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Shan Ellis


Bereft

Somewhere beneath
intertwined in solaced limbs,
we lay breathless
in anticipation.

Sleep succored iambs,
sweetened ripened fruit
which plopped
undignified from breaking bows
hung with weight of maturity.

Awoken,
tenderness of gently placed kiss
nurturing to life
deft reverie
darkness ululating.

In tranquility
souls although lost
wondered fortunately
between roots
nourishing and replenished

found whole whilst bereft

Before the End

I’ve never been one for goodbyes.
They resonate like welling caves in the pit of my stomach,
echoing in the hollows of my ribs,
clinging in symbiosis to lips, plated tight
reticent to let them escape.

I’ve much preferred farewell, or adieu
past tense, with a soft kiss
which leaves with warmth and memory
which sparks a smile in dark times.

The finality of the word, seven letters
two syllables, hook line and bated breath,
ripples ceaselessly in a tangible place
out of reach.

This is goodbye,
this earth is too parched to plant a seed,
too barren to support life,
too wasted to cultivate.

Where once, an oasis stood
now a dust bowl dance of death.
And there is nothing I can take with me
apart from the knowledge that
I overcame.

Genesis

Silence reverberated after the storm,
a quiet acquiescence,
particles of life itself
trickling down an open palm
through closed fingers of thought.

Murmurs of past ghosts brushed
Infant like, lost in the dark of
vacuum as if searching for
a symbiotic mother,
some reason unknown
for weary travel to cease.

In the fireweed below long dead
present tenses stirred
shifted by the audacity of the visitor,
an audience of one
empowered with vision or delusion,
Machiavellian ideals of justice

It quietened after lightening passed
the watcher blinked
non-plussed with the beauty
of the dawns gentle kiss.
Ignorant of unfurling petals
between her toes.

When we learn to listen

There is a lyric, somewhere,
lost
between the altruism of truth and hope.

I saw a man today,
crepe paper skinned
encased in an ancient armchair.
Twinkle in his eye,
from his lips came a century’s
memories in a blink of an eye.

His nurses laughed as
stories of his long forgotten
brothers in arms melded
with grandsons and a wife
Twenty years gone
still remembered with a tear.

His family grieved
as he clutched that telegram
from a Queen he’d served with his youth.
Blinded by age,
not seeing the vibrant truth that sat,
in an oversized cardigan before them.
His soul as clear as the day he
squalled from his mothers thighs.

There are truths, and Truths
and lessons
and miracles
and hope.

Where do you look?

There is a lyric, somewhere,
lost

between the altruism of truth and hope.

Picture

Shan Ellis' Profile
Go to page 2 of Shan Ellis' poetry​

Id

Closed the door of self

disappeared into luscious

delicious darkness

where I was no longer classified by colour

intelligence, conformity or creed.

 
Mirrored walls pleaded innocence

or ignorance, in that nitrate reflective

all was equal, undisturbed, virginial.

 
Elongated stretch on downy neutrality

where particules travelled slowly

in waves

reminiscent of the grass that grew

mid-summer along the burgeoning

bilingual slopes of my mountain.

 
No concern here behind pinked eyelids,

enraptured in thrall silence

and verdant growth.

 
Recognition and recollection

are one and the same

 
some times you walk with me

and then

 I

blink

Hold your position

Open mouthed, salivating,
unforgiven words.
Passed
in silence.
 
Room spin, raw throat
spottled spittle depravity.
 
Clenched jaw, head high
undermined.
 
Formidably uncrossing pale legs
juncture and crevice
yearns.
 
Broken glass
sickly remnants of whisky
dribbles half-heartedly.
 
Listless kiss regrets,
double-jeopardy jumped.
 
Unfurling luscious betrayal wafts
ruffling, tempting.
 
Open mouthed, salivating;
discarded.

Thirty-four.

Black

Breath held, beyond strain,
swallowed by chryobursts of pluming purpled darkness.
Heartbeats pulsing,
beneath skin, drawn so taught
even the carrion crow can’t pick to the bone.

One blind second,
where the sun’s reflected rays all focused
on this illusion created,
all the glass tumbled down upon them
in a nightmarish daydream.
This moment of clarity,
where my bare feet bled for those
who had nothing,
and the crimson pool flowing from
shattered dreams bled onto the pavement.
Tribute poppies for he who passed by.

This is not justice,
redemption or holy in the name of any false god.

Somewhere behind the thudthud of blood pounding,
a child cries.
One of those shrieks of disbelief closing with a wail of disparity.

Frozen, still, helpless,
I hold her hand as the toll in her chest ends and she is free.

The pavement cracks
and nothing means a thing any more.



​
Go to page 2 of Shan Ellis' poetry

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