#archivingheartbeats

[archivingheartbeats]

VDT 8

---

Glitter and gleam of strangely shining things –

Curses can be beautiful, it seems.

Serpents of the deep shimmer

With vivid rainbow mail,

And golden treasure bares its teeth

Until dazed victims set their sail.

#poetry #archivingheartbeats #castingmysilver #books #narnia #voyage of the dawn treader

[nobrashfestivity]

by @archivingheartbeats

#everyone hates poetry 2024

[archivingheartbeats]

The skies are soft and gentle there,

And rarely flash a smile -

Here they are fierce, excitable,

And sunny all the while.

I've grown to know how cherry trees

Embrace the Springtime rain,

While here the bright azaleas

Are coming out again.

#poetry #archivingheartbeats #castingmysilver #seasons #travel #napowrimo2023

[archivingheartbeats]

Friendship doesn't feel like fire, anymore.

Our shared has-been could burn me hollow.

There is no raging need to throw

Open wide the gates, to be invaded.

You have no invasion force.

You're just one weary traveler

Easing down the road

To meet my hearth-fire.

You're just the cat padding peaceful

To my lap to purr and sleep.

And that's the way I love you.

My hearth is always ready,

Because I know you'll knock for me.

My hand is open to your curious nose,

The gentle dance of reacquaintance

Waiting on your purr.

#poetry #archivingheartbeats #castingmysilver #ex cousin #friends lost and found #kinds of love

[archivingheartbeats]

Whisper into the hopeful heart of me.

I will cast out to the dark and void to find you

And shine a silver light upon the sea.

To our sisterhood I would be true

Perhaps forever, if I may make so bold.

Together dark and light will find love's cue.

The abyss will echo a tale once told

Of two hearts, just longing to be free.

By my art I'd banish all its cold.

#poetry #archivingheartbeats #castingmysilver #friendship #napowrimo 2024 #cyberfriends

[archivingheartbeats]

A Dream

---

Spread the stars out like a blanket.

Spread the stars out on the sea.

Your son has gone a-voyaging

To find what he will be.

The nighttime is your treasure.

The darkness keeps him in.

All your guiding lights are twinkling down

On his ever-ready grin.

Spread your darkness, spread it farther–

For his voyage ends with Sun!--

And he would not turn his ship for home

Until his truth is won.

#poetry #archivingheartbeats #castingmysilver #dreams #starstuff #napowrimo 2024

[archivingheartbeats]

Finding a Sister

---

I met you by surprise, over a series of questions;

A call sent, half-hoping, into the dark. 

Did anyone know the call of the secret hideaway?

The books that I had loved, within my childhood strictures?

You loved the same pages, imagination's scriptures.

You knew the call of the secret hideaway.

In the dark and lonely you grabbed the hope.

The web sparkled, and brought me my answer.

#poetry #archivingheartbeats #castingmysilver #kinds of love #cyberfriends #napowrimo 2024

[archivingheartbeats]

VDT 10

---

Screw up your courage now, child queen,

For magic is a mazey thing.

It deals in silver and moonlight,

And masks and mirrors, beauty bright. 

It whispers lures the world would rue 

And tells secrets slantwise but true.

It summons, sings, reveals, and mocks.

It slides between the ticks and tocks.

It drums along to your heartbeat.

It knows what you'd like most to eat.

It stretches out the corridor

And waits behind the last left door.

It sparkles up your hands and spine

And explicates the laws Divine.

But it can be quite joyous, too.

A tale told will kindly haunt you.

It binds up Love by Love's own laws

And lets you hear the hidden paws.

You know not where your journey leads:

What's casting shadows, planting seeds.

#poetry #archivingheartbeats #castingmysilver #books #narnia #magic #voyage of the dawn treader #lucy pevensie

[archivingheartbeats]

“She dreamed of canaries singing in the dark.”

And oh, that dark was deep.

Beyond the hope of any spark

The killers’ hands did sleep.

But bright and yellow were their birds,

And singing sweet as pain;

And they brought hope beyond all words,

And refreshing without rain.

Abandoned in the darkened cells

Without a window blue,

They brought out hardened tenderness

Too strange to be true.

Even in a world of blood and nettles,

Eyeless men,

A bird could give the darkest soul

A small light back again.

#poetry #archivingheartbeats #castingmysilver #of worlds in books #discworld #tiffany aching #napowrimo 2024

[archivingheartbeats]

Rainbow

4/10/2024

Recognition gleams

In the colors of wonder—

Sudden prism joy.

