Literary Vegan

Oh Christmas morning After the solstice The light returning! There are lines of colours In the sky Changing everything - Unfolding silver paper, Pink cotton to warm my skin. This day begins Differently -  The music matches The sky. C. LJ 2020

Outside, the cold air Doesn't seem to move. Inside, in small spaces, We sit with long nights. But a tea light, Advent candle, Fairy bulb, or Reflective bauble, Paints the dark itself Into a coloured glow, Just as a star was tasked with Making stable straw Silver, long ago. See how even the little light Of a doll's house lantern, Transforms the play room, So too we can Replicate the stars Against dark walls, And watch While we wait. C. LJ 2020

The World Is not round It has sharp corners Hard walls And Stop signs. But among These straight lines You curve, Show me what circles Look like - Mirror the moon At night time And what Nature Tried to be Ever - The soft side. C. LJ 2020

It is pitch black outside You can only see under the projection  Of spaced street lights And even they are surrounded by fog. It would seem eerie, But tonight  The glowing mist Is the electricity  We are feeling -  That high hope Above the cold, Damp pavement The lamp posts dim, But winning. Copyright LJ 2020

Flowers  Are scooped up pages, Petals in cupped hands With writing we cannot see But each stem holds  A story from the Earth. We give each other these words, While saying something else. I Hope The Flowers Don't  Mind. Copyright LJ 2020

Trying is exhausting. When I sit And see beauty For what it is, There is energy. Copyright LJ 2020

In the midst of Chaos Or Peace We must still Pause To Reach The beautiful things so Hard To See Yet always there. Copyright LJ 2020

It is dark around me, Winter dark. The surfaces are touched with frost Like the thin layer of sadness on me. I try to make the most Of the clear sky  And look up - Above the rooves and the roads With the man-made lights, Above the space Around me Of things I can't explain, And see the singular stars  Of this night. I don't know what they are saying,  Or what sign they are showing, But they too are standing Out in the cold And for a moment, We are sharing. Copyright LJ 2020.

I give so much  Energy To Fixing myself When Finding myself Creates More. Copyright LJ 2020.

Our minds are unique oceans In goldfish bowls, With colours we cannot always name And some waves without a way yet, Bubbling over each other, Beauty circling without an escape. Sometimes it takes another, looking in, To see the sophisticated patterns the  Swirls make against the glass  And call out the streams.  Copyright LJ 2020

I walk along a beach And as the tide comes in So does a friend That helps me decorate The sand with seashells, Or fights with me against The sea wind. Then they retreat As the sea goes out And I don't know why. But as I keep walking, The tide returns With a new face In the waves. I think maybe it's because There are shapes to be made On this part of the sand - I am on a different part of the shore, That only the water knows And gathers in for.    Copyright LJ 2020.

Sicut erat in princípio, et nunc, et semper, I am anointed by God in heaven As Queen of England, Daughter of Isabella And I will not surrender Caro autem infirma I hold on to the truth As you hold on to my jewels You touch whatever you please Yet I will forgive you Henry For you and God I bow my head, But I will never yield. Copyright LJ 2020

I watched a water rat Eat out of curled up leaves  At the bank of a stream. They were drifting Like paper boats At the end of a race, But the little rat Pulled each one close And peered inside eagerly to see What it held. We look for magic everywhere, While every day Nature transforms  Dried, fallen leaves Into floating dinner plates, Herself.  Copyright LJ 2020

  Autumn arrived. But instead of a woven blanket of acorns and dandelions That the world prepared to be tucked into, The ground gave way to the stirring Sun, covered with spices And the beings crawled out blinking. They marked the falling of leaves as floating movement, Saw the shaking trees of the season as awakening - Nature was not slowing for silence and snow, It was being noticed - It was finally being known.       Copyright LJ 2020.

( For Jane ) My carousel love ended. The music stopped. And in the rain - I clung on to the sculptured horse Suddenly with no course Of my own. In the dark, the kissing lights Of other fairground rides Just beginning Suddenly seemed brighter, Hurting my eyes. I slid off my seat and walked past them slowly, With my head down. By the exit someone was throwing candyfloss Onto the ground To be eaten by raindrops - Sadness in a sweeter form.  It surprised me -  Amongst these amusements, I had not expected  To find another broken heart  Like my own. 

I am the skyline I can breathe in white clouds While my skin brushes seaweed I am the level of the birds Facing feathered faces With our legs underwater I swim through nature's history The trees will remember me As they do all the creatures Learning how to Bridge the elements Under their boughs. Copyright LJ 2020

I am reading myths in the meadow In the last of the September sun, When the tree's shadow crawls Across the clearing And hovers at my feet. I rise to go, book closed. But now is the time Of the swallow - I stand still And water rats and robins appear So I stay to hear The animal stories of dusk Told by the earth itself. Copyright LJ 2020

We feel The cold Repetition Of rain and Impediment But the clouds Are moving Change is conjured Above us Even in grey Colours Copyright LJ 2020

I stand inside the castle wall. Anxiety sparks over my skin, This electric armour Holds me still, Preparing. I close my eyes. I am a knight that quests Through the mind, For words that need Finding. Paper is stronger than you think. When I pick up the dusty scroll, And speak the ink, I start Riding. Copyright LJ 2020

The river hurried Raindrops were joining their brothers Bubbling over the rocks  In reunion Waiting water sprites Giggled as sisters emerged  Underwater Rock pool families quickly gathered their supplies -  Now the rain had come, They could run.  Copyright LJ 2020

I conjure words From my palms Into floating figures. I shape the branches  Of turning trees With letter leaves. I set sighing queens With veils of words Down gently. Ink mist plays Across my fingertips It is enchanted.

    Lightning forks the clouds Tridents catching cotton fish Sea above the ground Copyright LJ 2020.

