It's been a while, it's been too long
since champagne flooded dance floors,
white lace on shoulders in the yellow light.
But it's too cold, you said you could not brace it
to celebrate, but you were vacant
like a chair of wisdom without a sitter,
It felt cold.
It tastes bitter.
Wild weather, winds and ice shelf melting
mean more to you that self-built gall.
You claim you've done it! Climbed it! Made it!
But age takes all, you lean, you fall.
You made decisions
A concrete heart
Wallet brimming
Perfect art.
No longer do we share these times
Antarctic ice between two minds
Its forced upon me
Mother knows best
Golden guilt trips
Pressure to connect.
No longer felt,
is it too late?
Two words bound into your wooden rooms
on handmade shelves of beech and tombs.
They hold so much, that mean so little
green lights in the doorway - clock and riddle.
Hubris churns the stormy sky
I fear I've seen Medusa's eye.
Heart unfeeling, permafrost.
Need warmth of love 'fore he is lost.
The TV fizzes with unsolved crimes,
I've stayed up late, I've seen the times.
On newfound carpet I drag my feet.
I get told off, your pocket's mean.
Yet looking back you were so good,
the colours fade but there you stood.
Grade 1 you came and spoke of travels
Crevasses, medals, queens and castles.
Pride welling up from deep green pools,
us sitting idle: glue, scissors, stools.
All this speak of evermore,
eternity and spite.
It feels 'ere done, completed. Check.
But death beds have not come.
- Nathan van der Monde
Sunday, January 15, 2017
Moonlit Heart (Poem)
A flutter of hydrangea bloom
emerald leaves of aloe, rose and herb
dense umbrage of interlaced sycamore
book facedown, sun burns the blurb
Hidden collection and botanic prints
empty doorways full of gloom and mildew
But outside, above the locked secrets
Glittering splendour looms lucid blue
There's something in your moonlit heart
a query of half sunken diamonds
that glitter in the honeyed reflection
of heather fields, cooperage and highlands
- Nathan van der Monde
emerald leaves of aloe, rose and herb
dense umbrage of interlaced sycamore
book facedown, sun burns the blurb
Hidden collection and botanic prints
empty doorways full of gloom and mildew
But outside, above the locked secrets
Glittering splendour looms lucid blue
There's something in your moonlit heart
a query of half sunken diamonds
that glitter in the honeyed reflection
of heather fields, cooperage and highlands
- Nathan van der Monde
Nightfall (Poem)
infinte glistening pine needles
framed against an incandescent sky
wry heat and sore muscles
crip, yellowed grasses underfoot
the hard work is done, yet
gothic branches and dappled light
beckon me along, petrol stained hands
and scratched limbs sting in
exposed sunlight, a healing shiver
as the sun draws in, taciturn,
withdrawing from the brooding night
buttoned sleeves, secret nests hushed
the sparkle of a star
- Nathan van der Monde
framed against an incandescent sky
wry heat and sore muscles
crip, yellowed grasses underfoot
the hard work is done, yet
gothic branches and dappled light
beckon me along, petrol stained hands
and scratched limbs sting in
exposed sunlight, a healing shiver
as the sun draws in, taciturn,
withdrawing from the brooding night
buttoned sleeves, secret nests hushed
the sparkle of a star
- Nathan van der Monde
Such Great Heights (Poem)
A boundless nebula of celestial light
paint spattered across expensive linen
a canvas woven upon vaporous looms
the inky blackness seeps within
Head rests astride a pillow of stars
birdsong trickles, glistens and clinks
a dimday breeze of lilac and grass
rises up, then softens and sinks
- Nathan van der Monde
paint spattered across expensive linen
a canvas woven upon vaporous looms
the inky blackness seeps within
Head rests astride a pillow of stars
birdsong trickles, glistens and clinks
a dimday breeze of lilac and grass
rises up, then softens and sinks
- Nathan van der Monde
Early Departure (Flash Fiction)
The January sun beat down on me, descending through the slim gap between my reflective sunglasses and my burnt forehead, making them redundant despite the fact they allowed me to hide my newly reddened eyes.
The small coffin was now in the rear of the champagne coloured hearse, the funeral parlour attendants laying the flowers from deep within the chapel around the sun drenched casket, bruising the already dying petals of magnificent purple blooms.
The rendered wall behind me, now warmed by the hot sun, felt as rough and unrelenting as how I felt; the child that lay in the hearse born only eight years prior. Her father's gravelly voice had described his love for her, and her love of reading. She had loved books, yet now the stack of Billie B. Brown books would sit beside her bed, forever to remain unread by her.
My heart tenses and a woman audibly gasps as someone mentions the young girl was a talented violinist. She had won awards. A television at the front of the chapel buzzes to life, glowing with visions of the young girl facing away from the bleak crowd at her funeral holding a violin with maturity beyond her meagre calendar years. Perfect tempo. Poise. Patience as she she oscillates the the squeaking bow.
Now outside, the notes of her melody hung in the light-filled air. I couldn't help but feel a profound sense of dysphoria, as if the few shrill notes from the violin, paired with the wilting floral sprays and mahogany coffin were part of some eerie, macabre operatic scene.
I was struck by a sense of importance, sweat running down my sides as I stood aside to let people past, to stand together in mournful silence. Crushed African daisies in the garden bed below, faces upturned, looked with metaphorical consequence; a small leafed camellia brushing against my left shoulder.
Parent everywhere clutched their children, as if they could stave off the long arm of death that had taken the young person just meters away if they held on tight enough.
And yet again, a thought struck me - these sunglass, car key clutching parents had once been children too. Time, like money, meant nothing really; just an idea, a concept used in a very human attempt to add value and measure infinite nothingness. Life and death, energy and matter cycling for time eternal.
The noisy exhaust of the hearse erupts and the scene closes with no applause.
- Nathan van der Monde
The small coffin was now in the rear of the champagne coloured hearse, the funeral parlour attendants laying the flowers from deep within the chapel around the sun drenched casket, bruising the already dying petals of magnificent purple blooms.
The rendered wall behind me, now warmed by the hot sun, felt as rough and unrelenting as how I felt; the child that lay in the hearse born only eight years prior. Her father's gravelly voice had described his love for her, and her love of reading. She had loved books, yet now the stack of Billie B. Brown books would sit beside her bed, forever to remain unread by her.
My heart tenses and a woman audibly gasps as someone mentions the young girl was a talented violinist. She had won awards. A television at the front of the chapel buzzes to life, glowing with visions of the young girl facing away from the bleak crowd at her funeral holding a violin with maturity beyond her meagre calendar years. Perfect tempo. Poise. Patience as she she oscillates the the squeaking bow.
Now outside, the notes of her melody hung in the light-filled air. I couldn't help but feel a profound sense of dysphoria, as if the few shrill notes from the violin, paired with the wilting floral sprays and mahogany coffin were part of some eerie, macabre operatic scene.
I was struck by a sense of importance, sweat running down my sides as I stood aside to let people past, to stand together in mournful silence. Crushed African daisies in the garden bed below, faces upturned, looked with metaphorical consequence; a small leafed camellia brushing against my left shoulder.
Parent everywhere clutched their children, as if they could stave off the long arm of death that had taken the young person just meters away if they held on tight enough.
And yet again, a thought struck me - these sunglass, car key clutching parents had once been children too. Time, like money, meant nothing really; just an idea, a concept used in a very human attempt to add value and measure infinite nothingness. Life and death, energy and matter cycling for time eternal.
The noisy exhaust of the hearse erupts and the scene closes with no applause.
- Nathan van der Monde
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