recognizing the voiceless

“The Task”

You trust the people, the people above

But they themselves just have to ask

Ask the god, the god of life

“What is the task?”

For no one knows, what have they got

And all they do is ask

“What is the task?”

You all feel powerless

Tiny against the world

But when the cities crumble

And buildings collapse

You will look above and yet again ask

“Tell me father: “What is the task?”

Service, gifts, plating lips with mage’s kisses.

Surface drifts. A nervous form ill determines

Soul’s storm and stance and divine purpose;

there is a stillness that comes before wood splits a kind of hurt that doesn't leave a scar on the skin shhhhhh

when the sun drops behind the ridge it leaves nothing only the look of an empty room when the lamp is blown out

I think of all the things we never said

The way I knew what you were thinking

The way you knew what I would do

The way our bond was instant and unbreakable

Despite all of our best efforts to untangle it

You knew my darkness

And I was friends with yours

And no matter how much we aged

We were still those little girls

Looking to be saved by one another

No one will ever know me like that again

Not even you

I hope you are living somewhere in the stars

Clinging to a crag, above the silken

wisps of mist, above bundles of

cumulus, still as stone, unbothered

by the bite of wind, a black tree.

Almost an assemblage of wire,

twisted and gnarled, sprouting

tufts of vermilion, scarlet, deep

cinnabar. Bleeding corpuscular

leaves from a canopy shaped

(by wind or by stubbornness)

into a down-turned mouth,

a smokeless flame clutching

cloud-kissed granite. So lonely,

solitary among your stones,

sun and rain and soil enough

to keep watch over fields and

I wonder what stories my bones

Will have to tell one day.

When they lay buried in the earth

Six feet under a blanket of dirt.

What memories will they have made?

Who will they share them with?

Maybe they whisper them to the worms

In return for their company.

Maybe they laugh with the beetles

Telling jokes they once heard.

Maybe they cry with the fungi

Teaching them about heartbreaks

And grief. Im sure they will

Have so much to say.

I wonder which stories will be

Their favourites. And which ones

I'm here again,

What a nostalgic view,

To the right,

The flower field,

you taught me

to acknowledge

my mistakes and

learn from them

you taught me

not to judge

a person by the

color of their skin

but to look to

their character

for guidance

you taught me

the importance

of being honest

with myself and

the strength that

comes from

admitting my

vulnerabilities

all these things

you taught me and

Your body feels resurrected, but You are alone here — Make friends with whispers 

She is the rain that nourishes the earth and breathes life into everything it touches, yet in the end, she longs for a river to merge into—one that embraces her as its own.

Sometimes you have to crawl out of your own grave, in the opposite direction to the universe, through a deep dead smile… like the night’s hunger sewn under every sunset.

We hide the pain that sprouts out of broken hopes, so that we can live up to the expectations we set to avoid guilt.

No one wants to live a lie and discover they haven't lived. No one wants to get lost in the hollow of their story.

Self doubt can follow you

around your whole life.

It doesn’t help with the

history of mockery.

Everybody laughing at you

around a dinner table.

Folks who were supposed

to love you.

If they loved you then

why did they

ridicule you so much?

You twitch and scramble

against sadistic memories

when riding into town on

the bus.

The laughter is the worst.

What is SYNTAX?

In poetry, "syntax" refers to the alignment by & in the order of words to form verses or lines into many patterns of orderly arranged form.

Below is a simple example of a "syntax poem" structured by me. I call it “STEPS”—like a staircase leading up or down. In my presentation, it is a little more than the norm—the staircases are mixed: Up & down . Together.

There are many patterned alignments, or arrangements—according to the style & technique of the poet. It is a “linguistic choreograph” by the author’s use of words in several layers of verses. The final result is a unique presentation for a more aesthetic effect—that some of you may have noticed in my poems.

—————————————————————-

BE SILENT, BE STILL

Alone

Be .. still

Be .. silent

Ask nothing

Say not a word 

Empty before God 

He understands it all

He wants to look on you

With an Everlasting Love

Quiet, be still and listen

To a voice of Silence 

Aloneness is here

No longer lonely

Silent, be.. still

Let your God

LOVE you.

©Johnny J P Lee