A Poem a Day (734): 5 more Poems from an Irish pub in Brussels

 
Unfaded
 
To be unfaded,
I’ll trace your reflection in ink,
a memory recorded in smoke,
a maybe you will never obey.
We starve ourselves in contemplation.
Starstruck, we fall to our knees.
Pour your presence into my hands.
I will carve you out of clay,
write a capturing, a blessing,
mimic you as a leaf dressed in autumn colours,
send you into the wide open skies
and give you freedom
to fly.
 

 
The unsettling
 
Triangles, all the unbreakable
prisms, an alternate side of being.
Scarlet dawns, a castaway’s curse,
distances we swore we would keep,
but give away in truth in a day.
 
It is happening in this unhappening,
blue-green journeys of a never life.
It stopped at a red light
and this pause continues to block
any semblance of incoming traffic.
 
Wait for go.
Wait for continuation.
Cast aside reinvention.
Wait for life.
Even if it takes another lifetime.
 

 
Cyclists (in paintings in an art shop)
 
Paint in ovals, screams of light,
scribbled movement, effervescent, alive.
It streams in waves,
a torrent unstoppable.
There is no end to this thread
casting rainbows, iridescent hue.
Motion in lines curve in enigmatic music
unwritten, unplayed, simply drawn
by hand, by eye, heart and emotion
in synchronised rhythm.
 
A couple balance on two bicycles
drenched by rain
streaking blue-soaked canvas,
trailed by blasted yellow lights,
the lamps of oncoming traffic
twisting paint under neon signs.
 
We are lit
when no one is watching.
 

 
Throwing stones
 
Triangle spires mark the distances
between lovers in time & space,
sink sadness like a weighted stone
to position & reposition.
Thus we spiral out like wool.
 
We don’t change places to confound.
We don’t twist to break.
We break in order to be ourselves,
to move in freedom,
follow our own footsteps,
And be. Shadows can yawn,
play bored or die. But they must leave.
The departed ghost needs to stay so.
 
We have free will.
Without it we can only hope to shatter,
for we cannot live as spectres.
 

 
Block paintings (in an art shop)
 
Block paintings
of bleeding colour
stack lines, track figures
unthought of,
believe in disbelief,
where every thought is readied.
 
We try each other in suspension.
Hands trace words in empty air.
 
I am the chase,
you are the follow.
I am the chased,
you are the fellow.
When can we reverse
so I have free choice?
If there is a reason
I am not a part.
What is the reason
to be apart?
 
I might just shatter space
with what is never said.
Is this a curse to be female?
Is it better not to stand out?
 
You follow cues
and get nowhere,
trace a line into an eternal void.
If you meet shadows on your path
ignore them to feel yourself grow.
 
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, September 4, 2025