Softly Falling Stones (tanka)

heavy these moments
of enforced dusk and darkness
softly falling stones
drums beating out the timelines
of different lives and places

Thank you for reading
Richard

Richard M. Ankers
Author of the brand new steampunk extravaganza Britannia Unleashed

Lily (a poem)

cover the lilies in trailing silk
delicacy wrapped in more
what once was white protected now
no fear of winter’s chill

—

when days are dark, colder still
from the window, I shall watch
the frozen lake of captured ghosts
my Lily being but one

Thank you for reading
Richard

Richard M. Ankers
Author of the brand new steampunk extravaganza Britannia Unleashed.

Serpentine

Invasive creature
Slithering through unctuous blood
Poisoning my system
With indigestible venom
Blocking arteries
Licking nerves
Curling into spaces
Where no spaces were
Like cholesterol
This snake at my core
Lingers.

The first slice hurts
The second less so
The third is a pleasure
Exposing innards
Revealing truths
But the snake, this viper
Remains untroubled
Sliding elsewhere
Gliding within
Leaving only scales of injustice
Behind.

Acceptance is the key
Acknowledgment of this other
Welcoming the pain
Desiring what poisons
Not expunging
So I sit, run, sleep
With my significant friend
Saying good morning
Bidding good night
Until my serpentine deconstruction
Ends.

Thank you for reading

Richard

At Least the Wind

There are no cerise sunrises, no vermillion sunsets,
the tangerine tinges of summer warmth
dispelled like the bone-white winters of old.
The stars are diminished, wiped from the sky,
no longer the moon has good friends.
Now, all is remembered, read of, imagined,
the false, flattened televisions’ vivid colours
too bright for eyes meant for gentle views.
We have taken this from ourselves,
convinced our souls we need nothing else:
No seasons, no change, no rain on glass rooftops,
Not now we’ve the certainty, the assuredness
of knowing exactly what, when, and where,
at what time, with what force, like clockwork.
Hermetically sealed, nothing in, nothing out,
I turn away from my son and speak to the window:
‘At least the wind, my son.’
‘At least… the wind…’
A lie for his future, and a disgrace to our past.

Thank you for reading
Richard

Richard M. Ankers
Author of the brand new steampunk extravaganza Britannia Unleashed.

A Practicing Darkness

Eyes open to a jet-black sky
tinged with ebony doubts.
This is the circumference of my dream.
This is my inhabited nightmare.
Gone is the golden sun,
departed are the sparkling stars,
all those things that make living magical
replaced by vagaries and uncertainty.
Yet through this uncertainty runs
a solidity of thought,
though depressing, morose even,
it is no less a backbone to despair,
for I am stronger in the darkness
than ever I was in our beauteous reality,
and it is here I shall thrive.
Don’t pity those who wish for death,
we’re just getting in some practice.

Thank you for reading
Richard

Richard M. Ankers
Author of the brand new steampunk extravaganza Britannia Unleashed.

For You

To tear cold dew from emerald blades
Shake gleaming cobwebs off the trees
Sweep azure abundances from overhead

Drain the oceans and all the seas

All this and more I’d do for you, my love
But would you do them for me?

Thank you for reading
Richard

Richard M. Ankers
Author of the brand new steampunk extravaganza Britannia Unleashed.

Within the Rose

Petals folded, clasped tight
No perfume escapes
Here, protected from life’s thorns and barbs
Cocooned isolationists sleep
Dreaming in false colours
Of Edens closed and gated
Ones milked in moonlight
And bathed in ebony shades
Shame!
If only someone had told them
Within the rose all worlds are possible
Once we cease to scream

Thank you for reading

Richard

Midnight Man (Jorio Poem)

Enters dreams at midnight
As darkness entwines sleep
Casting dust upon children
Closing eyes of old

Author’s Note: A ‘Jorio’ poem comprises of four lines of four with no required patterns. Writing them is supposed to free your mind.

Thank you for reading
Richard

Haiku 4

Pink lips on pale skin
Kissing away the springtime
Short-lived perfection

Thank you for reading

Richard

Perpetual Circles of Almost

Unsatisfactory, these moments,
these supposed snowflakes of bliss.
differing as they swirl before me,
never once the same.
They tease at the ground as though coating
before endlessly melting away,
a perpetual circle of almost,
promises lost in a kiss.
If forever can hear me
and eternity has something to say,
I wish they’d speak a bit clearer
like the snowflakes that tumble my way.
This obsession with winter
is now all I believe,
as the cherry blossoms distract imagination
with springtime promises.
For the summer shall never venture,
nor even attempt to loosen mind’s strings
whilst still this ‘almost’ persists.
I am lost in it. I am done with it.
Lost in false tranquility, I’ll remain.