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Category Archives: Poetry

you have done the ‘right’ thing
until the end, you’ll be
a good man
your heart belongs to me
yet your head is
at the gate
each day

your sweet fingers touch
her skin and i shiver
with electricity
bound up and bursting

so kiss me goodbye
make me cry 

this life was never meant for
anything but a moment of happiness
the chores of the body
demand it

our dance, it will live in my heart
forever
i will see you in every
leaf, feel

your kiss on each gentle
wind
watch the bark peel and flutter
in the breeze
inscribe your name on the land

throw my salt unto a black water
storm
and pass on to some distant

place
where there are no
boundaries of flesh

please, i beg you,
if you remember me
if i am tucked inside your
beating, bloody heart
come find me
there

© 2012 J. Noade

“Birch Wind” © 2012 J. Noade

Paper squiggles
are meant to say it all
divulge my secret chambers
my centre self

(pink petals float and fall
to earth)

he’s the expert
here to diagnose

but

he can’t read it
he can’t read me

he doesn’t know me
from Eve

(soft white flowers mist the air)

your EKG is not normal
but it’s not abnormal either

What does that mean?

How can you read the history
of a heart?
levels of break and ache

and too much
electricity in the thin air
throwing off the
mechanism

(cherry blossom curtains
bow in the rain)

memory, tingles, vice(s), voices
the final locking

can we wear it out
from too much love?

from not
enough?

(looking back, looking up
a caustic metal canopy)

my tiny heart,
these
shallow knife cuts
bleed me
a slow death

feeble beating
blood slowing
heart breaking

(sweet fragrance,
subtle as a heartbeat)

a new pain slipped in
my shirt like a locket
or pendant clock

winding down

readying

(sakura tree
fresh earth waits

sprinkle me in
here I lie
I’ll blossom again
and again)

© 2012 J. Noade

 ”Swamp Song” © 2012 J. Noade

Don’t curse the darkness with
light

the Night is Sacred

don’t bastardize it with
brightness
just leave it black
so that I can wander in this
night forest, alone

unseen

let that trickle of spring
rain run down my neck,
as I float through the path

(just barely visible to
my open pupils)

it’s cool and wet on my skin
so I know I’m alive

and this isn’t a dream

but for how long?
how much more must I run
before I come to rest?

there could be anyone here to
harm me
man, beast, spirit
but I’ll take my chances
I need to escape the cage tonight

I flee, leaving humanity behind
wandering this shadow land
deep in the earth’s belly
without a sound
just the softness of the trees

I stop to lean on one and
wish you here
pleading with the sky
as if your ears are up there

we could run like this, you and me
as one being,
silently
happily
simply

and when we are exhausted we
could lie down on the decaying earth

and love as we never did,
like the creatures of spring do
rolling on the earthen floor
to makes us clean again

(leaves and bracken fill my hair, twigs
and conifer cones sting your back)

but you’re not here,
you never were…
that was just a dream I had
where your face showed up
before you did

so I tuck into a large cedar and
let him rock me
in his boughs

I’m disappearing

oh! let’s dance like this, my dear
alone so no one can see
always hold me

just like this, my love

in your giant arms
of green
my One Love, my True Love

tonight I’ll transmute
I’ll become the needles at your feet

falling down, tiny, tiny
soundlessly
quietly slipping back
into black earth
here with the others who
never found a home,
even as fresh green
sprouts anew above us
in tomorrow’s
broad daylight

© 2012 J. Noade

 

Death laughs and says
“penny for your thoughts”
so I tell Him,
all of them

and He laughs again

“you call that morose?
lemme show you
this!”

He’s a hard mutha

But I saw Him as an angel
that day

that day
I dreamed my own death

“it’s coming in June”
He said, and told me the exact
day

showed me the two
oracles consulted

So I woke with a plan

I’ll do

Nothing

nothing at all

won’t go anywhere
won’t see anyone
make myself small
I can beat this…

I’ll

just sit
meditating
in my room

yeah,
that’s it

oh! but what if a plane falls and
crashes into the house?
what if a murderer breaks in?
what if the gas leaks and explodes?
What if I choke in my sleep
on the small crystal heart
I keep under my pillow?
what if the earthquake hits
and I’m inside this dilapidated shack?

then
I saw it

there I was

cross-legged
on the floor
just waiting out
June 30, 2012

when in strode this
beautiful angel in black
not Him, but Her
I slowly raised my eyes and
looked without fear

She smiled just
slightly

not sardonic
not evil nor
sarcastic

sweet actually

She said not one word
She had the face of glory,
all of Heaven’s hallelujahs rolled in one

Her cheeks were bloodless white
Her lips soft red and Her eyes were
twin onyx

She wore a long dress
that seemed to be
the very absence of light
flowing robes the colour of deep space
and Her hair was jet
like a raven’s feathers,
ink-black and shiny

She walked to me and,
tilting Her head just barely,
reached down Her long, beautiful hand
to help me up

I remember how soft it was,
if slightly cold,
and I felt my breath release
glad

to let the effort go
happy those questions would
stop now
I looked at Her with Love

there was no seraphic symphony
(the room was dead quiet)

I heard the little girl in me
sigh

ah, finally

someone
has come

to comfort, 
to care for me
(so long I’ve been waiting) 

how relieved I felt
at no longer needing
to hide

© 2012 J. Noade

Yes, when I went deep
you were there
in the call I heard above

a delicate whistle
raptor rapture

then you flew overhead
as I returned to the path

you spoke when
I said I love you in
your language

a high call I understood

this day
this special day

I walked in the woods at sunset
hardly another soul about

fresh enough to remind me
of spring

the smell was some memory
I couldn’t place

damp earth
and a fattening moon

bicycle tracks
where a stranger
had been

I placed my foot carefully,
softly

pools of water
making love to the earth

nestling, housing future larvae

slumbering
ready to grasp life
with the heat
of summer’s June

I saw the upside down
world in there
darkening
fading from my day
as you start yours

I wished to dive in

the Eagle cried as I thanked
you for your life

short time, earth time
long time, your time

speeding now
as you feel the world turn
faster

as you wonder
how much longer?
gathering courage
you’ll make this move

I never turned away

i never could

I just came up
to you, your wings

for air

© 2012 J. Noade

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