In the forge

I lived within the heat of love -
That honey metal glow in the hearth,

Those marvellous sparks.

I followed the wild amber of the heart -
Singeing parts of me 
That should have turned
With the burning of my finger tips.

Wanting is molten.
It still is.

But wisdom is being the fire
And the blacksmith. 

LJ Ireton 2023

The soul knows how

My cat swirls around the solid floor,
Head first, like an slick otter in a stream -
This is how she shows happiness.
We have the words, so many words,
But underneath, or before,
The soul knows how to dance,
How to purr. 

LJ Ireton 2023

Imaginations

I thought wishing
Was meant to be weightless -
An entire silver world 
Existing within a snowflake.
But somehow, carrying
Beautiful imaginations
For a long time
Only makes them
Heavier. 

LJ Ireton 2023

An equinox

It was an equinox-
A mourning 
I stroked the shell of a horse chestnut seed
With my thumb 
And crows cawed under
Grey clouds neon -
Causing the Sun to tumble out 
As if confused from sleep,
Burning on instinct -
Unsure who had summoned,
But eager to answer.
And even with my face to the fire,
Remembering,
A cold future snaked along my skin -
Because all is in-between 
Isn't it?
Ever moving -
We long for one star or another,
With reverie or inertia,
Lacking the steadiness of birdsong,
Of singing whatever the sky. 

LJ Ireton 2023


 

A September Gloaming

The flower suns have fallen,
Releasing small sleeping stars
Encased in beetle shells
Into my hands.
I sit, pensive
Looking at where the high petals were -
Their gold pink now given to
Gloaming September skies,
The blood blush in the cold.
Maybe nothing goes 
But is in another place to find
As the world turns. 
Still, it is harder to see in the dark
And I prefer to be barefoot
With the transient flowers at twilight.

LJ Ireton 2023