Poetry from the Other Side

By Rebecca Laurin

Copyright 2001

To List of Poems

The Artist's Epitaph

What we should all know:
An artist is never one
who dreamed by living,
but someone
who lived by dreaming.

Copyright 2001

Reflections

Light breaks through the window,
reflecting on the handles of broken
coffee cups.
Espresso hangs in the air,
muffled by the sounds of conversations.
Another cup, please.

She stares through thick lenses
at the swirling mist black.,
splattered with white dots of cream.
It's Sunday,
and she figures out why the light never shines
on the unsteady tar surface inside,
turns the cup to realize as hot liquid spills out
onto her cold skin: it's half empty.
So she takes off her glasses.

Copyright 2001

How I Loathe The World

How I loathe the world,
With all it's tricks and lies,
Things may seem as one way,
But the truth will always hide.
I'm sick of false prophets,
And promises unkept,
It makes me wonder why this world
God has even kept.
If I could summon power,
Greater than all time,
I'd turn upon these wicked folks
And give them honest minds.
Sister killing sister
And brother with a broken heart.
Father beating mother,
Children hurting one another.
But in the end things will all change,
and sins come back to haunt them.
The wrong turns right and day is night
No more tears to come.

Copyright 2001

A Simple Answer

You will
never feel the way water
drips off my back like oil,
Or how the wind touches my scalp
as it whips through my hair.

You'll never
know the valleys I've ridden along,
dragging by my foot in the stirrups.
And the times that I've stood
on the peaks of the world.

You'll never
curl your hand beneath your chin
like I do when I sleep,
five fingers together clutching my dreams.
My tears are complex hieroglyphics-
sorrows that cannot be interpreted,
my anger-a God awakening
at Pandora's open box.
Would you dare
to lower the lid?

You say
you know me but am surprised
I don't walk the well-paved roads,
instead choosing to make my own. It's simply
less crowded.

Someone asked
if I'd want to be you.
But the same sun sets a different
color in every set of eyes. So I've decided
just to be me.

Copyright 2001

Reality?

The world comes twisted apart,
while we walk upside down
confounded on clouds,
as wet paints of blue stain our shoes.

Thoughts spin around our heads,
like still photographs,
and the secret whims you hide dark,
are unburied beyond the visual wall.

Gravity takes an upward shift,
stirring us infinite in space,
and planets cave inward.

Two feet cry for absence of ground,
but now I've floated away,
on molecules of air.
.
The thumping of my heart captures my senses,
pumping forth from this flesh-filled capsule.
Crimson trust separates from water's hate.
How I've missed the other half of me.

Three dimensions are lost in time,
while the clock pauses,
yawning forever's lazy moments.
This hopeful future has past,
the present folding within.

How do I know you're really here?
If real is actual,
Than you are an illusion to my eyes,
as the watery mirror lying on my wall.
I see through the cave that leads to my soul,
and the sins of Adam and Eve.
Whatever you see in reality,
is the untold lies of truth.

Copyright 2001

Looking Beyond

Life glides on whims,
dreams drifting past
Wisdom's sea.
But the dreams time concealed
with chiseled jaw and fallen curls,
awaken my bedside's thought.
And I hunger,
trembling by excess
for the soul can no longer yield,
to earth's sufferings.

Through the morning's mist,
my muse has captured
its target.
Broken wings fall,
spiraling through clouds.
And beyond
this white empty fog
lies Beauty's first love,
Imagination,
still Virgin
from birth till our own shallow deaths.

Copyright 2001

Dream Gate 58

Sorrow mounted its horse and weaved through my yard
like a snake.
The dark rider stopped, held out a hand pointing
towards DreamGate 58.

The wind hissed as we glided, faster and faster
over trails of broken glass
stopping in a wasteland at last.

The arms of trees bled,
and groaned from the weight of items misplaced.
Canvases ripped, strings snapped in half,
leaves of world peace rotting with hate.
The air was cool
we journeyed in fog
past piles of tools the living once used.

"Never look back," Sorrow warned me again,
and I dared not resist, such a fool had I been,
I kept my eyes straight as we made our way
to Dreamgate 58.

Black matter filled like a diamond
This porthole in the sky.
Worried people climbed out,
tossing their dreams by the side.
A few lay asleep clutching their bags,
Slumbering in whims
and childhood rags.

Sorrow pulled back, and the horse gave
A mighty sound as we leaped.
Into dark realms filled with immeasurable heat.
The cool sting of glass
Made my palms bleed,
I let go of Sorrow falling infinitely.

The tick of the clock woke me up instead
Moonlight streamed through my window,
Outlining my bed.
The sharp sting of pain made me realize
I had brought back a piece of Sorrow's night ride.

Perhaps souvenirs of glass
Hang by our sides during sleep,
For when we look back
they will unlock the doors with dandelion grace
that lead us to
DreamGate 58.

Copyright 2001

Author's Note: "Dream Gate 58" is the part in all of us that exists, where the dreams that have died hard or been abandoned cling to us - waiting for rebirth or just recognition.

The Two Faces of Vida

I know.
The sun rises and sets
even if we fail to see
its harsh gentle light.
The caresses of spring can warm
even the darkest room inside.

The blackest could always be
a bit blacker,
and sorrows dead could come
floating in
like dry withered scarecrows.
Haunting.

I know friendships
are pulleys
that break or hold
under life's weight,
and walks on the beach always leave
two
sets of footprints.

I know running straight
brings
you crooked
to
the
finish line.

I know pain is familiar,
but happiness distant. Catch it,
when your net is high enough,
and fly where the wind takes you.

Copyright 2001