A Poem a Day (749): You on repeat

 
You on repeat
 
You were supposed to turn up on time.
You were meant to end each line with a rhyme.
 
You were fated to turn tomorrow upside down.
You were meant to greet each day without a frown.
 
You shifted the energy when you walked in a room.
You swept up the dark with the back of a broom.
 
You were the one to joke and wear glitter.
You were the one who trained to get fitter.
 
You were the one the other kids looked up to.
You were the only one the older kids knew.
 
You were always telling the tallest stories.
You were the answer to everyone’s worries.
 
You got older, drove too fast, lived a little too wild.
You never wore a sword, never needed a shield.
 
You forgot the names of your fans you met.
You met me, but my face was one you’d forget.
 
You were the artist, the writer, the talker.
You were the beginning, the end, the Faulkner.
 
You acted in this lifetime like you were out of tune.
You’d already lived nine lives before the strike of noon.
 
You enjoyed it all too much to protect your own hide.
You forgot to click your belt for that daring last ride.
 
You held the globe in your hand for an endless time.
You didn’t know the world would make you pay a fine.
 
You held up a mirror for others to discern their flaw.
You noticed not everyone liked what they saw.
 
You were meant to leave quietly, unnoticed.
You weren’t meant to leave a note that grimaced.
 
You were the one everyone wanted to be.
You weren’t meant to be the one that couldn’t see.
 
You lost your way trying to find how everything gels.
You forgot you can’t save yourself and everyone else.
 
Vickie Johnstone, July 14, 2026

A Poem a Day (748): I on repeat

 
I on repeat
 
I spend a lifetime searching for the imperfect perfect muse.
I treasure everything as if each something I’m fated to lose.
 
I consume as if this could be my final meal.
I am oblivious to the agenda behind any deal.
 
I sleep as if sleeping is an Olympic sport.
I pay all the bills, secure my space in my living fort.
 
I read with a microscope digging for inspiration.
I walk in fine rain feeling a washed-in elation.
 
I turn up early as if it will make a difference.
I cry at every ending and then hope to bounce.
 
I read menus a dozen times before choosing.
I hold on too long because I’m too scared of losing.
 
I worry I might regret choosing the wrong thing.
I greet everyone with the same shy, lopsided grin.
 
I end up picking the same thing every time I order.
I live in uncluttered spaces, try not to be a hoarder.
 
I pluck stray hairs as if anyone notices anything so small.
I live it, love it, want it to last forever, but forget it all.
 
I collect empty boxes because oxygen is the most precious thing.
I buy simple things, avoiding the loud, too glossy and bling.
 
I breathe deeply, inhale slowly, blink three times for luck.
I wish I could relive every earthmoving, heartbreaking f-ck.
 
I sit in the shade in case the sun burns away truth.
I rethink, re-evaluate seeking the undeniable proof.
 
I colour outside the edges to feel more free.
I wonder at our struggle to be what we want to be.
 
I count the stars just because it’s impossible.
I know my failure to make time last is laughable.
 
I rule the 3mm space around my own contours.
I learn from closure and look out for held-open doors.
 
I bed down to keep the chaos and noise at bay.
I listen to silence because it has the most to say.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, July 14, 2026

A Poem a Day (720): Burial in water

 
Burial in water
 
It’s a listening thing,
fake disappearing, halo effect,
a plunge into obscurity,
disintegrating in oceans rapt,
a burial, held aloft to wonder at,
to hold, let fall into dust –
feather-like, stranded stars
crossing the sky like ants.
 
The childlike dance of the mystic
hits you, a rainbow striding,
motions arcing over broken idols
drilled into the shore.
You count the score when you
should plunge, salted, disheveled,
into breath. A starfish shapes itself
in sand, winks its orange skin,
 
and I pick it up, this delicate life,
its radiating heat, rhythmic beat,
guide it through the crystal deep.
The horizon walks a heady line.
It whispers sometimes,
bubbles beneath this jaded sun,
an arc of dripping yolk burning
words of hope into water.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, June 18, 2025

A Poem a Day (718): The circle

 
The circle
 
There is a reason
bereft of season
extinct of leaves
that survives emotion,
a release to savour
beyond endeavour
the world’s compassion
amid pure elation,
to seek to celebrate
outside the obstinate
all the indelicate,
afraid to waken it.

Beneath this starlight
jibes another trick
that licked the night,
the way it burned so bright.

We stand still in time
outside of every rhyme,
every turn in the sky
seeking truth, not lie,
fierce oceans ironing out
beyond any doubt
this desire to speak
when you feel so meek,
a vowel left unsaid,
a need unfed.

So we caress water,
defend with laughter,
stand still, naked,
always so eternally naked.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, June 14, 2025

A Poem a Day (717): Crossing water

 
Crossing water
 
We gaze into the ears of seashells,
listen for the soft surf of water’s flow,
the truth of all our destinations,
a lover waiting in the wings,
this always-in-the-ether maybe.
 
We dance on beaches we once drew,
recite conversations we never wrote,
seek recalled waves from all our yesterdays
and watch the sun set into a sleeping sea.
And somehow we are encouraged
 
to walk on, to swim, crash, rise or fall.
So here we are, not so small after all.
We are the waking and the being,
and the rush of something else
we can never get a handle on,
 
but here we are in our looking glass,
reflected in flittering black obsidian,
wondering who stares back at us,
clerical, whimsical, ephemeral,
and we are reborn without even wishing it.
 
Distance is a subtle turn of the page
or a deep dive through a kaleidoscope
of shiftless shapes we cannot even see
until here we stand at the all too familiar
crossroads, seeing only as far as we are allowed,
 
burrowing against our every restriction,
throwing caution to the delight of our heart.
We are the divided outside of division.
We are the wonder that we ever spent this long
drifting.

 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, June 14, 2025

A Poem a Day (580): The surging sea

This one was written on Monday and Tuesday, but I didn't get a chance to post it yesterday. 

 

The surging sea
 
It’s something beyond words,
this speaking without saying anything at all,
none of the creations inside your head,
an outer world of living inner space,
this seeing without seeing,
a pull beyond the other world.
 
And here we pause before the rosebud sea,
this sheer wild energy, a surging out
of truth, ideas and pure patience.
Feel lost in the rush of it, the subtle shift,
the stifled air purified with salt,
the knowing without a reason to know.
 
It bends and rides and finds us here,
travels straight through us,
beyond the day and over the night,
and we can bear it, full-on, full force,
for we are with it, in it, of it,
and all the rest is white, white noise.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, May 8-9, 2023