A Poem a Day (724): Drop

 
Drop
 
Let go.
 
Get off.
 
Be in this freefall,
this downstroke,
this oblivion.
 
Don’t reach out
to catch yourself,
to trip yourself,
just breathe into it.
 
Colours drift into you,
seek to become,
ensure your light.
 
There is wonder by night,
a little stardust,
a little something other.
 
We trust beyond it,
resist the gathering storm,
walk in the sparkling deluge,
untethered,
feel it flick on skin.
 
The bark of a tree tugs rough,
silken leaves lift you up,
twisted roots drag you down,
yet you can breathe
in the drop,
the abandonment of strings,
cables, dragon pulls,
suspensions you don’t need,
holding you back in places
that eclipse you
when you can just...
 
There’s an ocean beneath you,
a wide-open smile
of dripping rain.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, August 14, 2025

A Poem a Day (723): Catching lines

 
Catching lines
 
Hold the pencil steady enough
& you can draw a line straight,
something true, a bridge,
a crossing over a blank page.
But can you draw a circle,
round like an orange is?
 
A fruit you don’t dare to eat,
only encompass with your hands,
a black & white creation,
maybe crosshatched, a little shaded,
a thing you could bond with
if you’re not feeling too jaded.
 
You could put it out there,
post it to your windowpane,
announce that you’re an artist now,
a big hello to the wide world,
even though it was always in you,
cos you are that thing, that word,
 
the crazy something you deny
thinking you’re just not good enough,
but it’s still you through & through
because you are that hand that draws,
that paints, writes, that cannot laugh
but can touch, can feel, can give.
 
You draw a circle so you can become it,
step inside it, open up a portal,
this open thing you want to kip in,
slink into, escape & be gone in,
but it’s an opening just for you
& it ain’t staying open forever.
 
There’s a message upon your door,
but this one isn’t for you.
It’s for every drifter-by to see,
to accept – an invite to come inside
& feel this curved charm, this oval,
this true thing you can offer them.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, August 14, 2025

A Poem a Day (722): The bubble

 
The bubble
 
There exists a window without a view
upon a world that does not exist anymore,
a cyan cast of faces adrift on breeze,
strokes of cirrus without sentence.
 
We are as time shifts and steals,
recalls echoes without shields,
swords that cut without a bitter edge,
the taken with nothing to take.
 
Shadows drizzle a lake without encumbrance,
and we drift out of perspective.
 
And so there is a window that once held a view,
a reason to discard all mockery,
a vision of a self not yet lived.
 
The watcher stepped inside himself,
out of himself, as others got things wrong,
but even he could not live forever.
 
We gaze back, all measured out,
build a wall against an invisible army.
You don’t know the drill, the phrasing,
and we all melt in welcome heat.
 
A drum roll without a crescendo
turns in echoes of fortitude, smoothed
out without discipline or order.
 
It just finds an alternate way of being
in this traffic of organised sound.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, August 14, 2025