Tag Archives: Poems

Scattered Light – a collection

Hello my friends –

I have just published another collection of poetry entitled “Scattered Light”.

This is a large collection of poems ranging back to 2002, yet most of the poetry comes from writings between 2011 and 2013. The collection contains 114 poems along with 53 color photos of my own.

The poems in this collection have been selected as individual points of light, sourced from a diverse array of perspective across the strands of personal experience.

Much as the morning sun shares its spectrum through the bevel of ancient glass, this collection too intends to refract your senses and intrigue your desire to see more.

Included are images in reality’s fabric, conjured of the imagination, and borrowed from hints of history. Each song belongs to a unique perception of heart tenderly and carefully stitched throughout.

The poems are drawn through the wide angled lens of life and encompass images of love, war, humor, heartache, triumph and the essence of those living, dead and imagined.

It is my profound wish that you not only enjoy, but claim some vestibule of reflection as your own.

May you always find the fabric of hope, love, and timelessness within this collection.

The book is available in paperback through most brick-and-mortar bookstores and is also available in several forms of eBook through many on-line book retailers.

Thanks to all my friends that have provided such wonderful support and kind words of guidance over the years. It has been through this forum and by way of your heartfelt encouragement that I managed to motivate myself to get this done. Thank you all so very much.

Sincerely,
Jay Blue (jaybluepoems.com)

Links to the various bookstore sights are below.
Amazon
Barnes and Nobel
Books-A-Million
Dorrance
Google Books
Indie Bound

Cover

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Filed under Poetry

Liberty’s Lament

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore, send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

liberty back

I stand alone agape in horror, my heart beat racing as voices o’er the sea and land decry in throes, “Liar! Temptress!” sustained echoes that bend their eyes upon my stead, recounting words I’ve loved and said, “Give me your tired, your poor, your tost”, meant in truth but somehow lost.

immigrants

Their eyes on me in deep mistrust, regardless of these words in rust, as families weep and children cry, my God, compassion, somehow denied. I feel their struggles’ burdened weight. I know their pains but not their fate. I sense their road, their oppressive trail. I long to save their lost, their frail.

But something’s wrong, some truth’s misplaced, their hopes are dashed upon my gate. Their jeers come forth, their hopes are lost, as here they find again they’re tossed at threshold of the golden door, as burgeoned hopes fall flat once more, as children weep and mothers cry, my heart’s compassion cast as lie!

My God! Why???

I stand in hope that good prevail, that men of courage will rise to tell the story of our history in terms of truth and liberty. I pray our strength in spirit grows against our selfish interests’ blows, and welcomes to our golden door, the burdened hopeful, the tired and poor.

In every ounce of who we are, in every grain of soul collective, we stand united states as one, as through our history we’re reflective images of those suffering now, for we were they with hopes in how our lives could gain a freedom’s breath. We sacrificed through life and death, became collective, many, one, that through our love and faith we’ve summed the vey best in all of us. We fought oppression, we fought the lust, we stood for truth and knew what must be done to keep a free man free, to stand against the tyranny. We wear compassion on our sleeve, yet stand with strength in values, these, that all men are created equal, we’re born with God’s unalienable rights, our truths are life and liberty, pursuing happiness in our sight.

For not a single one of us can in truth claim or deny that we are something different, that we claim solely, that we’re the “high”. We, collective brethren, who, traversed the sea to come here, true, to wear our values, born in creed, to live an honest life in deed, to show the past our strength is summed in compassion, love, for all bar none, have built this shining star of hope, where others come to work and cope, to use their values truest song, building unity and history long. We are the products of immigrants, we the children of other lands, have come to stand united, compassion dealt with strength in hand.

Liberty crying

So I weep, I mourn this time. I bleed in colors that are not mine. I beg forgiveness to those who trust, and pray our better angels must but rise to mend this broken day, and from it form collective clay to forge anew these values, ours, heal these wretched wounds of scars. I pray we come to rise above, to show compassioned strength in love.

I stand in truth as this!

liberty front

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore, send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

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Filed under History, LIberty, Perspective, Poetry

Recollection – First Days of School

Bright, this morning’s fatal point,
as down the lane I walk,
edges brilliant, sharply lined,
denying summer’s lazy stalk.

Midst starch and press just oversized,
welcoming spurts of growth,
my awkward steps approach the fields
where friends resound in languished mope.

