Poetry

By hadley

  • 4494 reads

The Hands of a Man

By hadley on Wed, 26 Jan 2011

These are the hands of a man But I don’t know what that means. These are not the hands of a son of toil They have not worked the fields From darkness to darkness. They have not hammered out
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

The Lake

By hadley on Sat, 06 Feb 2010

I have seen it all And the electric blue sparking Of dragonflies over still water As deep and as still As an unanswerable question. I saw you too, Brown and naked confidence
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

A Flame into Being

By hadley on Mon, 31 Dec 2007

A languid sigh and the luxury of motion as you rise up from stillness and silence shrugging off your redundant clothes all at once, like a cat washes off winter by a warming fire.
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

A Ghost Song

By hadley on Mon, 07 May 2007

Days are like wind chimes floating on the breeze. So much that is forgotten is forgotten. So much that is remembered haunts this waking dream. This is all that was ever offered
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

A Moment Of Balance

By hadley on Mon, 24 Mar 2008

Poised on the sheer edge, purposeful and tense, as though this one act could be the significant moment of a lifetime. A point of perfect balance on the fulcrum
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

A Possibility of Holding

By hadley on Mon, 03 Aug 2009

Out where there are dreams of distances and silences I dare to reach towards your nakedness with hands that can only do so little. I never learnt to make things
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

A Possibility of Holding

By hadley on Tue, 28 Sep 2004

Out where there are dreams of distances and silences I dare to reach towards your nakedness with hands that can only do so little. I never learnt to make things
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

A Sign

By hadley on Wed, 21 Sep 2011

Move slowly down to the sea. A solemn procession, silent, Dressed in black, hooded. They wait at the water's edge For some sign of recognition. The waves lap around their feet,
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U
Cherry

A Slight Delay

By hadley on Mon, 23 Apr 2007

So talk comes to a halt again as the rail tracks curl off into the distance parallel lines curving off together like some long unresolved argument. The train we are riding on
Travel
Poem
Certificate U

A Water Song

By hadley on Wed, 22 Jul 2009

I saw your hand make shapes to catch the falling rain. I saw your hand as a cup under the weight of a waterfall. I saw your hand slice through icy waters rushing away from melting snow.
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

All the Secret Moments

By hadley on Wed, 19 Oct 2011

She walked through all the days I set out just for her. She opened all the doors I’d closed, turning the key On each new morning’s world To step out into all
Miscellaneous
Story
Certificate U

Ambition

By hadley on Mon, 03 Sep 2007

All those bodies left in fields blood seeping, soaking deep like rain into the thirsty ground. I thought I knew then. I thought, I believed I was there to wear the holy crown,
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

An Apology for the Inconvenience

By hadley on Wed, 20 Feb 2013

He will regret speaking, As he regrets so very much Of a life not really used, Except to pass slow time In timid consideration Of carefully-chosen options, With well-defined limits
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U
1 likes

An Autumn Morning

By hadley on Mon, 02 Nov 2009

A time will come to us When these children run away. Over the horizon and gone To the lands of their own lives. What shall we do then? Shall we wake up suddenly One autumn morning, wishing
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U
Cherry

Another Obstacle

By hadley on Wed, 08 Feb 2012

And distance falls, becomes another obstacle. It stands in the way, guarding against The possibility of movement. A turning becomes a kind of stillness As motion turns in on itself.
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

As the Tide Turns

By hadley on Wed, 22 Feb 2012

All down along the shoreline spread, the waves are making edgy progress, while the tide advances like a cautious army crawls. But still the walls of castles crumble down
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate 12

Bare Rooms

By hadley on Mon, 05 Nov 2007

We have nothing left to show each other except empty hands that can only make these futile gestures towards the boxes that now hold so much of our once-shared lives.
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Beachcombing

By hadley on Mon, 16 Apr 2007

Each day is a ship, sailing on the horizon. There, and then it is gone. We search the clouds for the memory of its sails. On the shoreline we seek among shells and stones
Travel
Poem
Certificate U

Becalmed

By hadley on Mon, 20 Oct 2008

This morning all my thoughts are gone. Gone to wherever thoughts go when they are lost in their own seas. No longer tossed by vindictive waves that churn and boil in useless fury.
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Beneath Arching Wings

By hadley on Wed, 14 Mar 2012

And would you ever soar on up so high All over these forests and mountainsides While following the twists and turns below Of my own bluest river under skies
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate PG

Between Words

By hadley on Mon, 01 Dec 2008

Her hands took flight and moved to sculpt her words to give shaped elegance to all she said. She made each word a frozen moment, held beyond another wave of moving air.
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U
Cherry

