Tag: love

Poetry by Patrick Jennings
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Breakers Far Below, Oregon Coast Highway 101, Oregon, United States of America

A Smile Above the Breakers

Hers was an exquisite beauty
Not the kind to command
Covers or runways
That puts a name
Up in lights or lead a headline

Her beauty commanded a second look
The kind you missed on a first take
And yes, it was there on the surface
But more, it ran deep

In her bearing
In the way she made others
The center of her world

Her smile flowed
From every feature of her being

To receive one was to be blessed

The first time
She gave me that gift

It was through a tangle of locks
Tossed about in the wind
The sound of breakers far below

My heart knew only one person
In the entirety of existence
And it took years to convince it
That there were other smiles in the universe

Some time after I’d grown beyond the desire to possess her
Our group of friends retraced that old road trip
And on this same point, through tousled locks
She gave me again that heart-stirring smile
But this time said

“I think I am falling in love with you.”

Continue reading A Smile Above the Breakers
Poetry by Patrick Jennings
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Nature's Architect, Fortress on a Hillside, Portland, Victoria, Australia

fortress ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #274

towers and citadels
ramparts and parapets
fortress on the hillside
set afire in the morning sun

battles fought
war rages on
death visits here
still more to come

one strong heart
with will of stone
resolve of iron
but moments late

her final breath
his broken cry
their eyes now glazed 
with death and grief

reign of tears
a rain of years
for one still form
her light now passing

towers and citadels
ramparts and parapets
fortress on the hillside
with darkness do the losses come

time withers
all good hope
but for love’s
illuminance 

five hundred years
lives pass along
’til one strong heart
revived by dreams

a love once lost
was born anew
he holds the hand
of one once dead

knows the heart
which then fell still
now beats again
in true love’s breast

time’s never still
nor linear
where once was love
love’s never lost

towers and citadels
ramparts and parapets
fortress on the hillside
rememb’ring love can’t be undone

Continue reading fortress ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #274

Poetry by Patrick Jennings
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Golden Bowl, Bridge Studios, Vancouver, BC, Canada

Light ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #267

Once the light entered the bowl
Something magical happened
Something I’ll probably
Never fully understand

The light coalesced
Hardened
Formed swirling tendrils
Of incandescence

Well
I understood one thing

Light was alive

No
Not alive

Conscious

And what I was witnessing
Was the comingling
Of unmanifested being
One each to a tendril

Swimming as if a school of fish
In a golden bowl
Struck just the right way
By the sun

And then it was gone
Light
Was merely light
Again

But some trick of the cosmic tail
Had let me in on the secret
Because in an instant
I’d known

Light
Is love
And love
Is light

When we are unmanifested
In this purest spirit form
We know this as surely as
The necessity of a breath

We know it in a way
A brain cannot grok
But our manifest purpose
The meaning of our existence

Is to remember

And for a moment
Looking into a sunlit bowl
I remembered

A glimpse of the unknowable
Out of the corner of my eye

A memory I struggle to keep
Every day

Continue reading Light ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #267
Poetry by Patrick Jennings
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Touching, Time Exposure of some Random Netflix Show

Touching ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #256

In that blur
Of existence

When space becomes time
And time becomes space
When love becomes all possibility
And possibility infinite
And time timeless

I will find you
And always will

Because this is the thing
Between you and I
The connection without reason
The being without purpose
Except that we are always

Together

Whether far apart
Or side-by-side
Decades may pass
Without a touch
Though we are always

Touching

In the end
That is all we need know
About the unknowable

Continue reading Touching ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #256
Poetry by Patrick Jennings
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Close Your Eyes, Time Exposure of some Random Netflix Show

Bastards

She closed her eyes
Heaved a sigh
Then made the choice
She’d always made
And always would

Don’t let the bastards get you down
She whispered
Drew another breath

Don’t let the bastards get you down
She said
Drew another breath

Don’t let this bastard get you down
She growled
Then held what remained of her breath

Until she could hold it no longer
Then simply let the breath go
And with it went all the bastards

Even the one who stood before her
Who knew her well enough
That there was no coming back
Once the door closed behind him

She listened for the squeaky hinge
The groaning spring
As the door slammed shut
With satisfying finality

Boots clattered across the porch
Down the steps
Scattering gravel in the drive

A creaky metal door opened
Then screeched shut

Two roars of an engine
The second sprayed gravel
Onto the porch
While the roar  drew away
Into the insurmountable distance
Just as he had over the last month

Soon enough the birdsong dispelled her reverie
And when she opened her eyes
The world already seemed brighter
With nary a bastard in sight

Continue reading Bastards
Poetry by Patrick Jennings
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Emptiness, Ciutat De Les Arts I Les Ciences, Valencia, Spain

Emptiness

Of all the hardships
Created by the pandemic
It was the emptiness
Of time and space
Which nearly did him in
 
The connectionless void
In which the bump of elbows
Became an act of intimacy
Which made a smile detectable
Only by a gesture of the eyes
 
So he filled the emptiness
With the one thing left to him
 
Love
 
Love not for one or many
Nor even for himself
But for the pure delight
Of existence
 
And that is how he learned
The true nature of
 
Love
 
Continue reading Emptiness