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Stephen Pickering

Tag: My Poetry

  • A New Poem in Iambic Trimeter: Visiting Isis’ Sister

    I know it wasn’t fair
    to those who dance below:
    Between our creaky stair
    Descends our nightly ghost.
    I’ve come to see my girl
    Her sister plays alone.
    Here in her deathly world
    Her grievance sings her song.
    What does she want from me?
    A willingness to die?
    Like Jesus on the tree,
    A needle through the eye?
    I sacrifice my bliss
    For you my little sis.

  • A New Poem: Go Through The Hills

    Go Through the Hills

    by Stephen Pickering

    You are my tree.
    because you have set me free.
    An orchard garden grows
    on land that once only snowed.

    I’m under a spell
    Only Ishtar can undo
    Down, down her Roman well
    I’m falling too.

    I am the bird.
    My life is the worm.
    I see her cold, dark eye
    bury me in the blood red sky.

    There’s a tick.
    The doors unlock.
    I’m just a hick,
    but I know when angels knock.

    I don’t deserve this.
    But here I am:
    An Italian mist
    Where Dante swam.

    There’s a nickel sky,
    and a lone star.
    Gray clouds cry
    wondering where you are.

    That girl will come.
    I feel her blinking again.
    A bouncing little Sun.
    She knows exactly where I am.

    These beings inside
    If you climb their stare
    Feed the stillness of the night,
    the castle that’s always been there.

    I cannot breathe.
    Your eyes are the hidden stone.
    The gateless gate to the golden stream.
    Unfold the night no man’s known.

    ©2013 Stephen K. Pickering

  • Sonnet #4 in Iambic Tetrameter – “Memory’s Daughter”

    I am awake now to each wall.
    That is the wall, this need to speak.
    There’s Buddha’s tall and Buddha’s small
    And secret castles across this creek.

    I want to walk on ancient clouds
    And fall with Isis from the sky.
    Plop, splashing down the Nile,
    These hands that swim know how to fly.

    From Memphis to Syr’ya we’ll go
    As Roman armies swarm the cross,
    Which world we land Nut only knows
    We’re trees, and sparrows, hiding gods.

    The garden’s wall so silent I pray.
    That doves will fly and pierce this gate.

    ©2013 Stephen K. Pickering

  • Sonnet #3 in Iambic Tetrameter: A Sacred Dance

    Sonnet #3 in iambic tetrameter – “A Sacred Dance”

     
    I bring you roses to your door.
    I make this offering in Spring.
    I now know who this dove is for,
    That rises through the Sun’s gold ring.

    There’s something deeper going on.
    I feel the pieces come apart.
    The mountain eagle soars at dawn.
    And cries each piece of broken heart.

    I hold your scars around my breast.
    I sing you songs of ocean rain.
    I look up to the mountain’s crest
    And feel you come alive again.

    Each breath we hold each other tight.
    The dove will feed our soul tonight.

    ©2013 Stephen K. Pickering

  • Sonnet #2 in Iambic Tetrameter: “Moon Day”

    Sonnet #2 – “Moon Day”

    I let the moonbeams be my guide.
    I look into the night for you.
    I must go down to see your eyes
    But somehow keep on passing through.

    The earth I roll around my lips.
    There seems to be some kind of fire.
    It’s coming from your dancing hips.
    Sweet music frees the ancient lyre.

    The oak trees’ branches grow in threes.
    But somehow only one path is made.
    Come here, my sweet, my flor-de-lis
    And guide me down their magic lake.

    I rise when splendor greets the Sun.
    My Vita Nova has begun.

    ©2013 Stephen K. Pickering

  • New Poem: A Natural

    “A Natural”

    I won’t say the things that I have to say,
    the feelings furrow all alone in the autumn mist,
    until you finally get up and walk away,
    and the chills that have eyes blow us their last, snowy, purpley kiss.

    I cascade over the heights of your frozen, mountaintop world.
    I skate upon your silky sweet, ice cream smile.
    Deep in the forest, they write, sleeps the world’s most beautiful girl.
    She awakens when you, inside yourself, find her missing child.

    This is the light where the world can’t come in.
    When we look into each other’s eyes what do we really see?
    Together, the holly from Gethsemene flows into the Jordan’s bend,
    feeding flowers opening brightly, resonating the mountain’s inner dream.

    I am the god of the sea,
    the fire in the rain spattering and splashing love.
    When I swim to the surface, you are released.
    When I dive to the bottom, you fly to heaven like a dove.

    We are caught between two worlds.
    I’ve seen your sails blow close to my shore.
    One here, the other holding my baby girl.
    Those eyes that shine, open at last, the secret, magical door.

    Something primordial says that “she is my wife.”
    But the harder I chase, the faster she runs away.
    We’re out here on the playing fields, the field of our life.
    And it’s only when I stop does she, a metaphor for something deeper, turn around and stay.

    When I  first saw her, it felt like I envisioned a ring
    that could bring back all of the things I’d ever loved.
    She’s the white buffalo maiden who sings atop Harney Peak,
    the princess in the snow marrying the sacred below with all that’s above.

    © 2013 Stephen Pickering