Through squinting eyes I find the lines
attached to every open door,
searching through the lists of names,
hoping for a little more…
Mrs. Leatherman’s heavy hand,
Mr. Peck’s muppet scowl,
as circling birds in buddied groups,
watching,
hoping,
closing now…

Through scent of bleach, assigned to seats,
giant maps upon the wall,
musky books of history,
handed out through sighs from all.

This day of firsts, in echoed throes,
pretends to know what no one knew,
yet blends in temporal fragment’s points,
each year’s angst recalled and true.

Till now, uniquely drifting,
lost in slipstream’s melting cast,
still drives these August senses blue,
when “back to school” comes too darn fast.

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Filed under Memory, Perspective, Poetry

The Hours Between

Until We Meet Again

The hours in between the seconds freeze a life in coy suspense,
drifting softly heaps of heart and soul across the present tense,
passing in a standstill,
bowing to the better wind,
denying temporal whispers spinning dreams of time and space again…

What of the halted fabric there of which upon the image holds?
Caught tween seconds’ forest plaits along the fence and hint of road.
Expectations,
memories,
race as runners o’er the lea,
leaping rill and brae content in slumber’s memory.

Yet paused in exultation’s drift,
time in purposed parting goes,
unsealing seconds’ casual grasp of all the hours left in tow.
Until the summer’s hush awakes,
before the dark of night sets in,
between the tasking seconds,
until we meet again…

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Filed under Dreams, Perspective, Poetry

Brevity

Time slips in sips of passing vibrant life
as age bends to tend this quiet immortal wife,
yet waits escape in poignant water’s cool relief
drawn to shallows hallowed shore, counting out the brief
spent lives, resting on the oars.

photo courtesy of public domain20104146_40_920_1380

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Filed under Perspective, Poetry, Universal Soul

Distant Rain

distant-rain-2

Sensual lines above the plain,
seductive curves of coming rain,
poised o’er sweetened fields of corn
whose tassels, golden, so adorn the jasmine jade and green.

Stretching long in verdant scent,
musk of summer’s soaking lent
whispers hope beneath its blush,
silenced, calm, poised in hush, steeping in a rain drop’s dream.

Low and steady, broken lines,
rolling, thrumming drums unwind,
summer’s man-of-war released,
yet held in time’s anticipation,
lightning strikes, no hesitation,
ionizing heaven’s crease.

Tis here I pause to count the beat,
retrieve the distance senses meet,
study past the bruised sky blue,
strain an ocher hope or two, as warm July plays on.

Hushing silk, brushing husks,
decry the rhythm in each of us,
capture breath at lightening’s twain,
count, wait, breathe the rain, before the moment’s gone.

 

“Distant Rain” photograph by Sharon Knight
© Sharon Knight
© Sunearthsky.com
https://sunearthsky.com/2017/07/06/distant-rain/

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Filed under Nature, Photography, Poetry

Change

Eternal spiral feeding,
soul and life returned,
drifting through the ashes,
another year so aptly burned.

Changing only morsels,
mixed amongst the grandest sweeps
of what it was, how it was,
and where it haunts the things it keeps.

Change, renounced reflection,
pronounced in halls of history’s fade,
twisted through accepting winds,
echoed life in all that’s made.

Subtle twists of fabric,
deep and rich in all that’s turned,
drifting whispered ashes
upon the hint of what was learned.

Eternal spiral lift me,
friend, as such, through aging’s hold,
coil my spirit around me,
drift with me as days grow old.

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Filed under Perspective, Poetry, Universal Soul

Galaxy

Artist's concept of exoplanet orbiting Fomalhaut
Credit: ESA, NASA and L. Calçada (ESO); ESA/Hubble (http://spacetelescope.org/images/)

Poem for dVerse ~ Poet’s Pub : Prompt “Lookin’ Up
https://dversepoets.com

Lillian was our host tonight and provided a very interesting prompt to consider. That of space, and more specifically, the imagination that might be stirred through the eyes and images of NASA’s Hubble telescope.

My crazy imagination led me through a galaxy of light and remarkable beauty, yet actually contained within the hearts of two in love. Enjoy!

 

GALAXY

Be still sweet love, my heart be thine,
yet in this breaking moment trips,
for here suspended ‘midst the stars
are hidden dreams in furrowed rifts.

With deeper reach than echoes ring
from angel’s tenor’d voices,
does span the depth of life unknown,
filled rich, imagination’s choices.

O dream, I drift immortal space
without the truth of reason,
stir deep within each molecule,
hanging science, caught for treason.

