Norla Antinoro, US,

 

 

Free Verse   Stone Cold and Unforgot   Cold as the stones beneath my feet love lost and sore remembered. Glances cold untouching, memories as cold as passions unforgot, words unspoke, touches unconnected. Cold as the stones beneath my feet lies love. Beneath my feet it forms a good foundation.     the dying times   I miss you in the night the sound of your breathing gone and the night is empty footsteps no longer sound in the hall hall that is no more arms that held me hearts that knew and loved me stilled by time and in the emptiness the tears fall unheeded caught in the dying time lost in the wilderness I wander     Our Ill-Fated Love   The beauty of near blindness sweeps me up in music As giant stars dazzling the night sky capture magic Is this then the story of our ill fated love?     Meadowlilly Woods   embattled they stood between the woods and the despoiler courage and compassion their only tools. now they lie fallen before the massive wheels of progress pressing civilization deep into the soil stealing air stealing life rolling out the tarmac for another big box store     This Unquiet Silence   unquiet silence rings in my soul drifting through icy pacific waters slow motion ballet lifts me above worldly concerns as I sink dance with me once again my love in coves and quiet lagoons     On Loving Narcissus   Gentle love Warm to the touch That should shield and comfort me Wounds in a way far deeper than blades. Only fools linger with love For Narcissus Who sees naught beyond his mirror.     ashes on the mountain   As once in life So together once more In eternity. Ashes on the mountain, Whispers in the wind. Images Kindled by memories of Holidays and sunshine. Meals and long conversations. Family. Half gone, Always and forever remembered. Your ashes to his. His and theirs together In the wind.     crystal streams   crystal streams draw my heart through waterfalls and foggy mornings the music of laughter lays survival's foundation     Missing rainbows   Flashing prism splitting colors spangle her essence. Each hue a facet shown as she breathes— and face and turn. Each facet an aspect. Colors dancing softly or with passion raise music and set her feet in motion. Aspects meeting, colors singing, becoming, changing. His heart grieving colors lost but with her gone the colors and the music dwindle and he yearns.     Discovering Essence   I have lived alone. Just me and walls and silence. I have lived surrounded by the trials and tribulations of people who love and rub up against each other and laugh and battle in raised voices. I have lived wrapped round by family and animals of every stripe, adored despised adoring, muffled, and pressed upon until silence was something I yearned for and alone sounded like a gift of gods. I have lived with acquaintances who grew into friends who later became something else as edges met edges and where he took became where I would not give and walls were built that could not be seen. I have lived with friends who turned out to be something else entirely I have lived with those who did not fit, like pieces to difference puzzles, my curves to their straight lines, their corners to my edges. In each I found the other a greener pasture, wishing for what I did not have, always dreading loneliness and seeking to fill the dark, the space, the time. Coming round again seeking, perhaps the essence of it all, satisfied or reaching up and out beyond… I have lived!     Flying Low   Flying, free— Strong, healthy We can do this We’ve been here before We know the path. Breathing, soaring The air clean and sweet. Turn and shift and turn again Crashing Walls closing in I can’t see Can’t hear my footsteps Feet bleeding Falling, stumbling Grey fog obscuring And yet it’s okay. We know this path too, been down this road before. The steps are familiar the tune one we can dance to. Tears bitter, tears sweet still water the garden of my soul. Wrinkled then ironed smooth strewn with pebbles or blocked with broken glass Boulders or d’orways All familiar. My feet know the way and over the next hill there will be mountains     From the Dreamtime   My lovers come to me softly in the deepest black of night. Dark their passion lights the dream time and I remember. Stone and leather a life's foundation anchor against the wind the center on which I dance and in your arms salvation. Amber silk Sweet as the summer sea Salt and sultry as a August day Need to need a fire deep within igniting. Soft satin pale as the opal moon languorous and easy Flames banked to a rosy glow gentle comfort and a melting touch. There you sit in the darkness of my mind Breathing in time to my footsteps. From your dreams to mine fire once more. Touching—touched Need encompassed by fiery need. This one This one last taste to remember This fire deep in the belly One last love before goodnight. Come to me singing. Dark fire Flaming with awakened passion. One last caress And then, oh sweet goodbye. One last fire to blaze forever Against eternal night.     