#poetry #haiku #napowrimo 2024 #archivingheartbeats #castingmysilver

[archivingheartbeats]

VDT 7

---

Sand-scrawling has its disadvantages 

When you are trying to write your own story,

And you don't know how to write a story,

And you've only your claws to write with 

And compete against the surf.

You're scrambling to show new vantages,

Stripped of all close-held vainglory–

For this monstrous hide can hold no glory–

Wanting only to speak again to your kith,

Even mediated by wet earth.

Then moonlight meets you where it should not be

And charts a jungle path to set you free.

You can finally speak with your tongue of your rebirth 

Although it sounds to your own ears like dream or myth.

Another's claws wrote deep in your hide

And stripped you clean til you couldn't hide,

And you were thrown into a well of living water

That un-wrote your fearful story,

Like your sandy faltering script.

Old skin and new heartsong are all you kept.

#poetry #archivingheartbeats #castingmysilver #books #narnia #voyage of the dawn treader #eustace scrubb #shapeshifting #redemption

[archivingheartbeats]

VDT 6

---

When the fog clears

You find you're in

The steep trench of your personal hell,

Fire-char on its embankments. 

When the fog clears 

You find that the

Path of descent was so narrow,

You wonder how you ever made it.

When the fog clears

You find you're on

The brink of something darker still,

And strange new threats are moving.

When the fog clears,

Your world is changing:

You've crawled farther outside your frame

Of reference than any mere 

Magic picture-frame could shift you,

You've nearly plumbed the bottom

Of the lonely pit within your heart,

And there is one more step 

To meet its scaly center.

The world is wilder,

And yet truer,

Than your corkboards of neatly labeled samples

Ever knew that it could be,

Here,

When the fog clears.

#poetry #archivingheartbeats #castingmysilver #books #narnia #voyage of the dawn treader #eustace scrubb

[archivingheartbeats]

VDT Chapter 4

"Gatekeeping"

Change doesn't come on your schedule,

You see,

You poor man.

We watch you stumble forth

From the door you're meant to guard

To greet a King.

Half-hearted demands about second Saturdays

No longer mean a thing.

The sun blazes on his armor,

While you're in your worst, and shedding stray crumbs.

Will you or nil you, jubilee has come,

Certain and cold as sea-spray 

That slaps your face from a picture-frame

You hide in a spare bedroom.

You're in a thoughtless bubble, gatekeeper,

As sure as Eustace Clarence with his hopes of consuls.

Will you listen when reality breaks in?

#poetry #archivingheartbeats #castingmysilver #books #narnia #voyage of the dawn treader #the lone islands

[archivingheartbeats]

VDT Chapter 3

"Same Old"

They came ashore for a lark

(And it was singing!),

And to dig bare toes into the warm sand,

And relax in the echo 

Of a memory ringing.

They should have known how far the land

Could change, over so much time.

Had they not learned that lesson before,

In the harsh schools of Paravel's ruins,

Silent woods, and river dug in gorge?

Lucy and Ed, you came home 

To a peninsula made an island.

Why should this island be the same?

But still you hoped for simple joys,

Evoked by a familiar name. 

#poetry #archivingheartbeats #castingmysilver #books #narnia #voyage of the dawn treader #prince caspian #the pevensies #the lone islands #felimath

[archivingheartbeats]

VDT 9

--

Strangely familiar,

The clipped green lawn stretches on

Across foreign soil.

Silence is king here

Beneath deep garden shadows

Until babble comes.

The deep uncanny peace is broken now

By thumping, cheering, eager enemies.

A spear is thrown, sweat gathers on your brow.

There's just one this to do if you would please:

Invisible men

Require enchantment lifted

By a braver girl.

A fine country house

Shelters fell magician's book

In bright summer heat.

The quest and spell are frightful for the child they mean

To recruit, but perhaps old hat for a titled valiant queen.

#poetry #archivingheartbeats #castingmysilver #books #narnia #voyage of the dawn treader #dufflepuds #lucy pevensie

[archivingheartbeats]

I saw something in you when I was young

So like me, I chose to carry your name.

I named it my dark side, but truly

Your were a light in the dark,

A touch of knowledge.

We both faced the same broken fears,

Both held some of the same desire.

Both from families we knew

Could never accept either.

Mine, I buried deeper,

Too confused to even name it

Until years later.

Still I wore the thought of you

Like one half of my coat of arms,

Like a banner over an imaginary country.

Flower-named girl, I hope you are safer now.

I hope your light overwhelms the dark,

I hope the fears and pain have faded.

#poetry #archivingheartbeats #castingmysilver #vent