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CRHoaglund
Toiling in obscurity.
21 Posts • 50 Followers • 106 Following
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CRHoaglund in Poetry & Free Verse

Howling Wind

The howl that bellows within my spirit

Singing the sound of my deepest despair

Echoing from ancient eons across the air

Bathes my tongue in the words of riot

Those words spit from my mouth like a bullet

Laying the torment within my soul bare

Bridging the void of nothing and nowhere

I have the strength to finally tell it

Where the seeds of my fury first were sewn

In the deepest soil of my own silence

Helplessness slowly sprouted and took root

Now the strength within myself I have shown

There will be peace where once was turbulence

No more does silence my true spirit suit

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CRHoaglund in Poetry & Free Verse

Pretty Broken Things

Like a corvid I can instinctively find

The most derelict bits of human creation

Collected with the intent to somehow heal

Hoping to revive and perhaps make whole

Whichever pieces inside have been torn

I see the hidden beauty of such things

I do not always seek out these things

Sometimes it is me they manage to find

Sensing that parts of myself are also torn

Feeling that there is a flaw in my creation

Drawn to that which is not quite whole

In their own quest to possibly, finally heal

Ultimately it is always ourselves we heal

When we seek out other broken things

In our attempts at making something whole

We are magpies trying desperately to find

The one most existence affirming creation

To stitch and patch where we were torn

But often the places where another is torn

Show a vivid reflection of what to heal

Their broken parts are our own creation

An ugly mirror held to reveal the things

We insistently work hard to never find

Fearing what it might mean to be whole

Because whenever we do become whole

Forced to look again at why we felt torn

The sting of a needle is what we’ll find

A bright new pain that is needed to heal

Stitching and pulling through the things

That had been our soul’s sacred creation

Repairing a soul is the greatest creation

Our wisest selves bringing us whole

Allowing us to release those things

That tangle like a bird’s nest being torn

Granting ourselves permission to heal

Removing the fear of what we might find

No creation stays torn forever

The whole of eternity is how we heal

Those things we were once afraid to find

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CRHoaglund in Haiku

Healing

I thought I had left

Days this painful behind me

The journey goes on

Challenge
Write a Villanelle Poem
The villanelle has nineteen lines, with a very specific rhyme and repetition pattern. The lines are broken up into five tercets (three line stanzas) followed by a quatrain (four line stanza). The rhyme scheme is aba aba aba aba aba abaa which means there are only two rhymes. "One Art" by Elizabeth Bishop is very famous and beautiful example of a villanelle. Poems should follow these strict rules to be considered for this challenge.
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CRHoaglund in Poetry & Free Verse

Silent Wings

All of time’s passing is a silent flight

An owl whose ancient wisdom ever grows

Carrying on despite how desperately we fight

We age from our eyes first, creases and lost sight

Slowly, the rest of our body faithfully follows

All of time’s passing is a silent flight

We seek to hinder the inevitable fading of our light

Too strong is the current that through us flows

Carrying on despite how desperately we fight

Memories made and fade, as the emotions they incite

Like all things they will meet again at life’s close

All of time’s passing is a silent flight

Each of us will reckon with what we thought right

The peace of eternity is the only thing that knows

Carrying on despite how desperately we fight

Taking everything from us with its endless might

And giving us all we have in both highs and lows

All of time’s passing is a silent flight

Carrying on despite how desperately we fight

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CRHoaglund in Poetry & Free Verse

The Road

Old road signs call out for attention,

Gravestones of long buried memories

Faded, but just clear enough to sting

With the dreaded feeling that the past

Was not what it should have been,

No more improved for the hindsight

But if time will only ever flow one way

There is hope that the road will stretch,

Far enough beyond the troubled times

Away from the faded, stinging thoughts

Shrinking into nothing but shadows

Until they are forever out of sight

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CRHoaglund in Poetry & Free Verse

Nostalgia

The radio plays invisible images

A past stirred to life with sound

Sunset casts eastward shadows

Each note an immortal archive

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CRHoaglund in Poetry & Free Verse

Dawn of Dusk

Horizon churns a cool, blue-white

The scene of daytime falls

And the mountains turn to shadow

Slowly sinking into the night

Warm, rose hued tones climb high

As Selene begins to waken

Heaven strains to hold the light

Fire races across a molten sky

Cold, black gold twilight at the fore

The sun’s nightly eulogy spoken

Starshine glimmers in a dreamy trance

Evening’s spell is cast once more

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CRHoaglund in Poetry & Free Verse

Within

A bird whose wings abound

With strength beyond all peers

Stays silently on the ground

As others take flight and soar

Gazing with wonder she cries

At the cruelty of a befallen fate

That chained her from the skies

With a heavy burdened soul

Only inside her deepest fears

There is a truth silently hiding

Disguised by her own tears

That she could rise again

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CRHoaglund in Poetry & Free Verse

Two Hunters and the Snow

Too often this life sings us a cacophony of lies

To tame our spirit and disconnect us from ourselves

But when our inner nature chooses to speak

And forces us to acknowledge what is within

The mind must sit and listen so entranced

Understanding dawning, realization thrumming

The way a delicate hummingbird can hover

Beating its wings fast enough to be still

A wild soul resounds with terrifying power

Forced out of the cosmos, pulled down from the stars

It thunders and rings out like the bell of gods

A sound which can split the very light in the sky

The only thing capable of delivering revelations

Telling me that I had been wrapped in chains

Sad remains of the cruelty of being loved imperfectly

Not for who I was but for who another wanted me to be

And I have heard the voice of a wild heart call out

Laced so intricately with the hope of salvation

That unmistakable, mournful baritone cry

Desperate and impassioned, pleading to be heard

The heart carries on despite a lifetime’s sorrow

The origin of affliction and remedy for its fever

Warning to not feel fear so deep it drags you under

Singing the incantation of a true believer

And the hope that persists within my pain

That sings so sweetly with a wild songbird’s lilt

Told me to touch the light that would show

That the truth I was afraid of could set me free

Let the walls of deception and rejection crumble

If I listened to the sacredness of the earth beneath

And felt the certainty I had come to know with time

I could escape forever from the prison of my mind

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CRHoaglund in Poetry & Free Verse

Shed

Approaching the sacred without fear of death

I sought to offer you the way to transform

Just as buds became flowers in that garden

To shed the skin of ignorance in favor of light

View the world through eyes of the divine

Provide illumination of the mind and rebirth

This new vision would require your rebirth

But it would also mean facing the death

Of things you loved and thought divine

Such death would be how you transform

And look with new eyes to see the light

The truth which hid beyond the garden

A womb safe and fruitful was the garden

The place of the first birth and rebirth

Shielded from the curse of blinding light

To keep eternal and know not of death

Never having want or need to transform

This was the promise of the worldly divine

Promises were also the secrets of the divine

Secrets that were not whispered in the garden

The secret was the ability to know, to transform

That you have the command of your own rebirth

And you could understand the urgency of death

Be warmed rather than blinded by this light

You were cheated, told to fear that light

Fed a frightful, outrageous lie by the divine

Told that to know truth would mean death

Everything you want is already in the garden

Stay in darkness and you will not need rebirth

Ignore why it is you have a desire to transform

I let you fulfill that desire to transform

Feel the warm weight of the knowing light

The stunning enlightenment of your rebirth

Have knowledge that it is you who are divine

You who is the womb and life of the garden

The one with power to create life out of death

You could transform into the supreme divine

See the light that filled the world outside the garden

Understand that rebirth is the same as death

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