performance poetry
Performance Poetry is poetry out loud; poems brought from the page to the stage.
Gentle Thief
I did not hear the turning of the key, Nor feel the latch slip softly from the gate; You walked into my quiet sanctuary With steps as light as snow, as sure as fate. No sudden tremor warned the empty chest, No shadow fell across the sunlit floor, Yet when you turned, an unexpected guest, The steady pulse I knew was mine no more. You took the red core hidden in my breast, Not by the crude design of forced decree, But folded in the harbor of your hands, Where it preferred—above all else—to be. I will not name it theft, nor ask it back, For in your keeping, nothing suffers lack.
By Forest Green12 days ago in Poets
Let it Lean In
The clock has lost its mercy on the wall, The sky turns bruised, an iron, bruised-plum gray. We knew the dusk would gather, once for all, To strip the golden hours of the day. It comes for us: the quiet, closing cold, The thief that parts the marrow from the bone, The final bell that leaves no sorrow told, And makes a phantom of the flesh and stone. So lay your heavy skull against my chest; Let ruin find us braided in the dark. If all our breath must falter in the west, We’ll burn together down to ash and spark. Let thunder shake the floor and snap the stem— I hold you close, and I am laughing at them.
By Forest Green12 days ago in Poets
This Position
If your tired feet should falter on the stone, I will not run ahead to claim the crest; No summit won is sweet if reached alone, No harbor welcoming without your rest. When shadows thicken on the narrowing trail, And night forgets the promise of the dawn, I’ll stand as quiet shelter to the gale, Until the sharpness of your fear is gone. Match breath to breath; let heavy miles divide Around our shared, unyielding tethered grace. I cast no hurried glance to turn the tide, Nor leave your shadow in an empty place. Walk slow, my love, or stumble if you must— I match my stride to yours, in blood and dust.
By Forest Green12 days ago in Poets
Resuscitation of Dust
Before your mouth unstitched the quiet grey, I moved through rooms like water through a sieve, A phantom keeping daylight held at bay, Forgetting that to breathe is not to live. Then fell your fingers, sudden, fierce, and deep, Against the sullen iron of my chest, To strike a flint where marrow lay asleep And drag the waking blood from hollow rest. Now every tendon hums a scarlet thread; The air tastes sharp, of pine and coming rain. I drop the heavy mantle of the dead, Baptized in warmth and beautiful, keen pain. You look at me, and ruin turns to green— The fiercest life this startled flesh has seen.
By Forest Green12 days ago in Poets