In the forest there's a forgotten, forlorn pond, Where few ducks go, Ringed with moss covered stones And collections of twigs. All the boughs above are bent and bending, Curved canopies of tiny green and yellow flags  Signal the surrounding dirt path,  That I walk on. The water reflects the branches so that everything is framed, Leaves adorn at all levels and shades, Shading me. Wherever trees meet and bow in the presence of water, there must be magic, I think. Copyright LJ 2020.

Your eyes are black moons Mysterious to some But I feel safe near these Satellites that circle  My human world With immortal constancy. C. LJ 2020.

I didn't go far But I looked up at the blue space  In the sky And ran through it To a different place Than that with walls Or structure Moving is learning And I returned to the outlines Carrying a little more Of the  Expanse. C. LJ 2020.

I don't know what colour the sky will be Tomorrow  Or what places I will go to I'd laid out my plans in the clouds It seems, Surprised when the wind blew them  Away. I don't feel whole But enough of me is here To sit under the sky, Look straight ahead And be less afraid than  Yesterday. C. LJ 2020.

Her pearls are gone - They drift out of reach in the green water Black stones gather on the sand To adorn another queen. Her hands are empty - The sword is held at her As she reaches the surface, She is to remain on the rocks. Despondant and bloody, She looks into the lake Her reflection ripples away from the island And touches the mainland in the distance - Her magic reaches still. C. LJ 2020.

The outline of that crown Sank beneath the Sun And into the sea. Those castles now were Underwater cities. So, too water fell From her face To join the murky shapes Of memory. But with depth There is foundation - She summoned herself To the other side of the sea Where her own waves And wild horses Waited To be made or broken By their unknown queen. Copyright LJ 2020

Black fabric covers the Sun. Against her wishes, A blade of light breaks through The grieving walls To touch the white pearls And climb the lace leaves Until she is outlined in gold. Her gown glisters among solemnity As it also sung in ceremony She surrounds herself with shadows Yet she is displayed in the dark A white widow Lost in all she has lost, Already found by the crown she is. Copyright LJ 2020.

I thought love was a place. I looked everywhere for it I tripped over stones In my haste, Binding my wounds  While the sign posts  Faded, Forlorn. I found a place. But paths always continue Love doesn't stay -  It walks with you Over the stones And under the posts,  Moving, Along. C. LJ July 2020

Maybe the stars are named But some can find the constellations  In people -  The connecting shapes and lights Of like souls Drawn together By an artist's brush. C. LJ July 2020

How fine, how elegant and fragile Are the ink lines I make on parchment My words Are yet  Warriors, Carrying their message over the void. So too, do I balance my feet along them With poise Knowing at any moment my line could Break. C. LJ 2020

There was always a ghost  Following me I can outwit spectors  I said, you said And the shadow seemed to Fade Wearing her jewels I walked Forward, lifting my head She was no longer behind me I had become the ghost instead. C. LJ 2020

I see petite porcelain figures On the chessboard of France Learning to dance I take them in my hand Tiny, refined, lined with gold Cold crowns Against my skin That fades in the torchlight Of dark, English stones. C. LJ 2020 

I walk in  Nature Not to explore the  Outside But to remember  Myself. C. LJ 2020

My mind is like a hive Full of bees. I can't make them sleep, So I invite them  With ink To circle the paper for me. Then I marvel at the  Shapes. C. LJ 2020

Buying organic Doesn't make the knife less sharp For the animals C. LJ 2020

It is early morning I don't need to see the sky -  I have two crescent moons Curled on the carpet -   As peaceful as the pale light I watch them in. Nature is inside with me, Sleeping on blankets. C. LJ 2020

When I waited, they did not come  The butterfly and the bird. Instead I meditated, Sitting close by on the earth. I heard the leaves and rustling When my eyes were closed,  And opened them to find beside me Butterfly and bird, both.  C. LJ 2020

Beauty is born from  Locating the things you love Then embracing them. C. LJ 2020

You can't see the souls  In slaughterhouses unless You look with your heart C. LJ Ireton 2020

Movement creates space I run towards open ground To stand in stillness  C. LJ Ireton 2020

Lights fill the night sky Day stars sit in their flowers By constellation C. LJ Ireton 2020

The Trees welcome me They wave their leaves  Enthusiastically -  They are happy today. I smile back I feel the same But pause, ashamed Not knowing their names. C. LJ Ireton 2020

The clouds slide with intention A grey outline of a dragon Moves towards another's Outstretched pink claw Tiny black birds flit across their faces - Either unaware of the monsters in their midst  Or unafraid. C. LJ Ireton 2020

Pollen and petals and puffs of cotton cloud Swept through the sky Like a wave in the wake of a magic wand From its curve Bronze wings swirled A climbing butterfly cyclone Dancing Above the drift And I thought to myself If I had not looked up I would have missed this. C. LJ Ireton 2020

My favourite thing to do When I sit Under the Sun, Is close my eyes, Warm my face and Remember each place I have done this before. Because even across the water, Or with scenery so changed, Sitting  Under the Sun, Is the one thing That feels the same.  C. LJ Ireton 2020

I like robins the best They come  Up close Are Unafraid to Wear their heart on their chest. Copyright LJ 2020

Beauty is the self-assurance Of a feline by the fireplace  Knowing she's a masterpiece  Even in her sleep. Copyright LJ 2020

Some storms still stir But the sleepless moon Sweeps up fragments of fear So we feel Stronger In the morning. C. LJ 2020

I thought, at first You mocked us -  Shining like a nursery rhyme  Over our dirt-covered rooftops.  But you simply said: 'I'm here too.  The star system is bigger than you.' And from behind my glass, I saw that we are far But not Isolated. C. LJ Ireton 2020