To the Moon, in Absence
I passed you by
though your light was spilling like wine
over the roofs
and the trees stood still
as if listening for your step
I might have spoken
might have told you
how the day’s weight bent my neck
so I could not lift it toward you
how the city’s lamps mimicked your sheen
and tricked my eye away
yet you remained
a patient witness in the vault above
while my shadow
lengthened behind me like guilt
if you find me again
take me as the tide takes
a leaf it never meant to lose
carry me out
until the shore
is only a rumor
To the Moon, in Absence
#poetry
18.10.2025 17:32 — 👍 14 🔁 3 💬 2 📌 0
YouTube video by Maxence Cyrin - Topic
Larmes glacées
the dark passes through me
like blood through glass
each pulse quieter
than the one before
I carry the silence
as if it were language
& almost remember
what it said
maybe it told me
where I left myself
in the wreckage of yesterday
maybe it whispered
that forgiveness
is forgetting
in a softer voice
15.10.2025 03:58 — 👍 16 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0
Wonderful!
13.10.2025 00:54 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
coffee bitter,
paper late,
sunday’s mouth wide open-
I step through,
find nothing
but a train
heading nowhere
#poetry
28.09.2025 14:02 — 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
street’s quiet,
like a mouth closed after the lie.
I light one match,
burn it for nothing,
watch smoke fold
into the morning.
#poetry
28.09.2025 13:57 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Already Closing
the river passes
without speaking
its reflection is older
than the trees
I follow
but nothing ahead
is mine to reach
in the grass
insects rehearse
in a language
no ear remembers
I think of time
as a door
opening into another door
already closing
#poetry
27.09.2025 18:57 — 👍 33 🔁 3 💬 3 📌 0
neon Friday
steps into the street
traffic lights flicker
like cheap saints
selling grace
to the weary
#poetry
26.09.2025 22:23 — 👍 8 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Quiet Orbits
yesterday I went out after the last light left the ridge
the field a low sea of grass moving
above it the dark kept its courses unspoken
and I felt the ancient pull that does not begin or end
I gave it no names
the stars needed none
they were already on their way from before our voices began
I walked down toward the river by the fence line
posts leaning like forgotten questions
wire gone back to brown in the weather
crickets threaded the edges of night
the sound a narrow path I could follow
until water lifted out of the dark
carrying itself as it always has
I thought of your breath beside me in other years
how as children we learned to look up together
not for answers but for that larger patience
the bodies above us turning where we could not see
each orbit a lesson in continuing
without witness
without reply
the river gave me my face and let it go
the stones kept their shapes in the current
I touched one and felt time simply being itself
no promise no warning
only the weight that holds what is here
until it is time to move
in the field again I paused
a thin wind moved the tall heads of grass
and something in me leaned with them
not surrender not refusal
only the small agreement of moment with moment
the sky widening by degrees toward morning
planets somewhere beyond sight
drawing their wide ellipses through the dark
so slowly the word slow has no measure
I said your name in the quiet and listened
not to be answered
only to hear how it lives now
part voice part distance
the way light lives after the star has gone on
arriving here as a softness on the ground
that shows itself only when we stop to look
when I turned back the path closed behind my feet
the grass stood up in its own time
the river kept speaking to the stones
and overhead the silent planets continued
not keeping us and not letting us go
holding instead the room in which we walk
until we learn to walk as they do
carried and carrying
present in the unbroken turning of the dark into day
For @alanparrywriter.co.uk and
@thebrokenspine.co.uk
I wrote this recently and adapted it for this #PoemsAbout #SilentPlanets. Remembering someone who is no longer here.
#poetry #writing #writingcommunity #poetrycommunity
Quiet Orbits
19.09.2025 22:46 — 👍 17 🔁 3 💬 4 📌 0
The Long Silence
above the ridge
beyond the clouds
they pass unseen
their weight bending the distances
I cannot measure
sometimes I think
your voice is among them now
circling in silence
never falling away
but never returning
I look up into the dark
and though I see nothing
I feel the pull of what is nameless
the slow turning of orbits
that will not break
the long silence
that waits for us all
-Gerhard Oevermann 9/19/25
The Long Silence
#poetry
19.09.2025 23:10 — 👍 28 🔁 2 💬 1 📌 1
Beatnik Riff
snapchat halo around a kid’s grin,
saint of disappearing messages,
relics dissolve before you can believe in them.
at the bar they pour IPA sacraments,
heads bow to glowing screens-
a thousand poets hiding behind emoji masks.
I write a manifesto on a napkin,
then use it to soak up spilled gin.
that’s how revolutions end:
not with a bang,
but with a bartender wiping down the counter.
Beatnik Riff
#poetry
19.09.2025 14:32 — 👍 5 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
subway koan
train roars like a steel throat clearing
we sit shoulder-to-shoulder strangers
earbuds sync to different eternities
graffiti saints drip halos over rust
and the question is always the same:
when the doors open
who are you?
