Poetry

Brain fog

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The world wears a shroud
Thin veil that obscures
The frightening or at fault
Shields soul in a bubble
Where all well and safe
Beyond the vulture’s grasp
Beyond need not know
Beyond need not venture
Beyond need not feel

Pain numbed
And voice subdued
Forget and be forgotten
Seemingly stand protected
As sight only reaches
As far as eyes can see
Beyond a world lost
Beyond love might fail
Beyond life might end
Beyond fear might rule

But my mind’s eye sees
Beyond
Knows my incapsulated passion
Hidden in this white shroud
It waits to dare
It wants to rise
from her veiled grave
Reincarnate in colour
And fly as high as she has vowed

©2022 Myriam Heffels

The Ouroboros of the mind (New Year’s Eve)

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The calendar reads December 31st
Clear and orderly
it affirms the vision conjured
from an unconscious that knew
the augury of a day
Where deluge preceeded
As faint and uncertain now
the sun reappears
Ouroboric in nature

All turns to bite itself again
A year, a life, a thought
Self-reflection consumes
another day
the same day
when faint and uncertain
the call was made
and somewhere answered
Yet always, questions remain unspoken
As the Ouroboros bites its tail
As the Phoenix rises time and again
Ashes make for fertile soil

A life of complexity, oddities
that confound and discomfit
Admonitions to the self
for superciliousness and tenuous debate
but life without turns listless
as there is no letting go
of what was forged ethereally

On the merry-go-round of life
‘Round and ’round
from yes to no
and a goodbye to the next hello
Here we are, there we go
A cyclical world
and with each cycle
we grow


©2021, Myriam Heffels

Many times before

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I have met you many times before
Yet we have never met
We must have passed in our city’s streets
Or you once flew over my head

I have met you many times before
At nighttime when I close my eyes
You appear so vividly in my dream
My soul, then called, takes wing and flies

I have met you many times before
Like ships passing in the night
Before the lighthouse illuminated us
By calling forth its light

I will meet you once again
Oh if only I knew when this will be
Trust that the universe will tell
And my soul will not just feel but see

How I have met you many times before
And next will not be last
We are bound to this, our quest
Which we set out upon in eons past

As in a meeting of us both
With instant melting of our hearts
We can serve our world’s desires
As a sum greater than its lonely parts

©2021 Myriam Heffels

The road that’s taken

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If anyone needs directions
to No Man’s land
Come and see me
It’s my territory!

I’m quite specialised
(This took years of practice)
To find my way and clear the maze.
Just follow the road that’s taken
Where knights in shining armour pass
And I remain forsaken

Read any fairy tale, it’s no surprise
All heroins end up with a prince
And living happily ever after
Cinderella, when she came of age
Found her guy (or he found her,
it goes both ways)
An unlikely tale, such odds to beat
They were quite an unexpected pair
But a girl and story to my heart
As the shoe fit and that seemed so fair
She deserved him from the start

When my age came
I knew there would be trouble
And with IQ approaching genious
You can bet that it will double
The first was hardly a knight (merely in song,
but the west wind couldn’t remember my name,
so he got it wrong)
Then outside forces demanded flaring attention,
With an option blatantly insane
It did however definitely address
That long before I started my quest
I prophesised much of the plot
Even said it out loud more than once
(mum still knows it, though she’d rather not,
as it’s an abomination)

I mingled with the clever lot
Men galore! And mind was met, but not
To point of fatal inspiration
The mathematician could have done
(and he sung!)
But that got stuck in the Roman sun
In came the fat man that didn’t sing
(In fact I’m not sure what he could do,
but he had a smashing IQ)
So at the games the curtains fell
While the thread…
Did not, it insisted in head
And at that point it really seemed
That the mutual spark is just a dream

When others pointed out to me
I might be stuck on skilled security
It turned out to work and be quite safe
But things are clearly wrong
When he has never inspired any song
and in the end it is only rain
That leaves you soaking wet
Some things were never met
Well…, maybe once or twice.

With trumpet sound redemption came
(even lightning in the sky, woe is me)
I played a dangerous but futile game
Someone like you’s a fairy indeed
But he had me freed!
And I’m still having the gayest of times
As he has both voice and mind.

To Cupid I am a laughing stock
And I myself am surely to blame
Doesn’t help I have a definite tendency
To avoid any dependency
And my prospects were already lame
So I’m in the loony bin of No Man’s land
Waiting for the invitation to the ball.
While serving a meaningless contract
that I might need to have annulled.
My prince is past his prime now
Might not have a castle or a horse
Still I will offer him my foot
If he can see through the layer of soot
And dares to fit me the slipper.