Bird Watching

By hadley on Mon, 10 Dec 2007

Down by the stilled green water that offers no clue to depth, except that there is enough for some heartless bastard to drown six puppies in a sack, I wait, as I hear a dragonfly
Miscellaneous
Story
Certificate PG

Birds

By hadley on Mon, 22 Dec 2008

With hands that flutter like trapped birds, she sees only the bars of her slow-rusting cage each time she looks up, searching for the sky. Preferring to look down and see the birds
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Breathe a Name

By hadley on Mon, 14 Sep 2009

The world becomes familiar an inventory of possibilities hovers near your open lips. You take each delicate moment into cupped hands to breathe a name over what you can hold.
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Broken Wing

By hadley on Fri, 30 Jul 2010

If there is a moment you call your own. If there is a time you can hold in your hand, Soothing the broken wing that had once flown Far over these green hills where you stand
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Burst

By hadley on Mon, 24 Nov 2008

If I had words that could burst through the dark of your night like sudden fireworks of desire, to cover you in a healing rain of gold and silver, green and red and all the possible colours
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Butterfly Fragile

By hadley on Mon, 03 Mar 2008

Dreams are this fragile, insubstantial as a thought. Drop all these moments when they become almost real and the dreams can tear like tissues, to fall slowly as paper snowflakes
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Candle Flames And Butterflies

By hadley on Mon, 15 Dec 2008

Would you like to see this thought start out burning like the yellow-golden flame on the white candle, skittering and stuttering in the soft breeze drifting through the open cottage window?
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Cat's Cradle

By hadley on Mon, 28 Apr 2008

Follow the thread of history back along these corridors, contrived turnings, so many corners. We passed this way before. We followed the thread back to where all this once began.
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U
Cherry

Chaos Theory

By hadley on Mon, 02 Feb 2009

Words. These are words. Words, I do not need silence. Silence speaks like a sullen child. A child standing at the edge of a deep river. Rivers are like lives, we flood and drown the plains
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Circumnavigation

By hadley on Mon, 16 Jul 2007

Can your small room take the place of a whole wide world? Can you walk the arid deserts of this threadbare carpet? Can you explore the jungles of all these dense memories,
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Closer

By hadley on Tue, 28 Sep 2004

CLOSER Instances of motion, frozen paused by dreams we call out without sound across the wide blank spaces where time never moves. If we could only (...
Other Fiction
Story
Certificate U

Cold

By hadley on Tue, 06 May 2008

There are no embers now. Only dusty ash lying still, cold as the silent night. There is no fire left for us. We sit, each alone here wrapped inside the blankets
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Come a Time

By hadley on Mon, 05 Oct 2009

Revealed as only what might have been there will come a time. Revealed as a whole sky burning fire red in the stark morning there will come a time. Revealed as dreams torment
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Condemned

By hadley on Mon, 19 Jan 2009

Something moves and something turns and you will learn the shape of it. It grows out of the near darkness and out from the sounds of fear crawling through these dead streets.
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Crystal

By hadley on Mon, 12 May 2008

Naked, she runs, pale as a ghost of my desire
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Cunning

By hadley on Mon, 10 Nov 2008

A roundness of curving and taut skin stretched tight and neat round from the curved bottom between the opening thighs. A warm heartbeat of a place snuggled deep in its forest hide.
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate 18

Dance of the Spheres

By hadley on Tue, 28 Sep 2004

Dance of the Spheres Leaning against the turning world waiting for the sky to ask for a dance, she moves and the world can only turn around her. When...
Other Fiction
Story
Certificate U

Dark Shadows

By hadley on Mon, 27 Aug 2007

Dreams are far more dangerous than this. All I have is a small moment still in the quiet heart of the night, woken suddenly by something strange that takes shape out of a dream

Dawn Chorus

By hadley on Mon, 24 Aug 2009

I too could rise up hopeful, like the dawning sun. I too could start here at the day's beginning hour. I too could burn away the shadows, hiding mists,
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Dawning

By hadley on Mon, 26 Nov 2007

Now the dawn rises up like some new monster like some mythical beast old and new promise and threat. It begins and always will begin once again. There is nothing new.
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Dead Leaves

By hadley on Mon, 29 Oct 2007

The trees are bare, skeletal, their leaves toyed with by the wind floating free like loose pages torn from photograph albums. Leaves are memories that fall to the ground, around our feet
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

The Seas of Life

By hadley on Wed, 29 May 2013

Do you still go down to that shore these days To search for something new on the horizon? Do you still dream, or do you turn to walk Away slowly, back to that same old house
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate PG

Sea Horses

By hadley on Mon, 30 Apr 2007

Now the sea horses are still, poised, ornate like delicate jewellery. What that means, I do not know. We move on, in shoals, through the depths of dark shadows
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Snow Storm

