Welcome to Shards of Silver

Marianne Moore once defined 'poetry' as "Imaginary gardens with real toads in them". I found this such a striking definition of something that captures the values of poetry that I couldn't leave it alone.

I've been writing - attempting - poetry since I knew how to hold a pen(cil). Some poems I write I like, most I don't, but every now and then I feel compelled to write them down, like a flush of emotion that demands access to some sort of visible medium that can later be accessed and reconsidered. I thought, maybe, that sharing these poems could help me out a little. I welcome critiques, critical and constructive (though I do, of course reserve the right to ignore the sharper sides of people's tongues ;) ), and hope that in return for your help I can leave you with something better than sorry attempts at a craft which only a tiny few have ever really mastered.

Clear Skies~V

Sunday, February 28, 2010

Being Here

Being here makes me think
Of places I've been and might find myself
Again.
Somewhere along the way
I seem to have wandered
Off the track
To find myself not lost just
Walkabout.
If fairies live anywhere
Surely they live here in the fern gullies
Of the Tasmanian valleys?
Maybe my wandering took me too far
From you. 

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Stay

Tear me open
             and from my abyss
             take my whole heart
It was yours anyways
             from the start


Rip off my wings
            cast me down from the sky
            kiss me hard
            drain me dry


Until every breath is you.


Let this be our battlefield
           the broken concourse
           of words we could not say

and stay,
             stay
                  from night into the day.

Friday, February 19, 2010

Vindicate Me

Vindicate me,
Give me my last words to say.
Cleanse my soul
And let my sins just wash away.


I am the Fallen One
At whom angels curses hurled,
Not mere dust awakened
When broken wings unfurled.


I am the one they lost,
Shattered by the weight
That carried me down
To this forsaken state.


Vindicate me,
Grant me peace within my soul.
Release me,
Renew me and make me whole.


I've been no saint
To beg redemption in the night,
Nor murdered son;
Sole saviour of humanity’s blight.


I am the one in exile,
Mastered by my fate
And until my pride’s forgiven,
On Hell's throne I will wait.


Vindicate me,
Who for choice would die.
Let me fall,
To live as I breathe and lie.


If heaven is so mighty,
Then send back my sword
And fight me.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Eden's Folly

Here these steps I’ve walked before,
This pathway through the broken grass,
                                                  trees fading:
Our road from paradise lost.
Caught quietly in forced reality,
                                                   Your smile:
I remember from before Eden’s folly.
I would rather sin than innocence
For when I choose to love you.

Monday, February 15, 2010

Your Fire

There comes a time
When I confess
That I'm holding the sun in my head.


There is some deep and raw knowledge
In the understanding of your own emotion
Felt for another outside yourself.


Some deep dark tide,
                                unfathomable
Stretching across the ocean's soul
Into the reaches of your own.


So I can say with surety,
Beyond the moon's pull
or kraken calling seabirds,
that what's here is true.


There comes a time
When I realise
That I'm trying to contain the sun in my head
And every hour there is only your fire.

Monday, February 8, 2010

From You

Seems I've wandered far
                                     from you.
In my wanderings
Through this world away
                                     from you.
No matter where I've gone
On the meandering strings
That marionette me along
I can never stray too far
                                     from you.


While I was away in Tasmania (yes, that's where I was all month in case I forgot to mention it! Sorry!), I came to realise a lot of things, and this is one of the results, written on the 25th of January, 2010.