First though he must find me
And decide that I’m the one
They’re big shoes to fill you see
So it’s hard to see it done
I therefore pledge to just reside
In merry, merry No Man’s land
Where I dressed my tree with pride
And made my new year’s resolutions
With mind that’s met and heart so light
I now live in the best of nations

And maybe, if I devotedly sweep my floor
A prince that like me deserves so much more
Will one day come knocking on my door
And we’ll have our own ball
Swinging from the rafters
We’ll thoroughly enjoy ourselves
Without giving a hoot
About boring happily ever afters

©2013 Myriam Heffels

Fib (Black Bird)

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Hey
Black
Bird flying
With the flock
All were heading south
I’ll miss his song; it brought me luck
Then he returned at
Break of day
Black bird
Sings
May

©2014 Myriam Heffels

Dream to back and there again

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No I don’t
But there again I might
When it’s night
Steal away
In the lake
Dream astray
Real or fake?
Oh, the pink blossom of May!
But to the east
The sun, the fall
And to the west
The moon, and sand for all
Still too soon
In winter time
Get there later then
But get there again
Because if I don’t
Then I won’t
Ever tread the hidden path
Dispel thread of looming wrath
Break and not a day
Too soon
Out of the way
Home
Back through time
Forward in rhyme
And reason
It makes sense
First it gets tense
No way around
Through until found
Somewhere
A place, there!
The tree can see
The road that’s long
But filled with song
That flies like a fluorescent bird
Back to point of mirth
The origin, genesis, birth
Where I find earth instead of dirt
And insane turns into sane
Hearts are the colour of candy canes
My pink haven
The Utopia I am cravin’
On the pavement with the brightest name
My Flamingo Lane

St. Martin’s day

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It is St. Martin’s Day
Yesterday, today, every day.
Celebrate the legacy
she landed on.
She stands on
the giants in her veins.

One lost to time but in her blood.
One beloved gone and by her side.
One name that shows where she must fly.
One master living in her heart and mind.

She hears a call
of the familiar
unknown.
She takes her fall
through time
alone.

Until she finds her feet
and her voice,
all she can ever send are her words
– armour of choice –
and pray to be found.

The mailman still keeps sending it all
back to her.
Address still unknown,
but it travels on the breath of fate,
of a leap of faith,
of seeds needed to be sown.

When she called to St. John
he helped her give birth to her sun
on St. Martin’s Day.

The muse keeps singing to her
to make up her mind and bounce the cloud,
to muster courage and find her way around.
This karmic edifice
can’t ever tumble down.
She is his Magdalene,
She owns the crown.

He will be waiting in the wings,
thank those who paved her way.
He’ll rise her from an early grave,
To live, to love and play.

And she will pray
forever and another day,
and celebrate St. Martin’s Day.
©2021, Myriam Heffels

Listen to St. Martin’s day read by Myriam Heffels on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.app.goo.gl/tB9wn

Tomorrow

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PeerGyntskingdomNorwayBrodie_b58046fa-e920-431d-a23d-92043408b9c2Tomorrow I could be a thousand miles away
Or how many more could I travel in one day?

Tomorrow I could
bask in the Barcelonan sun, and smile
or walk the ancient Roman mile.

Tomorrow I could
sail the Oslo fjord, roam Nordic grounds
or find my refuge somewhere up in the clouds

Tomorrow I’ll be a thousand miles away
That’s for tomorrow
Not today

I of the storm

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There is an eye in every storm
It looks upon the devastation
There is an eye in every storm
That marvels at its mad creation

While swirling ’round and ’round
A message of destruction
From a center void of sound
Is conjured up a resurrection

There is an eye in every storm
That breathes of calm serenity
There is an eye in every storm
And in mine that eye is me

The Light House

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The clock strikes
The lighthouse lamp fell silent
and now the sun lights
a day that could surpass all nights

One
A deep breath,
as the chest begged to be opened
and her wish fell
like the star
that landed in her lap
and danced in her eye

Two
The ultimate formation
in honour of reciprocation
or a conspiracy well hidden?
A sum once parted,
and living in the contingency
of the penny and its drop

Three
In the shadows
in the sacred space
A child is waiting
Wanting to be born
but fatherless still
His whispers go unanswered

Four
A house of one home
but only where the moon cries
Little by little the heart dies
Always somewhere gone, far and near
and living in a purgatory
within all realms and without reason

Five
The stages of grief
unfold in a mechanism
of quench and elude
Damage to no consequence, never so
for love is unconditional, ever so
Twin flames in their eternal karmic show

Six
Peaks of two triangles
Fence her in the centre of the star
Where the light hides, now halfway post meridian
Still no culmination in sight
The path, as her dream, leads back to night
Her predecessors hold her hand and know

Seven
Sliced by the axis of nodes, true or mean
Northbound lies a Libran destiny
The Gods of the eras were in favour
of the reunion of their souls
But the crossroads loom so perilous
she risks to drown again by the seaside

Eight
Many miles diverted
Within hopelessness still alerted
An ocean black and deserted
Harbour blocked by chaos and disorder
Inside a tomb she dwells, a lonely prisoner
muted, still wearing her invisibility cloak

Nine
Who is she? A forgotten mystery
In a very unusual way
she holds the cards, rings the Belle
but stays the dream in which she walks
No solace, never respite – she sighs
The onset of another night

Ten
Times of the end being nigh
Over, and…over
Not the love of the life
of the love of her life
A truth promising the return of dark
Heart devoid of time, space, spark

Eleven
Angel hour, but not one to one,
and twilight on this summer night
has faded under a bloodred sky
Aurora bids her pole goodbye
Riddles linger on in the starry dark
Can the Universe lie?

Twelve
The spell has been broken
and the ghouls now run free
Cinderella retrieves her ashes
Glass shattered on her bleeding feet
She knows as the embers glow
Some things cannot be lost, nor solved

Now.
The clock strikes
Time ouroborically bites
The writer writes
from her ante meridian rites:

‘Gone.
So she looked out over the sea.’

One
On the shore of her darkest night
the lighthouse calls forth its light
Illuminates the indivisible truth
Forever obscured but unable to hide

What dies
is only the dark
that keeps us
from being born again
into the light

©2014, Myriam Heffels