Once More Into the Open
As I take a stroll
through places I used to know
I see the playground alive,
full of laughing children,
bounding in unshackled joy.
Their parents sit there, quietly
smiling from the heart –
it's been far too long
they've had a ceiling for blue skies.
I see people going back to work,
people buying and selling
their life and their time
all of that for a little coin.
I see people fighting
with words and guns
at home and abroad
with loved ones
and demonized foreigners
when not too long ago
every goodbye could've been the last.
I see people have already forgotten
their new-found values
and the difference between
what they want and what they need.
Once more we take for granted
our loved ones, and ourselves.
Forgotten is the fear of tomorrow
as we sink back into the muck
of silly preoccupations
and petty squabbles.
Most of us will forget,
some never learnt,
and as normalcy returns,
so does the wool over our eyes.
A Softness
It lays there, a softness, wavering
Its petals not yet ready to bloom
But it dances all the same
It’s fierce, almost, the softness, I mean
The radiating power of calm longevity
Overshadows the hungry morning mist
As it hangs in the air
Obliterating
It’s sprawled there, a kindness, perishing
Nimble in fingers yet fragile still
Flakes wash away, stubbornly
It’s magical, almost, the way it persists
Tight smiles on long drawn faces
Yet not purely human
It watches the clocks tick
Waiting
It sits beside us, a terror, eating
Like a shadow, in envelops
The world suffocates, yet survives
It’s beautiful, almost, how it lives in the eyes
A stressed life of perception and grace
Obese in fairytales and smothering fat
It murmurs to the heart and the mind
Panicking
It marches by, a courage, fleeting
It sings a song of the past and future
But, in its moment of glory, leaves the present behind
It’s scary, almost, when it floats away
Its follicles scream delightedly, but it still fears
All of its scars are dents from a natural wound
The beast quivers in the dark
Pretending
It lingers on, a sadness, listening
Its brow, caked in dust
It sits on a fallen tree, and paints
It’s simple, almost, the loud emptiness
Gazettes of pale opportunity emerge
Hanging beside a man of knowledge
It remains, erupting in a gale of yellow leaves
Laughing
It whispers here, the loss, painfully
A frost that melts without dignity
Yearning to be free and watch the world burn
It’s peaceful, almost, nesting in its cage
But we can both hear it now, wrestling with the lock
And it stays quiet, a humble being
Our icy skyscrapers hollow themselves out
Dying alone
#poetry #freeverse
