Tag: NaPoWriMo

Goodnight Bears

Photo by Ann H on Pexels.com
Here is you bear
All worn from love
Or perhaps adorned with it
Your partner in your slumbering adventures
Defender against all that scares you
It is your beacon in the darkest night
It's felted heart doused in the 
Nostalgia of your mother's perfume
Tangible reminder of lingering embraces
That will greet you again in the light of morning
Goodnight my little bears
Hold each other tight

-gws

Pandora’s Box of Love

Photo by Maria Verkhoturtseva on Pexels.com
Love feels like Pandora's Box of contradicting experiences
Love alights you upon a mountain top of elation
And sequesters you in a dungeon of anxiety
Love can feel like Elysian Fields
And Dante's Inferno
Love can make you feel like an accomplished genius
And the village idiot
Love gives your soul wings
And your body two left feet
Love makes poetry of your dreams
And salad of your words
Love inspires amazing highs
And devastating lows
Love is celebrated when it arrives
And mourned when it departs
Pleasure and pain separated by fate's coin toss
A game of chance we cannot stop playing

-gws

Portrait Poem

You smile uncomfortably 
Staring into the lens of the camera 
Your shoulders pulled high
All of your self consciousness visible in your eyes 
You don’t know what to do with your hands 
You do not know how to drop your walls on request 

I wish you could see yourself through my eyes 
The photographer’s eyes
Eyes that see the sparks that spill off of you 
Every time you laugh 
The natural glow on your cheeks 
The beauty of the asymmetrical smile
Caused by the single dimple 
That only appears when your face
Is animated by genuine joy
The unguardedness of your body language 
When you are feeling safe and comfortable 
Hands animating your stories with 
Increasing enthusiasm as you speak

I want the viewer to see the three dimensions of you
Hidden within your two dimensional portrait 
I want the viewer to want to know you
Drawn in by all the small clues of you
Leading viewers toward the vastness of you
I want the viewer to discover your dimple
Question what crinkles the corners of your eyes
Be captivated by the joy radiating from your natural smile 

If I have done my job well 
Your photo will feel familiar to a stranger 
You will appear as approachable as any friend 
If I have done my job well
I will have created a likeness of you
That asks you to befriend and love yourself 
As much as those of us who know you love you
If I have done my job well
You will have premised me to alchemize
A tiny fraction of your soul
So all who come to know you through your image
Will wonder what magic they missed in the opportunity to know

-gws

Persephone

Photo by amin imanifar on Pexels.com
Queen of the Underworld
Goddess of Spring
Wife to the Infernal King

Some call you victim
Bride without choice
Pomegranate seeds silenced your voice

But what a gift 
The shadow and light
To be a queen of both dawn and midnight

By fate or by choice
You touch life and death
The cycle of life held in your breast

The symbol of rebirth
And compassionate ends
The Dread Queen with a soul garden to tend

A heart of creation
And eyes filled with fury
I honor your power in all of its glory

-gws


Chiaroscuro

I have befriended darkness
I have plunged my fingers into the deep blackness
Smelled its rich sent
Felt its chill
I have stared into its oblivion
Wondering what is on the other side
And I've felt it watching me back
Equally curious
It whispers of base things
Lust
Craving
Need
Reckless abandon
Danger 
Ecstasy
Seduction
Indulgence
Pleasure 
Pain
I have felt it caress my skin
Shadow spooning the light
Defining my edges
I am incomplete without it
Its contrast necessary
Reminding that there is no light
Without darkness to define it

-gws