Sometimes When I Forget: Poem

Sometimes When I Forget

Sometimes when I forget
Where I am, where I will be tomorrow
Blessed memory can take me on it's wings far, far away.

When the pain gets too much
Pass my finger across the strings
The wooden body hums, the wooden body needs that much.

The flesh is weak but the mind,
Permits some delusions
The time for illusions has gone.

Sometimes when I forget
Where I am, where I began
Where and I am and what I've become
Insomuch
Where I can be in the long years to come.

Copyright: Rani Turton

A Mad Bird Was I: Poem

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A Mad Bird Was I

I walked down that lonely road
That sinuous, torturous bend
You know how I hated
The cold, the distance, my thoughts.

My thoughts flew back and forth
Like a mad bird blinded by the light
I was lost; I was lonely; I was in pain
A mad bird was I.

There was no way out of this blundering
Floundering directionless path to nowhere.
There was no way out and the how and the whys
Were the least of it all.

I was like that mad bird in full, haphazard flight.
 
Copyright: Rani Turton

A Clock, A Street, A Tower: Poem

A Clock, A Street, A Tower

There is a clock on a city street
These pavings that have often known my feet
There is a clock, a street and a tower
That is the mystery of love's power.

That stones alone can intense emotion retain
That you can walk forlorn in the pouring rain
That, whatever may happen, years ahead
For me these streets will never, never be dead.

The pain in my heart stops me now:
My faltering steps even begin to slow;
The mist from these mountains stings;
Memories, moments, melancholy and things.

Now behold the time for resolutions
Time can often bring its own solutions;
How do I walk away when familiar voices call
Me back; let me sit on that stone bench and recall.

Copyright: Rani Turton

This Point In Time: Poem

THIS POINT IN TIME

Then come to me with the breeze ruffling your hair
The setting sun in your eyes
The same blue as the sea and the skies

Then the whisper of your presence will tell me
You are not far
Strange thoughts will come to mind

That the sea is smooth tonight
That the harbour is full of light
That the cafés overlook the piers
That the rain will fall softly on already wet cheeks
And gentle waves slurp into the creeks

That waiting here is a fallacy
That I should be somewhere else at this point in time
That I should be somewhere else at this point in time.

Copyright: Rani Turton

Ideas, Ideals and Delusions: Poem

Ideas, Ideals And Delusions

I have some notions of nothingness
I have some ideals of illusions
Into the abyss then with these thoughts
My ideas, ideals and delusions.

I can sweep away those cob-webbed dreams
Wipe clean every troublesome image
But nothing, nothing ever again
Can help me really turn the page

There are persistant and resistant matters
That will come back like a boomerang
Like a half-latched door in a tempest
That will continue to maddeningly bang

Away then and into the vast starry night
I will somehow continue to live;
My ideals of illusions, my dreams of delusions
Can also help to make me survive.
 
Copyright: Rani Turton

Artisan Of Words: Poem

Artisan of Words

I am an artisan of words
Which I sculpt, chisel and fashion the way I can
I am a creator of worlds;
I pour my emotion into the poems I write.
I breathe life into them, blow them skywards
And finish them only when they sound right.

These remnants of thought without reason
Will remain on pages season after season
Long after I'm gone; when my task is done
The love, the longing, the pain
Will be evoked then by somebody else
Who in turn will remember and write again
To create another slow soft song
That people can read and draw into their hearts
Then pillowed by words, cushioned by dreams
My poems will ride high the moonbeams.

copyright: Rani Turton 

The Poet As In Exile: Poem

The Poet As In Exile

The mind moves, the way hands do
To touch a beloved's face;  to feel within
The soul, the thoughts, the skin.

The mind, sometimes heavy, lacks the shine
Of the freshly polished vase
The mind, saddened by its exile
Tries to leave the poet behind.

The mental, the metal,the marital, the martial
Worlds seem to be in fusion;
And then ultimately comes
The anguish, the joy or the confusion.

Footsteps around the world;
Standing over the Seine
Clouds in the water, and nothing
To guide me even then.

Like any other poet in exile
Destiny seemed knotted like a rug
Persian-perfect and that thought,
That absurdity  finally made me smile.

Copyright: Rani Turton