PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

The fountain folds into itself,
water chasing water
like a thought that refuses
to finish.

In the courtyard,
two friends rehearse a photograph
they will not take.
Their laughter rises,
breaks against the walls,
returns in fragments—
a tide that forgets
where it began.

The paving stones keep
the weight of every step,
but never speak.
Shadows slip across them
like hulls without rigging,
adrift in a harbour
that never opens to sea.

Beyond the walls,
the wind has lost
its compass.
It leans into the gate,
pressing the same syllable
against iron,
again,
again.

And I,
at the margin,
count the widening circles
until the numbers blur,
until the act of counting
becomes the circle itself.

.

The Crooked Compass

The sundial misses the hour.
So what.
Clocks lie too.

Shadows hesitate,
but hesitation
is still movement.

The woman tracing her coffee rim
isn’t lost —
she’s sketching a coastline
that might yet exist.

And the kite,
slack in the sky,
still holds colour.

Even fading,
it insists on being seen.

The sundial leans into the wrong hour,
its shadow spilling
like ink across the stones.
It marks not time,
but the absence of it.

Shadows wander about
or stand their ground,
as if unsure
whether to stray or stay.

They carry the weight
of conversations
that never began.

Would you surrender forever
for a moment alone?

The question drifts
through the courtyard air,
unanswered,
flinging itself into the wind.

A woman at the far bench
traces the rim of her coffee cup
as though it were a coastline.

Her eyes follow
an invisible map —
one that leads
only back to here.

Somewhere,
a child’s kite
hangs motionless in the sky,
its string slack,
its colours fading
into the same
grey hour.

A Doldrum Sea

The fountain folds into itself,
water chasing water
like a thought that refuses
to finish.

In the courtyard,
two friends rehearse a photograph
they will not take today.
Their laughter
is a low tide —
it comes,
it goes,
it comes again.

The paving stones remember
every step,
but never tell the story.
Shadows drift across them
like ships without sails,
anchored in the same
grey hour.

Somewhere beyond the walls,
the wind has forgotten
how to change direction.
It leans against the gate,
breathing the same breath
over and over.

And I,
standing at the edge,
count the circles
until I lose
the will to count.

.

The Yawn Between Hours

The plaza holds its breath.

A wind gathers,

but only enough to lift

the corners of yesterday’s paper.

I walk the edge —

stone to shadow,

shadow to stone —

smiling the smile

I made a couple of hours ago,

still warm in its pocket.

Visitors pose for a photograph

they will put off

for another hour,

or another day.

The fountain repeats itself,

water folding into water,

circles without departure.

Somewhere,

a sundial leans into the wrong hour,

its bronze hand

always too late.

The yawn arrives without warning,

a soft collapse of the face,

a brief surrender to the weight

of the afternoon.

And yet,

in the far corner,

a child’s shout

breaks the air —

a spark that rises,

then falls back

into the slow turning

of the plaza’s breath.

.

I stand on a shore so small

the maps forget to name it,

watching the tide pull away

like a curtain from the stage of the stars.

Out there, the galaxies turn without

noticing us —

a slow dance in a hall we will never cross.

And yet, here,

on this blue backwater of a world,

we carry the strange right to ask

what the dance is for.

We sift the sand for patterns,

read the wind for syllables,

as if the hidden were a letter

addressed to whoever dares to open it.

.

Perhaps the center of the cosmos

is not a place,

but the moment a question

finds its voice.

.

"further down the bookshelf aisle" 

Further down, the air tilts —
cedar and something sharper,
like paper just torn.

The books lean as if listening,
their shadows knotting

in the seams between boards.

A single bulb flickers,
its light breaking into shards
that glance off a cover
furred with years of quiet.

I keep walking,
and the silence keeps pace,
as if it has business here too.

.

The Lantern at Low Tide 

At the pier’s end,

a lantern swayed in the wind,

its light holding back

the dark by inches.

The tide had gone out hours ago,

leaving the seabed bare —

a map of ridges and hollows

drawn by hands no one remembers.
Somewhere in the shallows,

a fish turned once,

as if to read the lantern’s flicker

like a message meant for it alone.

When the wind dropped,

the light kept moving —

as though the night itself

had learned to breathe.

The Salt Lens

They ground the crystal
with salt in the slurry,
each grain a star’s ghost
dissolving into glass.

Through it,
I could bring Saturn close enough
to see the shadow of a moon
crossing its face —

but the lens fogged
on nights when the sea‑wind rose,
salt reclaiming
what it had given.

At its clearest,
I saw my own eye
reflected in the dark between its rings,
and knew the map I sought
was also looking back.

.