Mouth Full Of Silver,

There is a hidden softness to the winter, though, like the underbelly of an old matted cat.

Fragile Animals, Genevieve Jagger

That is a very derpy Shakespeare... Silliam Derpspear if you will

Would you hang or would you sink?

Flutter like butterfly or moth?

Freeze over or return to ash?

Phoenix

I’m trying to be what I’ve never been please don’t wipe these droplets away I’m crying for someone other than me can we just let them fall where they may Today I’ve tears enough for the world help me remember that love is to share I’ve been cold and numb for far too long and fear I may have forgotten to care God If you hear me, make me a phoenix I’ve been selfish these many long years I will cry a river, or an ocean if need be if You’ll place healing love in my tears

Writing stuff when you don't have a full picture yet is fun.

Ah yes, the rumored gender, a rare and elusive sight

FRAGMENTS

Fragments, oh fragments

Small pieces of brokenness

Time chiseled off moments

in detached consciousness

Shattered hope and dreams

In solitary confinement

Fear, in suppressed screams

Enforced early retirement

Retained disappointed feats

Trigger the onset of delusion

Unto bowing lowly in defeat

Reduced to utter confusion

Blasted, stripped of dignity

Unretrieved pieces of unity

Fragments of human sanity

©Johnny J P Lee

(Novelist, Author & Poet)

A Gogyoshiren Poem (15)

Photos, Unsplash Images

The fog creeps in,

thick like breath

on a window,

the hills fold

into themselves,

and I am

somewhere else

while the red bridge

cuts through the mist

like a wound

that has yet to heal

Are you breathing only  

Because the world demands it?  

Do you move through life  

Just to check off the boxes?  

Dear one,  

Have you ever paused  

And not because you were told?  

Are you smiling only  

To hide what’s aching inside,  

Or do you laugh  

Because it genuinely sparks joy?  

Friend,  

Have you wandered outside  

And not just to run away?  

Have you truly lived  

For yourself?

At evening when I arrived - nowhere a thousand imaginations rose up in me like an enchantment I gave my hands hopelessly into it saw dusk graze itself blindly across the winter hills, blue as its heart and pitched myself into its apple where no arms may hold me but the echous ribbons of a long-lost past

roles reversed, crumbling in dust enough to cave in the lungs of titans. don't force me to breathe anyway, it's pointless in the grand scheme of cigar marketing. all for standing outside and watching the rays of sun stretch their limbs and lie down for the evening but the true beauty comes when all the pawn shops facing east are religiously nocturnal.

a hopper of trains, we can be out of here, we can be slugs happily avoiding the minefield of saltshakers set up to watch us perish. a tale as old as grandfather's medals, tears stinging eyes, hometown roaches feasting on nuclear Thanksgiving; part the lips and caught the tongue trembling common knowledge. that the boxing gloves hooked on the wall have touched their fair share of tender cheeks and retiring will only cause the maroon to solidify.

nap away the wrongdoings of foreign-feeling nausea. spin the story like a top on the evening reporter's desk laden with load-bearing ash-pokes the size of his ideals surrendering to keyboard gestures of love and floundering reputation.

ON THE BRINK

Standing on the brink

A humble grail in hand

Contemplating that clink

According to thy command

Boisterous play, or high jinks

As the mist begins to clear

I await in the morning chill

The Passover of my fear

Oh! Silently, in the still

Whether far or near

©Johnny J P Lee

19 September 2024

A Gogyoshiren Poem (10)

Photos Credit J. P. Lee

(Man on a cliff, unknown source)