The Other Side of Walls     The neighbor’s radio blaring jars me awake at o’dark thirty. Dawn remains something for future consideration. Rest is now a thing of the past. Complain? Ask them to turn it down? Or listen, knowing that life resides on the other side of walls?     Turned     It was never me It was novelty A new kind of virginity, Untold and untasted. Grinning you stood over me bold, erect and trembling free, stunned, I lay breathless at your call. Bending low you tasted me, with passion drank your fill of we then yawned and yawning did decline. At dawn I would forsaken be, breathless with anxiety for new was I no longer. Caste off like colorless debris sullied virgin bourgeoisie, tainted, no longer new unknown. Bright and shining novelty turned too quick to ennui cream soured in the summer churn. It was never me It was novelty a new kind of virginity Now I, un-new, am gone.     Adolescent angst   Avatars and moonbeams And poems writ from phone books In adolescence never healed Revisiting Tennis courts in rain storms Before work and love Discovered me     Trapped in Darkness   trapped in shadows lured by sweetness looping round again the images repeat forbidden beauty tantalizing, dancing just beyond recognition lost the exit sign gone out darkness masquerades     Thorns Remembered   At the crest of the hill I look behind at the long and winding road the led me here. Ahead the road turns out of sight. Details are lost in every panorama; landscapes blur and blend. The hue and sheen of the rose is but a hint and memory of color and the thorns that plagued me fade completely from my view. Only while submerged myopic in the details of the close-up do the snags and prickles intervene. At day’s end or its beginning they just add texture to the work of art. The thorns are but part of the texture of the rose.     Billie's Sleeping with the Blues   That velvet voice croons a lullaby, Billie's sleeping with the blues. Blue moon rhapsody becomes a song of solitude and loss. Sweet bliss echoes from the sax while golden horns cry heartbreak.     Extra Ordinary   Here, where the moonlight lay across your skin and the still air held the silence between your breathing and my heartbeat, the golden light spills in a tumble somewhere between Enlightenment and the wall switch.     Narcissus beholds   Narcissus beholds His precious sweet reflection And finds love full requited.     burning bridges   Strike the match against a soul unquiet and watch unstill as love dies screaming. Match the axe man’s bitter grin eyes meeting cold unflinching on the other side of passion’s ashes and set the death mask blazing.     Black Fire, Black Light   My heart is beating like a trip hammer. What have I done….. Is it too late…. The flames leap and twist around me in a mad dance of dark destruction, brilliant gyrating tongues of red, orange, gold, and yellow that cast no light. I can smell the ash that will be and know the greasy crumbling crunch of devastation underfoot. This is how we end that which we have “loved too well,” when we burn up the night no longer with passion but frustration and despair, and the flames give not light but darkness. Candles lit from such a blaze must cast a pall of obscuration on the path ahead, flickering black that hides rather than enlightens. And the air is filled with the scent of candle wax and despair. The door is just ahead and I run with gathered treasures flames explode consuming home and hearth and hope. what have I done? —what do I do now?     Pacific Ballet Sijo for a scuba diver   with little effort we are carried swiftly on the outgoing tide a mile off shore looking back at the shore line so far away caught up in the beauty of the sea floor we lost track of time and air unquiet silence rings in my soul drifting through icy pacific waters slow motion ballet lifts me above worldly concerns as I sink dance with me once again my love in coves and quiet lagoons     Tears for Mama   A mother’s broken pledge hand raised rage overflowing striking down the promise of a young boy’s soul; each blow a consecration of an angry future where heartbreak defines love, mother is a four letter word and woman becomes adversary instead of loved companion. Some remnant sweet of lost innocence remains. Some flickers of the boy that might have been still colors his face and falling in love is easy. Some remnant responds, and the dance is well begun. Broken mothers Broken sons Broken Hearts and Pain shadowed love No way out Until at last and least We say “I understand and loving I do forgive.” And in forgiveness…. Leave.     Ahesions   Adhesions, wounds on the soul Do not dance well to music Unless a mournful dirge.