Wednesday 9 December 2015

POETS UNITED - COLOURS

“The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love colour the most.” - John Ruskin

The theme this week for Poets United is "colour".
Here is my contribution.

In Foreign Lands

When faint twilight of late evening
-Violet-coloured-
Cries out my plangent woe,
My heart will every time go back
To Greece to die.

Each dusk when my emptiness awakes
-Grey-hued-
And sinks its sharpened claws deep into my breast,
My heart flies out
To Greece to die.

When foreign-speaking songs
-Uncoloured-
Fail to reach my soul, and whose alien language 
Cannot communicate with my heart, it goes
To Greece to die

Each day when the morning sun rises
-Jet black-
It chills my shallow, failing breath,
And my heart can’t stand it, it escapes always
To Greece to die.

When envious eyes
-Green-tinged-
Look at me with hidden malice,
And closed minds can’t embrace me, my heart comes
To Greece to die.

And each time my heart trembles and dies
-In blue caerulean-
High up in Attic sky, from death it’s roused, revived,
Only to be forced to leave its country yet again
And in a foreign land be killed each lilac-tinted evening.

10 comments:

  1. Moving and heart wrenching. Very well written :)

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  2. Oh, I think I know where your heart is, Nick! I feel the yearning in this poem. There obviously is something very special about the country/place you were born. Home is HOME no matter how far away....and how many years. Though I haven't lived in my 'home town' for 4 decades now, it still is my hometown! But at least I can more easily visit....

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  3. The colors of Greece are legend! And so Legend is the colors of Greece. When you add the claws digging in Prometheus and other myths like jealousy and death itself, I know the passion with which you live. It may be a return to contemporary Greece can not live up to this, but I will have to trust you on that as I've never been there. I believe this poem.

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  4. A moving piece beautifully expressed with all the emotional colours. Things that set us apart ,for what ever reason, can produce a lot of violet hues but conversely the gift of passion brings an outpouring of extraordinary joy spinning us into the cerulean blue.The Ruskin quote is wonderful. Enjoyed this immensely.

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  5. That repeated closing line of each stanza says it all..........so beautifully!

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  6. could feel the pangs of the spirit caught in a dilemma...homecoming and setting out..love how colors play their part to evoke that nostalgia..

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  7. I love the quote and the sense of going to our spiritual homeland (wherever that maybe) when we die...in some ways perhaps that gives our life more purpose?

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  8. This is beautiful Nickolas. I like the repetition of the line, and the last stanza wraps all your lovely words and images perfectly. I can understand the yearning for your native land. Though I don't yearn for mine because I left so young, my father-in-law felt like you do about his native Puerto Rico. I enjoyed reading this so much.

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  9. The compassionate heart traveling all the time....very deeply resonates..

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