Yearning

This is poem that I'm rather proud of - it's odd that I stick rigidly to a structure that I've decided on beforehand, but I was determined not to give up on it. So, 13,000 redrafts later, I'm finally happy that it says what I wanted it to, and rhymes and has the right number of syllables in each  line!


Yearning

From the dust to which we shall return,

A single glorious ember burns,

Animating sullen clay.

As like to like together yearns,

Impelled, the clay begins to churn,

Toward another husk it sways.

The longing’s strong, and yet to learn

Its solitude, so still it turns,

To usher outer dark away.

The sparks grow close, yet sep’rate stay,

Divided by encumbering clay,

Which flows with longing brotherhood.

They mold as closely as they may,

Aligning tighter day by day,

Shared passions as a second blood.

Rebellious fire burns away

In unison, they bow and pray

For ending of their solitude.

Starlight

Sorry for the long delay between posts - other things to do, you know how it goes. This poem makes use of an idea that'd been kicking around in my head for a while, and I'm still not entirely happy with the title. Any suggestions would be welcome.


Starlight

Struggling up, bent double, the hill that leads home,

The chill in the sky settling into my bones,

I scan the way carefully for patches of ice.

Skidding and slipping, and losing control,

Progress is tentative, tortuous and slow,

Coldness and misery deaden the soul.

The handles of the bags cause my knuckles to ache

With curious burning, as wind pinches my face,

Grounded in the weaknesses of flesh.

My downward-case vision, scouring the ground

Take in crystals of ice scattered around,

Coruscating in place as I move.

My perspective is changing – I come to a halt;

The strange constellations between the rock salt

All discomforts and achings forgetting.

As the mind’s focus alters, I seem to fall forward,

Moving through the asphalt to the glittering starfield,

Drifting through burnished infinity.

Unanchored I soar through endless starshine,

Exulting in absolute freedom, for a time,

Transcending my fleeting frailty.

Can you tell what subject I study? This is an odd one, but neatly contained within it is the exact reason I'm doing zoology... A weird blend of my two interests.

All Things Strive

Five kilometres below sea level, where the sun’s light has never been known,

On a freezing and bleak abyssal plane, always crushed under the pressure of tonnes,

There lived a crab.

Tiny, bleached, apparently fragile, it scuttles between the rotting carcasses

And the effluvia of billions of other animals that thrive in the sun,

There lives the crab.

Past the great mouldering corpse of a leviathan, now ravaged and diminished

By unknown and unseen denizens, the necrophagic scavengers of the deep,

Scuttles the crab.

Picking across the detritus of a life unknown in this cold and sightless hell,

Towards a wound in the world that exudes toxic chemicals in scalding billows,

Wanders the crab.

Clustered around the noxious fumes that spill into the otherwise empty landscape,

On a razor’s edge of survival at the very edge of viability,

Live the crabs.

Dancing between long elegant ribbons of scarlet,

A flora unknown and forever unseen,

Yet glorious.