Five Poems by Julie A. Dickson

 

The Perhaps

 

Bruise is a memory,

imprint, injustice,

an indentation -

not quite puncturing

hope but a punctuation,

complacent resignation

 

Quietude, clothing covers

past, blanketed over

where recollections fade,

actions add to uncertainty,

dreams masquerade

as monsters, pressuring

realities into the perhaps

 

 

Winter burns cold

 

dusky smoke sky

quiet on fire

 

winter burns cold

flames on a pyre

 

fire in the clouds

across blue expanse

 

as dark silhouettes etch

and grey clouds dance

 

on rugged terrain

the approach of night

 

panoramic canvas

gives way to starlight

 

Touching Time

 

I’ve walked upon this earth for quite some time

I don’t know peace nor have I tools to fight

I have searched for words that strain to rhyme

to ponder for a moment, seek what’s right

 

In the darkest corners, victims speak

recall ancestral stories that were told

youngest seeking wisdom, future bleak

advice from learn-ed past and not so bold

 

To say they know all things, old will not lie

some mysteries of time we will not know

I understand this truth and cease to cry

in anguish turn away and start to go

 

A hand reached out in empathy, draws mine

I feel connection, wisdom touching time

 

 

Making music

 

isn’t me

not enough voice to sing

harmony if someone better

can drown me out

 

you say anyone can learn

to play, to read music but

it’s as much another language

as the Spanish I struggle to recall

 

can’t play piano even though I tried,

gave up on me -  the teacher after

practicing a year on the old upright

I inherited from my grandmother

 

so I write the music in my head,

ok the lyrics are what I write, not

actual tunes, but sometimes I dream

that I am playing and singing

 

my fingers trip over piano keys, voice

in my head is my own and the words

flavour a melody worth hearing and

I really am making music

 

 

Yielding

 

I stand alone breathing in my life,

never conceiving this new idea,

that my view of non-believing

stands unyielding, as the dullest knife

 

cutting into bone, echoes clutter  

the voices that utter, that mimic

like a tapestry weaving, heavy with fear,

a grieving, the sorrow a flutter

 

always deceiving, the lies I’ve been told

Am I so old that I no longer feel

or even heal, leaving no tear?

Don’t look upon me as bold!

 

In the late I’m left wielding

dull senses, resigned

to a time, I am leaving

gone full circle I’m yielding.

 

 

Julie A. Dickson is a poet, past poetry board member, Pushcart nominee and writer of YA fiction, memories and nature. Her work appears in full length on Amazon, and in various journals including Ekphrastic Review, Open Door, Misfit and MasticadoresUS. Dickson holds a BPS in Behavioural Science, worked in healthcare IT and with dementia suffering adults. She advocates for captive elephants and shares her home with two rescued feral cats.