Category: Poetry (Page 4 of 36)

We Know

February 23, 2019 / Tom

She holds my hand
And I am instantly alive.
She strengthens what is strong,
Inspires me to heal what has cracked,
Collecting pieces of me I’ve left strewn about the field.

Voices say,
“Distance will never work
The continent between is your enemy.”

But they don’t know us.
They don’t know,
That as I swim in the pool of her eyes
That I have found a place that I wish to bathe forever.

The voices can’t feel
The sprinkle of moonlight that flows across my skin
When she touches me.

They can’t feel
How what was once uncertain seems so sure
How the sand becomes stone
How the mist of sea crashing across the stones
Becomes an ocean once again
In the moment when my ears hear her voice.

They can’t see
How my soul dances just at the very thought of her.
They can’t hear the music within me
That calls her name.
They can’t feel the spirit within me
Rise tall and fly high above the plains
Just for a chance to feel her arms around my waist
And her head on my chest.

Lover’s know
The certainty of this truth
For we pity those
Who have never felt God’s head
Nestled tightly against their shoulder
As Her fingers draw love poems on their skin.

Or felt the spirit of truth
Wash over them like a summer rain.

So while they say
“It can’t work”
We who love not from a place just of body or mind
But from a place they, and sometimes we,
Cannot understand,
We know differently.

We know a truth
That guides us through fire
Sees us survive the storms
Has us reach a summit
And a shore
That lovers would call Destiny.

Lovers know a truth.
We follow a star that sometimes only we can see.
Float in a breeze sometimes only we can feel.
Die a million deaths just to be alive the moment that we meet.
For what is never certain for many,
Cannot be more sure
For us.

Our Language

February 21, 2019 / Tom

I once saw the radiance
Born from once-again,
Alive in what I have never-known,
Until that moment when your light burst through the clouds
Holding me tightly in your array,
Speaking to me slowly in ways I could not understand.

Love demanded I learn your language,
And set me free from my ignorance,
Embracing poems and prose I wanted to comprehend,
Patience, I am no doctor, I reply,
Slow, I am falling and have no wings slow my tumble,
Love, Yes! And I begin to understand.

If I meet the ground
There will be no softness in the landing,
I’d rather fly and kiss the clouds with you,
Glide above the thunder and the lightning,
Tickle your soul with the Light from up above,
Taste you in the droplets of moonlight all around.

My mind knows the truth of my crashing,
The burning ground, debris scattered for all to see,
Yet here, I see a flower sprouting through the ashes,
Its fragrance overcomes the acrid smoke that’s in the air,
Like that moment when you touched my heart,
Made cracks in the armor that kept me ignorant,
Now filled with gold flowing from your fingertips,
I hold you close, we now see the clouds far below.

Now, we create a language all our own,
Foreign to some but known as truth within our souls,
Take my hand as I take yours,
Walk with me across the bridges
And ridges
Of the time we have remaining.

For I love you, and now I understand.

The Mountain

February 20, 2019 / Tom

You called to me
I heard you standing in the forest
The blue skies hugging your form
Like a wedding dress
The billowy clouds dancing in the breeze
Like your veil
Begging me to your altar for a kiss
I was only too happy to oblige.

I climbed to meet you
Stumbled, fell, stood again
“Keep going,”
Said that fire burning within
“You may have come here faint of heart
But that is not how you will stay
For this love will see you strong
In this passion you shall endure.”

Now I have surrendered
Reaching for the ring
Praying to be bound by the promise
I heard when you called to me
When the ground began to shake
And a mountain rose before me
I saw your highest place
And I knew that I must go there.

Love rose high above the prairie
The moment you stood before me
Fraught with danger and blessed views
Filled with trails on which we struggle
And shady places we can rest
Here, the streams tell tales of springtime
And what’s blossomed in the altitude
Is truth. I love you so.

A Balance in Love

February 19, 2019 / Tom

I have felt,
Swayed so in my fears,
Lost in my happenstance,
Creating illusions from the shadows on my wall.

Who is she,
This fragrance unforgettable,
The one raising my conscience soul,
From the slumber of 2000 days?

Who am I,
Or rather who do I wish to be?
The one who was carved from stone,
Or the shards left strewn about at the mercy of the breeze?

What is love,
If not the breath of mountain air,
A salvation from all exhaustion,
The miracle that pulls us from the tomb?

What is love,
If not the hand that steadies me when shaking?
The idea that comes to me in the absence of my mind,
It is what I’ve been born to know.