By hadley on Mon, 14 May 2007

Here is a moment I found just for you. A memory of winter days. Tip it up and see slow snow falling. Take this memory that can sit fragile as a snowflake in the open palm of one hand.
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Sheets

By hadley on Mon, 21 May 2007

Such easy days, and the time drips by, like rain off a leaf. We stand and laugh, sit and smile, lie and kiss. I feel the warm easy pressure of your skin on my fingertips.
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Flying

By hadley on Mon, 04 Jun 2007

I hoped to break free soon, and learn then how to soar on up toward the bluest skies and, reaching out, forever taking handfuls from the empty air.
Miscellaneous
Certificate U

Kneeling

By hadley on Mon, 11 Jun 2007

I turn back towards a ghost of memory. On some sun-defined morning I could have found her there, kneeling by a limpid rock pool holding her long black hair back with one hand,
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U
Cherry

The Note

By hadley on Mon, 18 Jun 2007

The note is held, there, in the centre of the still room. It seems even breathing stopped. As though that one note holds all living pulses within its own bounds.
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Princess

By hadley on Mon, 25 Jun 2007

I saw your dream, held in an open hand offered to anyone who dared even pause in that impatient busy city street. I saw the dance on the wide-open stage
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Footsteps

By hadley on Mon, 02 Jul 2007

I remember too much and I remember nothing. So many names have danced through my longest nights. So many times have been lost between dreams and memory. I grow older and I learn
Miscellaneous
Certificate U

Shoreline

By hadley on Tue, 10 Jul 2007

But those were early younger days. So eager, waking with the dawn and old enough to walk alone on down to the deserted beach. I never searched for shells or stooped
Miscellaneous
Story
Certificate U

She Is

By hadley on Mon, 30 Jul 2007

She is the sky. She could be a bird, she could soar so high. She is the sun. She could be the moon. She could be the stars. She is freedom. She has no limits,
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Drowning

By hadley on Mon, 06 Aug 2007

I Under water where the deeper depths are down where breathing doesn't happen for me a slow motion is movement, like waves breaking. None of us knows motion like this, poised, delicate,
Miscellaneous
Certificate U

Our Lives

By hadley on Mon, 13 Aug 2007

I can look into her, or any woman's eyes and see our lives together. All the days have candle-lit slow dinners with soft talk. The barefoot moonlight strolls along the beach
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U
Cherry

Images

By hadley on Tue, 25 Sep 2007

Memory takes motion and freezes it. Each moment captured and held, there, a picture on the gallery wall. Here's where those moments will all end. Here's the last picture, where she turns
Autobiography
Certificate U

Shadow

By hadley on Mon, 19 Nov 2007

I shall grow out of the ground at your feet like a shadow at sunrise. I shall protect your young growing grass from the searing of the scorching sun.
Love
Poem
Certificate U

Mother Land

By hadley on Mon, 03 Dec 2007

She grew eternal, like the sky, out of horizons and mists enclosing me like some blue cotton sheet of childhood, letting the sun shine through, while I invented new cities
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

The Waters of Time

By hadley on Mon, 17 Dec 2007

A sudden falling into water. The sharp flashing splash that echoes into falling rain, and ripples that grow outwards from disturbance, like rumours of disaster. Then silence, except slow
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Sacrifice

By hadley on Mon, 07 Jan 2008

These are such slow days taken on a summer wing. Lazy and languid in breezes, hesitant as butterflies over the green rained grass and gentle nodding flowers. You are a flash of nudity
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U
Cherry

Stations

By hadley on Mon, 21 Jan 2008

Should I have forgotten the way your eyes looked away to stare along the route that would take you from me? Eyes which shone like polished metal in a face framed by the rust
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Ghosts and Shadows

By hadley on Mon, 28 Jan 2008

We haunt this deserted landscape between all the ruins of what were once our lives. We have become mere shadows now, or ghosts. What remains of us haunts these broken buildings
Miscellaneous
Certificate U
Cherry

Someone's Daughter

By hadley on Mon, 11 Feb 2008

She was someone's daughter. And now, I have daughters too. So, these days, I can understand why he hated this world and every man alive in it. Because he knew, as I know.
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U
Cherry

Theatre

By hadley on Mon, 18 Feb 2008

The mists draw back like curtains to reveal the theatre of morning. You appear, centre stage, and lead the children by the hand down to the sea of adventures. I sit, in the stalls,
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

The Shores of Morning

By hadley on Mon, 25 Feb 2008

I The hesitancy of waking surfacing from the depths up and through the dreaming sea out onto the surface of sleeping. The desire to remain floating here
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Procession

By hadley on Mon, 10 Mar 2008

There is so much out there that does not chime. We only hear the muffled, muted bells as the procession passes down the street. A stately slowness through the stillness holds,
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

