You Looked Like You Had Lost

Cherry

By Jane Hyphen

Sun, 24 Apr 2022
  • 769 reads
12 comments
 

 

At low tide,

the stillest sleep,

and the vastness 

of this beach exposed.

Memories littered, 

stories, half buried.

I think that’s when 

I saw your eyes;

Warm gold in 

a cold room,

while familiar strangers

wandered like ghosts

through these

transcending temples.

They looked 

straight through me.

I was the ghost

 

A slow boat 

chartered to the gap.

I watched, collected,

for that space 

to open up,

and my sleep 

to fall at Neap Tide.

How deeply 

you’re concealed

inside the humming 

of my choked mind.

Can you breathe?

I saw you and

you looked like

you had lost

 

In a split

the tide came in

to drown me.

The beach,

a narrow strip

with the sharpest

jagged rocks;

that’s where

I buried you,

to stop me 

walking back.

I saw the sun,

warm gold, glistening

on the cold sea.

It shines upon my face

but nothing can

Stop me looking back

 

 

Certificate U
Poem

Comments

Submitted by celticman on

I was the ghost too, ever step. 

 

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

Thanks celticman. Please keep haunting us. Thanks for cherries.

 

Submitted by lenchenelf on

...at the "pipe format" then came upon

"The beach,

a narrow strip

with the sharpest

jagged rocks..."

Ah! Good stuff

Best

Lena x

 

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

Hi lenchenelf, thank you for reading and commenting. I really appreciate your feedback.

 

Submitted by Insertponceyfre... on

Wonderful, haunting piece of work, thank you

 

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

Thank you Insert. I based it upon a dream that is still haunting me.

 

Submitted by skinner_jennifer on

Evocative of the soul returning, and like insert said...haunting.

My kind of poem most definitely and thank you for sharing. smiley

Jenny. 

 

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

Thank you for reading Jenny. I'm pleased that you enjoyed it and it's your kind of poem. A soul that won't go ever leave me, that's true.

 

Submitted by Di_Hard on

I love the first three lines, with "vastness" at the end. This stanza made me think of the end of the first Planet of the apes film, with the Statue of Liberty poking upthrough the beach.  I really like the idea of memories being like flotsam, or shells or driftwood. And then the idea that sleep is a tide, coming in, lifting us off from the ground under our feet to a floating state, taking us to foreign, strange dream lands. And then the memory of a person with eyes like the sun, only ever remembered at the edge of sleep, on the dreams' shore. It made me think of someone you try to forget but when your will is not in control, on the edge of sleep, you look back, remember

 

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

Thanks for reading Di and taking the time to comment. I enjoyed the Planet of the Apes films, they also had a dreamy quality. I think sleep is rather like a tide, coming in and out and carrying us away. You are correct, there are some people who are hard to forget for whatever reasons and if you try to suppress these thoughts then they can seep through into your dreams and once again, carve their impression freshly upon your consciousness.

 

Submitted by onemorething on

Lovely, wistful, sad. Excellent poem. :)

 

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

Hi onemorething and thank you so much for reading x