Steady me when my ground is shaking.
Breathe life into me when the end seems near.
Be there when that final bell,
Of that final round,
Rings and all I can do is shout your name.

I can steady myself for sure,
I have done it a million times before,
But what is love,
If not my acceptance of the hand that holds it?
If not the breath of life renewed?
If not the face that guides me beyond that final bell?

Know, that in your moments of unsteadiness,
I hope my hand is the one you reach for,
In the moment you feel you can walk no more,
My name brings you to your feet.
In the second that you face the demons in your mind,
You know that my sword is unsheathed to protect you.
Should you call,
I will answer.

For what is love,
If not who I am?
And who am I,
If not the gentle pools you bathe?

Unconditional (A Poem)

February 18, 2019 / Tom

I remember when there was this dream I had,
She’d be sleeping in the dark,
And all I could do is hear her breathing.
Something would make her stir,
Perhaps it was desire awakening in her dreams,
Or the way the spring breeze bathed her through the window.
Whatever it was,
I remember I could hear her say my name,
And I replied, “Yes, my love,”
She said then, “I just wanted to make sure you were there,
That I wasn’t dreaming,
So that if I was,
I would not awaken,
Tonight, tomorrow, or any other day.”

I remember the tear that spilled from my heart that night,
With her still sleeping in the dark.
And in my soul prose was written that would endure eternity.
I would not leave her,
and she would awaken,
Just because she could,
Me doing nothing but watching her sleep,
Honoring the solemn sound of her breath,
Protecting her sacred space.
With the chrysalis broken wide open,
In the morning I knew that she would fly,
And I’d be witness yet again to what was always amazing.
I could only hope to keep up,
To the one who was surely born to fly.

I uttered a prayer as her breath returned to sleeping,
Nothing but the simple want of a man born to watch her soar.
A prayer that someday she would grow to realize her authority,
And see how the willows stand tall to meet her gaze,
And the grasses bend softly to hold her resting form.
Perhaps then she’d still love me,
Tickle my senses with the flowers blooming in her field,
Kiss me tenderly as the Moon undressed us in its light,
Know love as I held her tightly to keep the dew from forming on her skin,
Listening to her breathe,
Always answering her call when she stirred awake
Before the morning light,
Waiting for the morning Sun to announce its sweet arrival,
And I watch her fly again another day.

Pen In Hand (A Poem)

February 18, 2019 / Tom

I sit praying, longing pen in hand,
The paper calling out in wanting,
Pulsing – dreams cutting to the bone
Yet the throbbing vein just will not bleed.

The sweet flavor that seeps from our togetherness,
My god! Words clotting as I seethe in this departure,
A half of my truth rumbles through my reasoning,
“Stay!” I just wish to yell across the pavement.

Yet nothing – the pen again falls silent,
Absent go my words, I’m forgetful while proving my resilience.
I just smile and wave with the other half of my truth singing.

Goodbye, I love you so.

~TG, “Pen in Hand”
© 2019 Tom Grasso All Rights Reserved

That Power That You Are

February 12, 2019 / Tom

Oh, My Goodness,
I see the power that you are,
The power that you share,
The power that brings demons to their knees.

You are the power
That lifts the Sun above life’s horizon,
Like Love’s sweet tempered mallet,
That breaks the very bonds of dawn.

You are the power
That moves the ether to a breeze,
Moves the grains of sand of every mountain,
Your breath gives the beaches to the sea.

You are the power
That dots the evening sky,
Changes darkness with a twinkle,
And points this mariner to home.

It’s you, for you are the power,
That floats the birds to kiss the clouds,
Do not doubt this,
Lest they all fall to the ground.

Now give yourself silently to prayer,
Let the words rise up within you,
Touch the hand of love that sits upon your chest,
And know the power that you are.

I Know Truth (A Poem)

February 11, 2019 / Tom

I run in fields,
See the butterflies as painted in a picture,
They call to me,
Then laugh at me,
And push me far away.

I see the sunrise,
The bright star piercing through my soul,
First warming me,
Then burning my tempered, weathered skin,
Where dust is I shall return.

I speak your name,
I hear it echo in the caverns,
An unrequited song to my own ears,
Through snow and muck I run to you,
A tear cleansing my dusty face.

Distant paths have led to here and now,
Suffering, my great sculptor,
Though tired I may be,
I’ve spent forever for this moment,
Enduring just to stand beside you in the unfolding.