‘Til silence, dear, poised to hark
no ear beyond this beating heart,
cast drifting in the whispered waves
of dust in us, in every part.

Exalted swords of light be thine,
my love be drawn in fevered chase,
transcending past love’s sparkled sun,
left golden on her face.

And as the moment’s ether lags
to bend one second back to home,
our temporal kisses, softly hushed,
leave hints to where our hearts may roam.

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Filed under Dreams, Nature, Perspective, Poetry, True Love, Universal Soul

Werewolf’s Lament

Through lonely streets and alleys dank, dewy cold and sorely rank I slink away from revel’s call, pressed in fear against the wall of red bricked points that lead the way to secret blinds where I can stay safely hid from what I fear will call tonight within the drear of hallows eve, of tricks and treats, of screams and cries in haunted streets, beneath the swollen moon.

As dusk betrays the light of day, I lock the door behind me, pray that ne’er my curse escape beyond this cell to find what I’ve become, where haunted by October moon I’d find I’d grown to beastly swoon submerged in gore and rancor filled, not knowing of the blood there spilled! I writhe in horror waiting, until the full moon’s tide is trading, all coming much too soon.

Hidden in the hedgerow’s thick I smell the blood, my heart is sick, for o’er my torn and ragged clothes is death’s black art from murdered throws, of those who met my poisoned soul, ripped to bits of meat and bone, who in their death and ashen white, were terrified to run or fight, and now are left in doom’s malaise, while I, the wolf, retreat quite dazed, beneath the setting moon!

Now as I slink from death’s parlay, toward secret rooms and hideaways, I hear the town in echoed call, screaming, crying, searching all, while I decry the wrong I’ve done, my body shrinks in flesh and bone, claws and fangs withdraw to mine! Remorse and shredded clothes a sign that I am death and so in cursed to bare each victim to its hearse, and splatter red October’s moon!

In horror’s grip I weep the last for all of those I’ve killed and passed beyond the shores of Styx and death! With sadness and remorse I’m left, to pray for justice, pray to die, hope to end this living lie, but still each day continues on! Wading through each season’s song! Fearing only ashen moons that bath the nights in lovers’ swoons, that tempts the wolf within me out! To kill in terror! Stalk about, until the night is through! Hoping that I won’t find you!

Happy Halloween!!!!

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Filed under Halloween, Poetry

October Lea

Strewn across the empty lea,
in ribbon frayed and broken,
a tiny path runs from the woods,
in steps of time, in whispers spoken.

The summer grass recedes in bows,
homage to the years gone by,
demarking every thought there,
every mark a cobbled sigh.

My eyes peer from October woods,
my heart in longing feels the tone,
ochre, amber, velvet brown,
the season’s scent, the ancient loan
that burns the colors through the dale,
retreats in aging silver grey,
steely eyed and captured cold,
stark against the rill in play.

I find my melancholy heart,
aching, longing setting in,
as crisp the autumn winds reveal
the sweetest scent, the saddest sin.

For as this aging lingers,
as quickly as it stops me cold,
this lea is all that matters,
this path and all its stories told…

In summer’s fold they tarried,
in waist high grass they danced and sang,
laughing, loving, holding hands,
silent woods in echo rang.
Here upon the forest floor,
they fell together leaving all,
igniting life’s elixir sweet,
heeding love as lover’s call.
Yet prattling winds betray their time,
suspended in October’s hush,
returns a shy and sacred kiss
upon a hue of lover’s blush.

The sun denied to shine,
yet balanced grey across the scene,
in hint of coming winter snow,
a lonesome breeze rolls through, serene.

The shadowed woods deny my stead,
a sheltered voice stems high,
leaves and rustling brush rejoice,
as with his mare, a boy strides by.
A ghostly apparition,
opaque and fine as cobweb’s spin,
his words unto the aging nag
are soft and kind, sweetly thin.
Upon the rugged path they step,
into the lea, into the stream,
as errant rays of sunbeam fall,
releasing sparks of silver dreams.

Across the drying autumn grass,
a scent of barn, of oats and hay,
wafts my tensile senses through,
begging me to stay.

Alas, my moments falter,
my stage as witness through this time,
measured in the living,
counted meters of this rhyme.
This life reflects in pausing,
where truths run thick in histories’ hold,
begging none go quietly,
urging strength in growing old.

And so it is I tarry,
softly strolling o’er the lea,
whispering quiet simple truths
here in the heart of me.

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Filed under Autumn, Nature, Perspective, Poetry, Universal Soul