The Dancer

By hadley on Mon, 17 Mar 2008

She dances alone, in the still centre of the empty room. Slow turning, a poised delicacy of seamless motion. Her long white dress becomes movement shaping swirls around her legs.
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Devotions

By hadley on Mon, 31 Mar 2008

We would kiss these holy symbols as though they're almost as sacred as the genitals of lovers.
Miscellaneous
Certificate PG

Mountain Stream

By hadley on Mon, 07 Apr 2008

The shallows, clear as sudden understanding. Your bare pink foot hesitates into water, swirling mud clouds eddying upwards like an insignificant world destroyed
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U
Cherry

Spring Morning

By hadley on Mon, 14 Apr 2008

I can see how it will happen on some new spring morning when the day is eager to begin in sharp sunshine and birdsong. The way you rise up, naked and free to taste the sun on the bright air
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

The Snow Falls

By hadley on Mon, 21 Apr 2008

The snow falls, closes us all down. We stop and all things come to a slow halting. We stand motionless. The snow falls, hiding our tracks. Turning the world white,
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Star

By hadley on Mon, 19 May 2008

There are times when it is all just an idea in the night, hanging, like a solitary star. Pick out each of those moments taking each one down out of the skies of time
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Labyrinth

By hadley on Tue, 27 May 2008

Once gripped tightly in eager hands, the thread has long since unravelled. Fallen apart. Nothing more to be revealed now, except the darkness and empty spaces. It is easy to slip,
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Jewels

By hadley on Mon, 02 Jun 2008

I have to go down to the ground and put my feet on bare earth to feel the living moment. I have each of these moments ready to become precious jewels of memory.
Miscellaneous
Certificate U
Cherry

Green and Roses

By hadley on Mon, 09 Jun 2008

I saw her dream on a white pillow patterned with bright defined roses. Just like the garden she dreamed of, as she ran through the green and possible, to that place
Miscellaneous
Certificate PG

Downpour

By hadley on Mon, 16 Jun 2008

The rain is always falling down so fast as though we live so deep below, submerged far underwater, never coming up for air and seeing how blue sky can be.
Miscellaneous
Certificate U

Refugee

By hadley on Mon, 23 Jun 2008

Loose hands fall by her sides. She stands, expecting nothing, except more of this world's pain to fall on her narrowed shoulders. Defeated by the weight of a life of enduring, unending,
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U
Cherry

How to Begin

By hadley on Mon, 30 Jun 2008

There are ways of beginning. Take a handful of nothing and breathe a living breath all over it, as you shape and create a new meaning. There are ways of beginning.
Miscellaneous
Certificate U

Shared Dreams

By hadley on Mon, 07 Jul 2008

I move as you move and we will move together, joined together through the night, all night long. We follow each other across this bed as in our dreams we walk hand in hand,
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Salvation

By hadley on Mon, 14 Jul 2008

We do not need to wait for signs these days, we’ve seen the stars are distant, further still than distance we can know and reach out for. They are no longer watchers over us
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U
Cherry

Flowers

By hadley on Mon, 21 Jul 2008

These flowers were forgotten left in the waterless vase until they turned brittle brown, became bare dry sticks; leaves fallen, petals long lost. Flowers in memory only.
Miscellaneous
Certificate PG
Cherry

Seasons (Naga-Uta*)

By hadley on Mon, 28 Jul 2008

Then, when the rain stops and you step outside, to walk once again, barefoot over the wet grass, like that long lost girl-woman of innocent summer sex, you remember how
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Dreaming of Summer

By hadley on Mon, 04 Aug 2008

"I was fast asleep," she said. "I dreamt of summer. But all we have here are these long cold dark winters where no fire can warm our lives, to melt this ice sheet that covers it all,
Miscellaneous
Certificate U

Ritual

By hadley on Mon, 11 Aug 2008

Are these the hands that shaped these times from soil, and took each precious stone down to the sea to wash it, bring it back, arrange like shapes that will become significant and pure?
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

One Such Morning

By hadley on Mon, 18 Aug 2008

A misty early morning, barefoot run in dewy grass. You in a floating dress so thin, I can almost see right through it. And your night tumbled hair and summer smile
Love
Poem
Certificate U

Roosting

By hadley on Mon, 25 Aug 2008

A form of words, a shape carved from discarded silences, taken from the untidy piling of thought. Used to make these dark formations taking to the still evening air
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Six O'Clock

By hadley on Mon, 01 Sep 2008

All distance is a sweet lie now the world is mere electrons beamed from there to over here, and disaster is only a switch away where the world is always ending. And those same dark eyes stare
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

