Circular Fiction
Wasn’t she something
To see that speed
See that drive
A wildfire of forcefulness
You set the sky on fire
Oranges pinks and gold
The grand dance of heavenly bodies
The silk of night come calling
Chase her fire across the sky
Extinguish her burning daylight
She will sleep in your arms till morning
Tomorrow starts the chase again
She wakes moving heavy arms
My latest collection of poetry, Warrior, Woman, Wildflower is available for purchase. This book is about the facets of a woman’s life. If you like a feminist read, you’ll like this. I’m so proud of this collection. I do hope you will enjoy it.
Right now, the collection is available from the printer. It will soon be on your fave online book shop as well.
Stay safe and well, friends.
Fairy Lights
Fairy lights in the dark
A separate string for everyone I know
Your string has more lights
Shines longer, brighter
Each light symbolizes us together
Unseen wires connect us when we’re apart
The happy memories outshine the sad ones
Our string of joys, laughter, sorrows, tears Always strung together, lights unnumbered
Artist Bio
Howard Pell wrote Fairy Lights for his wife on the occasion of their 40th wedding anniversary 2020 May 24.
Howard wrote and self-published Retire Fit, Fit and Fit (www.howardpell.ca) and co-authored and self-published Retire Fit with S.A.F.E. Workouts (www.retirefit.life). He has written many short stories, poems and is working on his first novel.
Howard retired in 2014 and is a writer, videographer, Flamenco promoter, Rotarian and a world traveller. Howard and his wife Rosemary live in Kitchener, Ontario.
if you asked me what i wanted
we have a balcony
that overlooks the old city, we have two dogs
that sit
at our feet in morning sun and the breeze
is warm like summer and smells
like pineapple and the sea
i
watch you across the table, you
look careless when you wake, you have learned
to love the morning for me
you squint
against the rising sun, you drum
your fingers across the back
of my hand in patterns of five
you ask me if i’d like
to have lunch
somewhere we won’t be recognized, let’s
fly to Paris and write poems together
on a terrace full of pots of geraniums and vines
let’s spend the day brushing crumbs off our pages and
making love in the shade by the river
i raise my coffee to my lips and say
yes
the dog yawns and settles down its sleepy head
again
and it is quiet
In the Folds of Your Memory
You don’t have to squeeze me
to that tight schedule of yours, Sweet!
Just keep me, pressed between your pages,
where you search for a smile you lost,
where you feel the contours of your hope expanding.
Keep me there,
Like the petals of those flowers that you blew me that day,
spilling love on your pages, printing the fragrance you miss much;
the yellow pollen rolling to the mid ribs of your memory book,
with its gloss still vacillating, ebbing your loneliness.
You can always meet me in those imprints left behind lingering,
like your touch that remains seldom on my fingertips;
radiating moonbeams from the entangled bodies in love, near the window frame,
your hand gliding smoothly over mine, like flames on gasoline, so smooth
ending its journey at the tips, dangling-
like a dewdrop on early greens, holding on graciously,
until reluctantly you could let go, with the ring of the rising sun.
When you feel lost, hold out a finger, trace mine in the folds of your memory pages,
to bring you back home, sweet.
These fingertips have you inscribed in their lines,
But, don’t you squeeze me to that tight schedule of yours,
just keep me pressed in the folds of memory pages!
I’m sorry i forgot to tell you I was leaving
tonight
as I am
nine hundred and sixty-five miles away
from you
I watch a video clip of us
from New Year’s Eve
over
and over
you pull me in to you and kiss me
and on our faces is all of the love
we have jumped through rings of fire for
on the other side of my window, down over a slope of cliff
is the midnight buzz of LA which is not home
you are home
you are home
with our friends getting high and I
am falling asleep in strange beds
we
are nine hundred and sixty-five miles apart and that
is just a quarter of the miles that are left
the miles that in the weeks to come I will
voluntarily put between us
it is all I can do
to keep from missing you too soon
Hi
It’s hard to tell you,
I say it’s hard to say,
Well what I meant,
What I mean,
To say was,
Oh hey,
I was just thinking,
The stammering of the mind when I think of you
complete
is it too much for me to ask the sun
to stay here forever
i do not want the cold
or the dark
stay
and sink my body into warmth
is it too much for me to ask you
to stay here forever
i do not want the cold
or the dark
stay
and sink my body into warmth with you
in bed with you
on the nights when your snoring is gentle it radiates
through your body like the most comforting thunder
tonight you hum with it, and even in your sleep you
reach out to me, wrap me up
inside your rumbling warmth
as if to say my love thank you
for the ways you can calm the tempest within me
and I try
to match my delicate breathing to yours, bury my head
into your chest, imagine
the relief of a summer storm
you don’t shake when you’re asleep
but dear god most nights
you sound like an old car
trying desperately to turn over but just grinding
rusted gears inside your lungs, please forgive
my inability to ignore it
I have written
enough sappy love poems to put
the entire state of Vermont out of business, but
my darling you know how I hate it when
my hands get sticky
I fear I have not spent enough time
remembering how sweet it all is
I hate your snoring
but I hate sleeping alone even more, it is
too quiet
too still
I can stand
for one night, or thousands
to lie awake and marvel at how perfectly alive you are next to me
Distance
You might wonder, why I keep writing you poems,
day after day.
one after the other.
A belief, word by word, a sentence would travel the miles,
unraveling a message of love,
at your lips;
Channeling the extremities of our country’s north and south.
A belief, the words would take me closer to you,
widening the pages,
shortening the distance,
till I taste your scent, like my breath.
An untamed desire to listen the reverie chirping in your eyes.
Feel the sense of your first touch on mu skin;
brushing my memory slate,
The chillness of Januaries in Pondy.
I write to you,
back to back
day after day, one after the other;
For in these pages are delved an exotic burrow to you,
which I see indefinitely.
Whitney Sweet 