ToThePoem - a place for poetry

At the edge of sky, Where it can no longer be Harnessed Or corralled For its life-giving Liberty or Picturesque beauty Where the air thins and strangles But a whistling comes And something in its being groans dark. Where the beauty of sunsets Die out like a campfire And spit out slowly Smoldering into the thicket Igniting the black, Swirling in like night on top A double-scoop cone - the universe. The sun Wandered off To play on the other side Of the park And climbing up over the edge, On my knees Leaving thoughts Rattling and haranguing With no audience to Perceive them, Peace flooded like An avalanche And crushed all that was Known To unveil a multitude of Truths and never seen before Beauty. Everything was possible here And everything is. stephanie jordan-renz

The rose spots On her face like a leopard Lit warm as the sun overhead Held its rays out past the night Reaching to her like a child To a mother who had Been Gone A Long Time Beaming Across waters where Creatures had Never known its warmth. In depths dark and watery As the cave of his inner-being, Cold She doubted she was One, But maybe the Ocean, Blood filled And nothing else. Vapid and airy He glided over the earth After work, after long Hours of sitting At conference tables. Discarding his clothes. His shoes kicked off And fell from depths Like a broken ledge off a cliff Landing in the Sahara For the poor who hadn't Known coverings, Took to them as Super-natural. And the watery depths Dried, and the tunnels and channels Became like bedrock. Mystery was high above, On wings passing over Snow-capped mountains And your socks Dropped down too. Naked and filthy

Layer of rock we thought Impenetrable Built up by that  Book of living words Ring of fire Burned on your finger And the shoes I cobbled  Blistered you, I hammered the nails in. The flag of music trailed After your singing voice And I picked up its endless tail To bundle under arm And decorate with bows. The newspaper burned  In the tramps backyard Damn tramps, And ideas and words carried with the Smoke into my room Where I saw them,  Smelt them,  And deliberate, Discarded them, Wanting my own words To share with you. The waste basket nearby Filled empty  With fallen rock Cut open like the earth turning sides in bed  Too heavy to carry out Myself. stephanie l jordan-renz

When the night unrolled Its blanket of stars  Over The moving sea, Quieting its banter, Silencing its grip On the horizon She breathed in the good Of it all As with the turtles, the lizards The moss, the sea-birds, The leaves and  The slippery stones. Tree roots made their Way from hills deep into layers, Mapping through,  Down,   Following the scent of sand  And salt. Their wooden fingertips bruised  From tunneling. And sea creatures held on To fibrous ropes in puddles on stones As the moon pulled them  To drifting, watery beds.   She thought she would sleep,  She should sleep; Curled in, rested out, brightened up, Stretched wide By the firelight of the moon And the stories the ocean could tell, Rocking her to sleep Like a calf under the arm of a Mother whale; Drifting,  Never drifting Apart.  The crabs scuttled And pawed at her hair As the whole earth carried on  This way. The scent of the past day Carried off, Across water a