The Girl With Kaleidoscope Eyes

Image by Cheryl Kellar (click for link)

I lay back and watch the skies…
I’m the girl with kaleidoscope eyes.
There’s no limit to what I can see,
now that my mind has been set free…

I let my heart wander, breathe more easily,
and see colours dancing peacefully
to a waltz that plays so silently
as I lay here, just being, blissfully.

The Milky Way is doing the tango,
Orion’s belt dances more of a mambo.
I giggle, I know that I’m too drunk,
and I know that the smells I hear have shrunk.

But I lay here and watch the darkening skies,
just me, the girl with kaleidoscope eyes.
Tonight there’s no limit to what I can see
now that my mind has been set free.

I can’t believe I missed this prompt, Poetics – Take a Leap With Cheryl Kellar, on d’Verse Poets Pub yesterday!! Beautiful, beautiful artwork by Cheryl Kellar, and the image above really caught my eye… My kaleidoscope eye… 

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Memories of a Journey

(credits here)

Tu-dunk, tu-dunk I hear them
steel wheels on iron rails.
Tu-dunk, tu-dunk like a beating heart,
or a ship in the night with flapping sails.
Like precious stars they twinkle
the lights in the windows we pass.
Tu-dunk, tu-dunk goes my journey
out the windows I stare, in second class.

Like scars on Mother Nature’s skin
the tracks cut their paths through the woods.
Tu-dunk, tu-dunk a mere echo
in the night and through dark neighbourhoods.
As twinkling stars grow in numbers
slowly the iron horse halts
My journey is almost over
when into my grandmother’s arms I fall.

As a teenager I frequently traveled by train the 250 kilometers from Stockholm to my grandparents’ home in the town I was born. In one of my old journals from that time I found an un-finished poem about the darkness of the journey and the glimpses of light from the houses we passed. That poem – together with the prompt at d’Verse Poets Pub’s Poetics – inspired this short scribble. Enjoy!

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The Stranger With Charcoal in his Hand

CC Champagne in New York

As I visited the great Metropolitan,
feeling my usual unappetizing self,
I took the time to stop, for just a second,
in the great park.
Sat on a stool, in the shadows of
mighty trees, charcoal in hand,
was the stranger.
The sign said USD 40, and with my
vacation savings up for grabs I took the chance
to sit down opposite him,
him the stranger with the charcoal in hand.
My friend, whom I was visiting, sat smiling,
watching, on a bench and, for a second,
I wondered if she was making fun of me?
If I was, in her eyes, as fake as I felt?
As fat, sweaty and lost as I felt?
She was waiting for me, encouraging me,
and all I could do was to put up the armour
I always do – prepare myself for the
inevitable disaster that my meeting with
the stranger with the charcoal in his hand would be.
I mean, come on! A charcoal portrait of me?
What could be worse?
I decided, then and there, that whatever the outcome was
I would smile and be OK. As I always am.
Always the first one to make fun of myself,
just so no one else gets in there first.
And, after all, this was just a portrait,
made by a stranger
with charcoal in his hand.

I spent the rest of my ten days in the great Metropolitan
in a daze
asking people around me if this, this beautiful woman,
was, truthfully, how they saw me.

I’ve been reluctant to enter poems at d’Verse since I started writing again. However, today’s prompt at the Meeting at the Bar – Self Portrait meant I just couldn’t stay away. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with the people who gather at d’Verse (they are great people and amazing poets), I’m just very self-conscious of my poetry/scribbles and being good enough, especially having been gone for so long… Anyway, in all humility, this is my offering.

 

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