How to Fall

By hadley on Mon, 08 Sep 2008

I now understand how to fall so that I can land gracefully. I have perfected the small art of how to lose with dignity, and walk away with ease without needing to look back, not even once.
Miscellaneous
Certificate U
Cherry

The Open Road

By hadley on Mon, 15 Sep 2008

The silence of the night, so quiet you can hear every tremble of your heart. And the whisper of your wheels on the rain-wet road are secrets that just have to be shared.
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Stain

By hadley on Mon, 22 Sep 2008

You stood there, in front of me still with a desire I didn't deserve, or understand, but only shared. Your head bowed down staring hard at threadbare carpet where we had come together.
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate 15

Remembering

By hadley on Mon, 29 Sep 2008

I remember such younger days, and how beginnings were made to grow out of what could be found nearby, left within easy reach of childhood. and what small clever hands could make
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Dropped

By hadley on Mon, 06 Oct 2008

A day gone is a day lost. Lost and gone forever. We cannot walk back to that day, dropped only a short week ago. Pick it up, dust it off, and smile at our good fortune
Miscellaneous
Certificate U

Discarded

By hadley on Mon, 13 Oct 2008

To search for what is found, there by the edge of roads and pathways. Places where time is still against the movement taking all the world to somewhere else, just the same as they left
Miscellaneous
Certificate U

Your Own Dreams

By hadley on Mon, 17 Nov 2008

So, do you turn away, back into the night like you used to, all those years ago? Diving deep into your own dreams to swim across the night time seas in search of that one far-off land,
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U
Cherry

Ribbon

By hadley on Mon, 08 Dec 2008

You wore a blue ribbon, over white stockings for your wedding day. The land opened up in front of us, spread out towards the horizon. And you said, how the river could be a ribbon too.
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Lost Names

By hadley on Mon, 29 Dec 2008

An enemy makes life simple. Drunk on heroes and legends, uniforms and marching songs. As if there were not enough ordinary tragedies for them, they marched off into history
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Hesitancies of Reason

By hadley on Mon, 05 Jan 2009

A pause between the now, and then. Understanding, like these ancient rivers forming slowly. All the centuries of reaching desire. A need to hold. Formations carved by so many seasons
Miscellaneous
Certificate U

Empty Hands

By hadley on Mon, 12 Jan 2009

What silences can take their shape through this dull mist of morning rain? The slow black figures easing past on through the frosted grass to stand in stillness, verging on a pit
Miscellaneous
Certificate U

Summoning

By hadley on Mon, 26 Jan 2009

There's a time for gentle carving, perhaps in front of the fire during the long winters, when the possibility of spring seems as hollow as a promise no-one is expected to keep.
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Footprints

By hadley on Mon, 09 Feb 2009

We turn and see our footsteps curving back. Our every step recorded by damp sand. This empty beach acquires a memory. But, history is never straightforward.
Miscellaneous
Certificate U

Sub Rosa

By hadley on Mon, 16 Feb 2009

You keep the real shape of you safe inside your secluded world, where you no longer need compose a public face to face the world. You open your cupboard of secrets
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

She Was The One

By hadley on Mon, 23 Feb 2009

She was the one who didn't let the day go. She was the one who held time so tightly. She was the one who wouldn't let the weeks go by. She was the one who saved up, stored,
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Haunted

By hadley on Mon, 02 Mar 2009

The house will haunt you long after you leave it. Opening the doors of all your dreams, to take possession, never let you go. The night, once more, will find you there,
Miscellaneous
Certificate U

I Did Not Fly Back From Mumbai

By hadley on Mon, 13 Jul 2009

I too have wasted my life. I did not fly back from Mumbai early this morning, as you slept deep between expensive sheets, to bring you gifts and warm romance.
Miscellaneous
Certificate U

The Bride

By hadley on Mon, 27 Jul 2009

She was there and dressed in white I thought, for a time, she could be a bride, my bride. But she is not there for weddings she is no-one's bride. She will not be tamed.
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Something about Flowers

By hadley on Mon, 10 Aug 2009

Down there in the dawning light she stands like a frozen gesture: a shadow frozen on the ground until she recalls the necessary motion and turns towards the morning.
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U
Cherry

Distant lands

By hadley on Mon, 17 Aug 2009

I knew you then, you had secrets and such dark hair that kept you hidden like some eastern veiled bride-to-be floating though our more ordinary days with the scent of exotic unguents
Miscellaneous
Certificate U

Eternal

By hadley on Mon, 31 Aug 2009

Down here, we let the dust run through our fingers as we wait for rain to fall. We hear voices on the wind and see stern faces in the beards of the clouds. We search for reasons
Miscellaneous
Certificate U
Cherry

Promises

By hadley on Mon, 07 Sep 2009

I do not want to search the night's dark skies just for the possibility of stars when I can watch as you undress again at this, another ending weary day.
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Fogbound