I beg life to leave me smiling for once,
Have I not earned this moment in the Sun?
Have I not paid the price to see her bloom?
Surely I have chiseled away the stone
That kept me from my truest self.

Though fog today hides the mountains from my eyes,
I see them clearly in my heart,
I climbed them once just for my own view,
I climbed them again just to reach the top,
Now I climb them just to get to you.

There we dance around the fire,
Kindled by the wisdom of our union,
Unique though we are we are so much the same,
I know you in the caverns of my Being,
I know you in the orange flicker of that flame.

I know myself through years of understanding,
I know love through years of soulful solitude,
I now know something else in the depth of our communion,
In the sweetness of your voice,
In the waves of passion gifted me in your touch.

I know truth.

Truth granted me in your sacred arrival,
Blessed through my own falling and rising,
Rising and falling,
In silence and in the chaos of this mind,
Seen now in the flowering stillness of soulful love.

Though conflicted I may seem to be,
In battles waged between heart and mind,
I know some sweet remembrances in this lifetime,
In those conflicts waged I know this certain difference,
Love now has its due on this battlefield.

So take my hand,
The hand you’ve known for many lifetimes,
The hand that will always support you,
Even though you stand completely on your own,
Oh, love, the marigold blooms on her own even while dancing in the breeze.

Like two pieces of one big puzzle,
Know our union will not need change you,
But will certainly help complete the picture.
Like the wind helps the flower share her fragrance,
And the flower shares moonlight in her glow.

So blessed I am,
To know truth in the way I say your name,
To know truth in the way you whisper mine.
I now sleep, waiting for the new day,
When I run in fields not afraid of butterflies.

~TG

The Silly Man

February 5, 2019 / Tom

Behold, a silly man
Talking and walking in the mud
Wishing away the voices that haunt him
I know, talking to oneself is surely vain.

Yet there is hope
In this silly man,
Lost he is in the forays of his heart renewed,
Sunken treasure lays deep within his soul.

One cannot reason away the butterflies
He sees in the remnants of an unseen wave,
Gone and forgotten is he when he goes silent,
Never known to have risen beyond his means.

Yet there is sweet rebirth for this silly man,
Love forever squishing between his toes,
The sound of waves pounding just beneath the waterline,
Her hand touches him right there.

Remember when this silly man,
Had forgotten what to do?
He lost himself in the end of time,
Uncertain and begotten in the trenches.

What laughter spills from his thirsty lips?
His kindred walks intently across the room.
He smiles, my god he loves this vision so,
Forever lost as his ship crashes on the rocks of love.

Near drowning, he stumbles on the shores,
Like a drunken fighter who’s fought one too many rounds,
He stumbles, falls, his laugher echoes to the sea,
His kindred walks intently across the room.

His mind feels weak as he tries to rise once again,
Time, where did it all decide to go?
He calls out to her, there is thunder down the river,
Is she hears him he knows naught as his eyes close against the tide.

In a dream, he no longer seems so silly,
She runs to him, her longing dragging on the floor,
He catches her and there is hope within the palm leaves,
“Look” he says at two sets of footprints in the sand.

It is lost on those so ready and so tempted,
The cost of watching as the sands of time flow by,
But for the silly man, may he always keep her laughing,
Even as his kindred walks intently across the room.

Nothing But the Truth

February 2, 2019 / Tom

There is a peace within this chaos
A moment to endure, a figure clad in blue,
Flesh exposed to the wonders of my mind.

So blessed is this heart which has endured to this moment,
I hold you in esteem, my love,
For the truth of my survival is now laying in the Light.

I love you, no greater truth can be revealed
Save the essence of my mortal mind perched high above,
Forever should be a theme of our moments in the Sun.

How does man reconcile the gospel in his Soul?
The beauty in the lines of your sacred flesh,
The nuances in the curves of your heart?

I’ll but love this moment as the breeze cools your skin
The raised bumps tell me stories that your mind refuses to disclose,
My god, my love, my every breathing moment belongs with you.

White pillows adorn the bluest sky,
Creatures of the air sing praise to life abounding,
We revel in the glory of this togetherness.

I will dream of the moment when these bodies are not parted,
When fear no longer is a story of our togetherness,
When words can be heard loudly in a whisper…yes!

Until then I will hold you where you’ve always been,
Besides my heartbeat, touching me with misty fingertips
That leaves a trail of crystal running down my face.

For I am this man, loving you forever in my way,
Loving you as I must, like God Herself has commanded
For you are the truth of my existence.

And I know nothing but the truth.