#poetry
19.09.2025 14:25 — 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
Manifesto with Crosswalk
I want a country where the crosswalk listens
where the red hand becomes a palm reading yes
where rent has knees that bend when you are tired
where news breaks gently then stays to clean up
where we tax the shadow that follows greed
and subsidize afternoons by the river
where tomorrow is not a password that keeps failing
and a poem can be valid ID at the door
Manifesto with Crosswalk
#poetry
19.09.2025 14:19 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Instructions for Breathing on the 7:10 Bus
inhale the stale perfume of yesterday’s storms
exhale the meeting in your teeth
inhale the child’s cereal sunrise on their cheeks
exhale the headline that tightens the ribs
inhale the driver’s patience at a broken light
exhale the loop that says you are alone
inhale the old man humming take five under his breath
exhale until the glass stops judging you
then keep going
until the city fits in your pocket like a warm stone
Instructions for Breathing on the 7:10 Bus
#poetry
19.09.2025 14:15 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Wake to sirens weaving through dreams
coffee thick as midnight asphalt
eyes bruised but burning
outside, taxis stitch the dawn-
every light a dare
I step out
let the city’s mouth
swallow me whole-
heartbeat syncs
with subway thunder
I am awake
and the world is moving
#poetry
15.09.2025 13:31 — 👍 5 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
I walked out into the morning
the light still uncertain among the branches
shadows lying across the ground
as though they were waiting for someone to notice
I followed the path where the leaves
had fallen long before I came
their silence spoke to me
not in words but in the way they rested
without asking to be remembered
& I thought of the voices
that once filled this air
the laughter that rose in the evenings
the questions that never found answers
all carried away like water
slipping through its own reflection
I kept walking and the river appeared
moving without hesitation
its surface breaking into a thousand mirrors
none of which stayed
I leaned down and touched it
but the moment was already gone
& the sound of it
continued as if nothing had happened
as if nothing ever could happen
except what was already passing
on the far bank the trees bent into the current
their roots tangled with stones
older than any memory
they did not resist
they leaned as though listening
to something I could not hear
& I wondered if silence itself
might be a kind of hearing
that outlasts the need for answers
I thought then of your hand in mine
how it fit without effort
the way a shadow fits the ground
and how it slipped away
not into absence
but into another form of presence
that follows me still
though I do not speak of it
when I stop walking it arrives
and when I move again
it goes on ahead
like the path itself
always leading somewhere
I cannot remain
the sky shifted
and the birds lifted out of the trees without warning
their wings making a sound
that might have been the air remembering itself
I looked up until they were gone
and the space they left behind
was filled with light
as though nothing had left at all
& I knew then
that the world had never been waiting for me
yet it carried me
as it carried everything
without choosing
without keeping
and that even as I turned back
the grass already rising in my footsteps
it would continue
without end
without forgetting
without needing a reason
Without Asking to Be Remembered
#poetry (alt text)
14.09.2025 16:47 — 👍 34 🔁 6 💬 9 📌 0
Thank you so much for sharing, Wren! 🌈🌤️
@wrenblack.bsky.social
10.09.2025 14:23 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Thank you, Ann!
10.09.2025 13:09 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Wednesday III
Wednesday knocks at my window,
rain dripping from her hair.
She doesn’t ask to come in-
just stares long enough
to remind me
this week is not endless,
though it feels that way sometimes.
#poetry
10.09.2025 13:08 — 👍 7 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0
Wednesday II
Wednesday hails me from the corner,
slick jacket,
sly grin.
He says he’s got a shortcut to Friday-
but when I follow,
it’s just another block
with the same cracked sidewalks.
We both laugh,
keep walking anyway.
#poetry
10.09.2025 13:07 — 👍 5 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Wednesday
Wednesday whistles through his teeth,
a tune no one else remembers.
He flicks cigarette ash on the curb,
winks at the pigeons,
and tells me straight:
the week won’t sing itself-
you gotta carry
a little of the tune.
#poetry
10.09.2025 13:04 — 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
The street shines with last night’s rain,
every puddle holding a borrowed sky.
Monday glitters in small ways:
a stranger holding the subway door,
a busker tuning his guitar,
the smell of oranges at the corner stand.
I write it down
before the noise
drowns it out.
#poetry
08.09.2025 15:10 — 👍 6 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Sunday morning sidewalks hum-
a sax player folds yesterday’s notes
into the river of traffic.
I sip cheap coffee,
pretend I’m not part of the choir
but my feet keep time anyway.
#poetry
07.09.2025 14:03 — 👍 7 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
cigarette stubbed
on a library step-
the poet’s manifesto
inked on a receipt
blows past
the feet of gay lovers
debating Nabokov
and last night’s wine.🍷
#pietry
06.09.2025 12:53 — 👍 8 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Saturday spills its guts
on cracked concrete corners-
joggers, junkies, jazzheads
all jostling for the same sun.
I sip burnt coffee,
watch a priest flirt
with the barista
like it’s his calling.
#poetry
06.09.2025 12:46 — 👍 7 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Street preacher trades call with skateboard reply. Amen, ollie, amen. Rain left brushes and a wet snare. Pigeons tap the rim. I am the unknown poet in a paper mask of light, walking easy, counting kicks: crosswalk chirp, bakery bell, one stranger nod. The tune remembers me.
#poetry
05.09.2025 13:48 — 👍 7 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
Morning slides in sideways,
bassline under my feet,
horns warming in the cracks of dawn.
The streetlights blink blue,
cabs syncopate with pigeons,
and I jot it down crooked-
notes chasing notes,
never landing,
just swinging me forward.
#poetry
04.09.2025 13:24 — 👍 11 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
Thursday’s a trumpet solo-
loud, cracked,
still holy.
Coffee bitter as brass,
train screeching sharp in my ears.
The city plays wrong notes on purpose,
and I grin,
because that’s the only way
to keep it alive.
#poetry
04.09.2025 13:22 — 👍 6 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
I wake into today,
mouth dry as subway air,
my notebook full of half-finished lies.
A girl with glitter on her shoes
asks the time-
I tell her the truth instead:
it’s too early to matter,
too late to go back.
#poetry
04.09.2025 13:16 — 👍 14 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0
Thursday’s a crooked sax riff
in a cheap bar-
off-beat,
half-right,
still beautiful.
The trains stutter,
pigeons argue on the wires,
I lean against a lamppost
pretending the city
knows my name.
#poetry
04.09.2025 13:14 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0