By hadley on Mon, 21 Sep 2009

The years fall behind me And I grow too old to hope For dreams that are not regrets. I invent new memories Of what life ought to have been. I should have been someone else
Miscellaneous
Certificate U

Low Tide

By hadley on Mon, 12 Oct 2009

These are the shores of my mind And today is low tide And all I have is this beach Littered with small evaporating pools And the flotsam and jetsam of a normal life
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Fireworks

By hadley on Thu, 05 Nov 2009

(A Bonfire Night Poem) These times take the shape Of beginnings for you. But I've lived a life Like this before. The sharp sudden colours Of fireworks exploding Into instances of creation
Miscellaneous
Certificate U
Cherry

Infestation

By hadley on Sat, 09 Jan 2010

I warned you about the danger of letting poems into the house. Now we have verse everywhere, sonnets asleep in the kitchen and bawdy ballads in the bedrooms.
Miscellaneous
Certificate U

In The Name Of Blood

By hadley on Sat, 16 Jan 2010

We speak of this blood As though it has some property beyond The sheer magic of its redness. We give names to these dreams and call them true, Expecting the world to conform.
Miscellaneous
Certificate PG

The Sculpture

By hadley on Thu, 04 Feb 2010

The rusted tank by the roadside, grass, even a few flowers, growing around and up through the turret. Its broken-backed gun barrel reaches like a pleading, dying hand.
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U
Cherry

The Beach

By hadley on Fri, 12 Feb 2010

The sea sighs like yet another lonely night. These are dry dull days when even the sand Seems dead and bare of flotsam, Not even having the energy For some wind-blown shapes
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Windows

By hadley on Sat, 20 Mar 2010

I look from the outside Through careless windows Left uncurtained And note that life goes on. A different kind of life Behind each window. A new created world Behind each clear pane.
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Sleeping Beauty

By hadley on Fri, 26 Mar 2010

Each day it is a new gift Waiting to be opened. Boxed, neatly ready For the kiss, it waits Patiently behind beauty's Entangled brambles, Sleeping with parted lips. A cunning disguise.
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate 15
Cherry

Headstones

By hadley on Sat, 03 Apr 2010

The headstone fallen, broken and then lost In high forgotten grass, the brighter weeds Where only busy insects and the occasional fox Wanders by. There is only distant birdsong
Miscellaneous
Certificate U

Old Monsters

By hadley on Wed, 28 Apr 2010

There were stars out there once for us. Standing on these cold hillsides, We could see only the covering sky. Not satisfied with the limits of ordinary sight
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

We Had Times

By hadley on Mon, 10 May 2010

We had times for dancing under starry skies, But I never wanted to dance. We had times for moonlit sea swimming, But I cannot swim too well. We had all the young days, But I wasted them
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U
Cherry

Something Could Happen

By hadley on Fri, 21 May 2010

But, all days can start like this Here is nothing to be found, Except when walking the beaches For what the tide leaves behind. We expect a treasure, But find only stones, shells,
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Ordinary Dreaming

By hadley on Sun, 30 May 2010

No springtime will come back to us, not now, Our day is gone, our chances are all missed. The train has left our station without us. We never did get to that special place
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U
Cherry

What Lies Beyond

By hadley on Fri, 11 Jun 2010

Distance grows like the space between times When we learnt how to hold onto those moments That can so easily slip by, and be lost forever. Silence grows around us and fills those spaces
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

The Hand Of Day

By hadley on Mon, 21 Jun 2010

The coloured skies of dawn that hold The promised day there in the palm Of morning. Close enough for you To take the hand of day and walk On down these paths, between the gorse
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Sand Through Fingers

By hadley on Fri, 25 Jun 2010

Cupped hands hold dreams That sand through fingers Like clouds across your night time skies. Turning, you reach out To hold onto a single cloud That will blanket you
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Some Secret Too Big

By hadley on Tue, 06 Jul 2010

These are the stars that hold us here as green is filled with living worlds to turn around and all around again, until we grow alone, and feeling lost, are pushed up close
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

To Dust

By hadley on Wed, 14 Jul 2010

I fall slowly down To lie on dead ground And be forgotten. I turn to dust And am spread out Everywhere on dry dead winds. Then, that young woman daydream walking Of her marriage dread
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Entanglement

By hadley on Wed, 21 Jul 2010

It burns and purges deep the hollowness That lies inside the pain of your recall. To turn away and leave all your distress Between these shadows haunting every room
Miscellaneous
Certificate U

Time And The Sky Revolve Around Us

By hadley on Wed, 04 Aug 2010

The stars beyond the distance, everywhere Too far away and nothing close to touch, Beyond our grasp, and reach. We only stare And long for hands that hold and comfort us.
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate 12

