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Stephen Pickering

Tag: My Poetry

  • New American Poem: Stay Composed

    “Stay Composed”

    There’s something so deep in my heart
    in each cell of me,
    swimming along this river of the night so dark,
    speaking to another century.

    I am the hand that swims through your sea
    for some missing piece of gold.
    I am the rose that blooms from your seed
    In a deep, hidden story that’s never been told.

    The infant child was born
    I try to put these things together piece by piece
    across the sea, on the yonder shore
    but they already exist together here inside of me

    This bed, the planets that are in our head,
    the love that we saw with our eyes but never said,
    are all made from the same substance, transcendent of time or place,
    that is neither alive nor dead.

    I’m Mercury, and your Venus,
    and that’s so, hermetically speaking,
    nothing ever comes between us.

    And sometimes it feels like, when we’re quiet like this, quietly Dancing with the moon
    that anything that we wish for, deep in our hearts,
    will come true.

    What’s inside this fly, what makes it go
    Is more information, more mystery than the whole world
    understands or knows.

    I can’t give you what you desire,
    And I can’t give you what you need.
    But I can take you to that place that is even higher
    Where, for the first time, you will finally see.

  • 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: The Cross

    The river flows uphill.
    It isn’t magic.
    Magic is when it flows downhill.

    The arrow of time is pierced
    by eternity

    The man hanging is
    the soul
    awakened.

    The milk girl is dancing
    The “Cotten-Eyed Joe”
    on the gym floor of the mind
    underneath which the oceans of the Cosmos
    Splash applause and awake our Suns.
    On the head of a pin, spinning,
    she offers distance
    heaven’s wooden bowl.

    Living is easy.

    And the Lady of our feet
    washes the expression
    of how things shalt be
    from the Skull’s dead head
    with the Water of Life.

    Below the willowed valley’s flowery eyes
    see without looking
    reach without moving
    teach without speaking,
    and love without thinking.

    Every time one of its olive branches whispers
    the secret of secrets into the Mediterranean breeze,
    a new life is born of virgin birth,
    transcendently, through the middle of the true cross,
    the heart.

    ©2009 Stephen Pickering

  • Little Night Poem

    I don’t care what the foam sea squalls say:
    The mountains are made of mint.
    Green I spend gliding upon the emotion-
    Less ramp besieged by the creepy Count de Bourgie
    Of my psyche. The orphaned Queen of my heart will jump
    Straight down into her moat and drown
    If the adventurer of my soul forgets
    To stay on his horse.
    A jacketed smoke walk down to the Bourbon wall.
    It stretches a few quarters, but the one
    Inside, it tunnels inward Universe upon Universe.
    A bleek streak.Beaker Street. Jazz blue smokes Bitches Brew
    To whites of eyes carved out of stone
    Demi-Gods staring back double fisted.
    They can take it even pinned to a mountain for centuries.
    We (the children still inside me) roll in the dough, little sprinkled whites,
    As pigeons of possibility sip cappucino on the departing square.
    Someone shuffles down a back alley
    Of my heart. A glance, and two dark, soft eyes
    Surrender the Yucatan night as the beach waves
    Dive in from the hole the Dinosaur asteroid made.
    We shriek down to drink the Greek god’s salty blood.
    I buy trinkets for her and two dresses embroidered with firebirds,
    One for Mum. They will fly us to the shore. The rest, well…we must save some words.
    The phone call goes through but I don’t hear her voice.
    (Who could in this situation?)
    Someone else (the sloucher) whispers a void
    That sucks away the beach sunrise sunset dream.
    The cats blur in the fiber
    Glass behind locked chained links for winter, but the matted Tabby
    Of my bewilderment is stuck in the roof of my ego
    And moans for food, for a way out.
    Oh, how I reach!
    Sound gets through, light gets through, all the forces of nature get through
    But there is still something else we are waiting for. What is it?
    I never forget the freaky blizzard where even the flowing
    Fountain turned into block. Don’t tell me life isn’t quantum.
    (Even after wave after wave almost drowns me)
    Someone, no, not just anyone,
    She turns to me laughing gingerly in the cold,
    Dark back alley of the warehouse district,
    But I let the flashy city’s neon outlines carry me away,
    Building upon building seeking the sacred pyramidal top.
    Soon enough, though, I’ll be alone in the Pontiac,
    Bristling at the bones,
    Nestling into the concrete, filling another Weller
    With spring water, looking at the gate still not crumble,
    Even as the giant hundred year oaks howl at the city’s brick tablets.
    My one hand left snakes, and an eye opens the Sun curtain.
    One tree and a bounding suspicion race
    God knows where but the car’s breath
    Roars in the hope that at least it’s somewhere,
    Home to someone,
    Who might finally have that expression on her face
    We’ve been waiting for
    Our whole life.