t feel like being here anymore.
    The cigarette ashes poke through the hornets’ nest late
    They’ve determined to go it alone leaving it up to fate
    Theses are the lovelies, the ties that bind
    We’ll be allright another year, another century, with them by our side.
    Spaghetti for breakfast; get ready for tea!
    We drift through the eons in bliss with our lovely coterie.

  • The Lovely Couple

    Honey, let’s grow our own branch.
    Let’s give the white tiger of our hearts a second chance.
    Let’s look into the woods and be still.
    Lose all we learned, and do it by feel.

    All right you’re wrong. Wanna’ to know why?
    All night long you hold courtship with the phantom sky.
    You brace the breach and clutch the straw
    And wonder why everything comes out wrong.

    You’re a thespian with your speech.
    It’s something I can’t hold out and reach.
    I’ve tried with my song
    But sadly it just lopes and lopes along.

    OK, be a ruler with your king.
    I won’t hold back a thing.
    I’ll teach you to draw and do studious things.
    I’ll teach you to whisper to the mountain and the breeze.

    Finally, at last, in the darkness we’ve reached our peak.
    A little boy in the drawer raises his head out to see.
    His face is covered in lashes.
    His cheeks are blanch, spotted with rashes.

    My kingdom for a good eye!
    The riders mount with their fellows to the sky.
    They know how it is down and out.
    In Paris and London and all about.

    I’d like to take you outside and shout.
    But I dare not let darkness out.
    He’s a snake whispering to his lover the dark.
    A small minded man willing to ransom my only spark.

    Oh, how I wish you wouldn’t see
    The little man who’s running inside of me.
    He’s a traitor I tell you. Don’t believe a thing!
    If you do, I swear, I’m gonna take back that corn blue sapphire ring!

    Cutlet sized blazers and ribbon shaped hills.
    They keep us haunting this house recklessly in chills.
    I’d sign you out, but you wouldn’t last
    You’d thrash around hysterically screaming about the past.

    You’re a duckly little darling aren’t you?
    Heart shaped whisper, streaming lake colored eyes.
    Who wouldn’t imagine an ocean looking at that radiant blue?
    Will it do any good if I throw away all of the signs?

    I want to thank you for being here this evening.
    It’s a drama we couldn’t have done without you.
    Little birds take your seats and be still
    We promise what we say will be real.

    Longers, long for your garden covered roses then.
    We’ll be back if there’s room at the inn.
    Make it cozy, fresh coffee and bread
    And all the things King Solomon had by his bed.

    Beads and roses of rubies and stone
    Don’t bother us too early. We want to be alone.
    Stop crying in your castle when we’re not to blame.
    Each year we come back and its always the same.

    Oh lovely, I touch your soft place.
    It’s a bed of roses, your other face.
    Be humble and proud and laugh out loud.
    Once their done with us, we’ll just be another face in the crowd.

    We stand upside down on the surface of the sky.
    I can already see them waving their hands goodbye.
    “They’re like Angels,” they scream, “Hold them to their words.”
    But its too late. We escape their providence and fly away like birds.