This is like Forgetting

By hadley on Wed, 11 Aug 2010

In the darkness, we form shapes Of lovers with our hands reaching Out for the comfort of closeness. Outside, the clouds grow darker Heavy under the weight Of all we have left behind.
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U
Cherry

We Want It Now

By hadley on Wed, 25 Aug 2010

The stars are out beyond, too far to touch. We are here, too close together for words To separate or destroy as we clutch This too brief moment before the night turns
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate 12

Sunday Dinner (With Grandmother)

By hadley on Wed, 01 Sep 2010

These formal situations. We sit like disapproval, Our backs straight as hard chairs. Hands, an unnecessary indulgence, Lie defeated and limp in laps Like the vegetables set out
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

The Day Is Slow - [Terza Rima]

By hadley on Wed, 22 Sep 2010

The day is slow and waiting for the time When stillness falls away, and motion turns This life towards a newer paradigm. To take up all that only waits and yearns,
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

The Wind is a Child

By hadley on Wed, 06 Oct 2010

The wind is a child Wanting to play with all it finds; Leaves, rubbish, hats and umbrellas. The wind is a child With a child's tantrums destroying easily,
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

I Am Not The Sun

By hadley on Fri, 15 Oct 2010

I am not the sun Even if you are the moon. My meagre light is not enough To illuminate the face You show to the world. I am not the sun So, this one simple flame
Miscellaneous
Certificate U

Heatwave

By hadley on Wed, 24 Nov 2010

She pours the coldest waters over heat, Her head of summer, heavy, languid thought, A cooling of all desire, bittersweet. The weight of summer’s long and hot onslaught
Miscellaneous
Certificate U

Rain

By hadley on Fri, 17 Dec 2010

The rain will fall, we will forget The sun and all its burning light, Forget these long days of regret. The too hot nights are unpaid debts Against our time spent there, so slight.
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Wreckage

By hadley on Wed, 16 Feb 2011

Your storms churned Tossed the ship of my life To lie wrecked On the rocks of your reef. Your island, distant Bare and unfriendly Unredeemed by human habitation Just the sea-teased flotsam.
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Mists

By hadley on Wed, 09 Mar 2011

The days will pass in misty silences As we go walking through these landscapes made So suddenly into substantial dreams, Where anything that looms abruptly out
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

The Shells And Stones (Villanelle)

By hadley on Wed, 30 Mar 2011

The waves will wash the shells and stones As flotsam tumbles over shores And leaves the bodies and the bones Of creatures water now disowns. Despite the secret hordes it stores
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Spring

By hadley on Wed, 06 Apr 2011

These are the bad days. Cold and dark, they perch On the chest, pushing down And the only hiding Is to hide inside and wait For green spring to take you By the hand, ready
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Twelve Small Dreams

By hadley on Wed, 13 Apr 2011

Twelve small dreams take hold and take you down to the sea. Floating over the dunes like soft summer breezes That caresses every blade of grass. You are free,
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate PG

This is How

By hadley on Fri, 29 Apr 2011

These are our hands, And this is how we use them To make shapes of our lives. We carve meaning into moments That shape us and give us names To take through into the distance.
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Out of Reach

By hadley on Wed, 11 May 2011

So, we are left behind Alone on this cold shoreline And staring far away To the horizon’s end While telling all those tales We can recall too well. We know his story ended
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Working World

By hadley on Wed, 18 May 2011

Now I watch from this one window As the ordinary world passes by. It doesn’t seem to need me now, Managing quite well on its own. Its days can start and dress themselves
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Heroes

By hadley on Wed, 25 May 2011

When your heroes are those Who lack the courage To live the life of an ordinary day. Talking only of horizons And what lies beyond. You know you will awake Alone again.
Miscellaneous
Certificate U

Nameless

By hadley on Wed, 08 Jun 2011

It comes out of the darkness. It comes out of the silence Stretched like wings Of pure blackness. Enveloping. Suffocating. There are so many things That need to be said,
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U
Cherry

Petulant Goddess

By hadley on Wed, 22 Jun 2011

I should have used the silence held between Each sleeping breath to take these scattered blocks All spread across your bedroom floor. A scene From a disaster film, or TV news shocks.
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Sun Worship

By hadley on Wed, 29 Jun 2011

This sand churned by the mysterious Precise rituals of the beach By the rites of holy holiday. The offerings of anointed flesh Stretched out in eager sacrifice
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Room

By hadley on Wed, 13 Jul 2011

A slow movement and thoughtful gestures Towards making some sort of difference. Possibilities arise, but are left unstated As silence grows up all around us Like ivy over these ancient walls.
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Naked Under Foreign Skies (Sestina)

By hadley on Wed, 07 Sep 2011

I She sat there, naked under foreign skies On that high balcony and looking down To see the beach so far below her feet As naked and as empty as she felt
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate PG

Summer Butterflies

By hadley on Wed, 14 Sep 2011

“But words,” she said. “They Don’t mean anything at all. They flutter around And weave patterns through our days, Like the too brief lives Of bright summer butterflies.
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Surface Tension

By hadley on Wed, 28 Sep 2011

Skimming out across the surface, Leaving it unmarked, unchanging. Letting time slip right by, floating On the surface as my steps can Only dent the meniscus of Every moment like that summer
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

The Taste of Silence

By hadley on Wed, 23 Nov 2011

I know the taste of silence, It is here, soft and metallic. You know the taste of disappointment Its bitter sharp sourness. We have tasted life And both turned away To face each other
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Fingerprints

By hadley on Fri, 09 Dec 2011

We stand and then we will see how this world Begins to form the shape of a new day Against the far horizon of our lives. We’ve seen the sun come rising from the dawn
Miscellaneous
Certificate PG

Seasons of Time

By hadley on Fri, 16 Dec 2011

Anyway the world moves, But it’s only the one way. There is no past here To cling to as the world turns Its old face to face Into the unknown future. While we are stuck here
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Matriarch

By hadley on Fri, 23 Dec 2011

All the days of returning when you are shocked By the strangeness of the familiar, and how Life goes on in the same constantly changing way That is so well-known in the way everything becomes
Miscellaneous
Story
Certificate U

Those Darker Nights

By hadley on Fri, 30 Dec 2011

We do not see such things as signs. We do not look up to see the sky, to choose foretellings of catastrophe from the movements within the spheres. In our heavens, we see only distances
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Secret Keys

By hadley on Wed, 11 Jan 2012

She has so many keys, collecting them All since she was such a very young girl To lock her secrets deep inside her dreams Where no one could rip them away from her
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Nothing Else But Stillness

By hadley on Wed, 18 Jan 2012

The world will grow so green around us soon While we wait for time to begin again. At night, still there are stars against the sky, And there is sound and there is silence too.
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Falling Out Of Darkness

By hadley on Wed, 25 Jan 2012

We have seen so many new days fall out Of the darkness into the dawning light. We have taken these paths down to the sea And stood on the shore, watched the changing tides.
Miscellaneous
Certificate U

Through Glass

By hadley on Wed, 01 Feb 2012

She is walking through the door Stepping over cracked floorboards To her place near the window, To watch a world through glass Passing by, safe on the other side.
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Still Dancing

By hadley on Wed, 15 Feb 2012

Dancing through days that fall At your feet like bright petals, You see all your tomorrows Spreading out towards the horizon. You have lived a life like this before,
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Our Father

By hadley on Wed, 29 Feb 2012

He had confident safe hands. I wanted hands like that. The knowing hands of a man Who knows how the world works, And how to fix it, when it doesn't. For he is the one to fix things,
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Dreams Will Grow From Turning Time

By hadley on Wed, 07 Mar 2012

As night arrives to take your hands and go To places dreams will grow from turning time Around and twisting memory and hope Across the pillow held beneath your head
Miscellaneous
Certificate U

Forgotten Dreams

By hadley on Wed, 21 Mar 2012

These beautiful things, delicate and small Are made for turning to catch the light and eye These are like dreams, and dropped so easily On the still warm pillow as you awake,
Miscellaneous
Certificate PG

She Knows

By hadley on Wed, 18 Apr 2012

She moves as she understands Easily, with a grace of knowing Light, like the breezes of spring Blowing headlong into summer. She flows like the slow stream Long after the snows are gone.
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

It Echoes Back

By hadley on Fri, 08 Feb 2013

It echoes back from the heart of not knowing, This is a place where we must always stand As it is not always so easy to find a way Through to the hidden centre of these times
Miscellaneous
Certificate U

Found and Lost Again

By hadley on Wed, 13 Feb 2013

And then the motion takes us further on To places found and lost again, as time Is turning on, far past those times long gone We lost or left behind, almost a crime
Miscellaneous
Certificate PG

To Escape Again

By hadley on Wed, 27 Feb 2013

I tried forgetting, but that never really works. I tried walking away, but still have shoulders To look back over and the distance always Makes these things seem more attractive
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate PG

I Go With Regret

By hadley on Mon, 02 Dec 2013

I go with weary reluctance And I go slowly – with regret. I hope not to look back with longing Leaving all we allowed ourselves behind. I have good...
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate 12

Sifting Through

By hadley on Tue, 06 Jan 2015

Sifting Through Can we form new days out of the ghosts Of memory? Or is it all lost, forgotten Left covered in dust blown in over it By these cold...
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U