Ethereal Solitude - Poetry Collection

by Laura Chouette

From my poetry book »Ethereal Solitude« - buy here.

Uncorrected EPUB and PDF downloads are available at the end of the page. The revised and paperback version is available worldwide.

3 A.M. SAINTS

It is 3 a.m. again

and you are showing me all of your sins

by holding up your scars to the starless sky.

Painting the entire universe with gold

and clothing my velvet heart in purple -

we become saints within

those unholy hours close to dawn.

Still, the world is spinning -

even though it feels a little slower now -

while the silence carries us away

into the next day.

- Laura Chouette

-

BLOOMING SCARS

Those flowers dance around vour marble bust like they were fearing October's kiss - gently they laugh and fall asleep on vour stone veins and cold lips.

For they love their names written upon your chest in

gold

for your heart may be broken, yet it is searching for something untold.

They do not know that silver mends the scars that the years formed and the cracks on your skin the sun caused -

so silent, still, and weary are the blossoms with whom my love for you is betrothed.

-

STARVING PIECES

A heart starved of love will break itself

and shed the pieces quickly - so it has less to feed with love.

-

CHURCH WINDOWS ARE MY MIRRORS

Blessed are the scars and the holiness of our hearts.

Only saints break it without remorse for sinners, I expect nothing else but playing their part with our gentle soul.

Church windows are my mirrors and prayers my gate to heavens end - I find everything by losing myself-nothing was ever lost from the beginning.

-

AMBER HEART'S

Amber chases the night sky

like the stars became fire and gold -

and the moon is falling ever closer

to the sun he loves so much;

So there is not much pain

with the world to share,

yet we begin to doubt our love

and forget our hearts need care.

Still, we wish upon the stars

to fall faster in love than we did out,

so we won't try and pull back

for broken hearts are heavy and hard to catch.

So while the constellations fade

and our souls disappear in their entanglement

we hope to learn what it means

to truly live again the least.

-

QUIET WRITING

Quiet

does not mean

that we have nothing to say,

or that we leak the power of speech -

we rise up and tell our truths

even if it feels like people don't like it the least;

Writing

is our means

to have something to tell

when we lost our voice suddenly

we still stand behind our truths

even if it feels like people

won't like it.

Beautifully

are the quiet lines

written with thunder

and silent boldness -

for we can have a revolution

inside the pages of nowadays.

-

THE ART OF EVERYONE

And autumn died long before the sun touched the last leaf;

for death forgets every winter for as long as summer blossoms for itself;

For the art of everyone is close to the idea and dwells in thoughts.

For every thought rises in the morning - and every beginning

is the closest to us in the end, and eventually takes

a lifetime to complete itself.

EDINBURGH

Sombre echoes

that mark the dawning

that is greying on the hills;

the steep streets still wet from rain

the small buildings look emptier with

each day passing on;

thoughts are done

passing rounds -

counting circles

inside my head.

pale faces of familiar strangers

crossing me on the way back

to a place that used to feel like home -

falling back in time.

-

VALLEY

The valleys climb towards the sky in the early morning hours - seeking horizon's lines;

More than the gravestones do with all the memory lined neatly up and half-forgotten - nearly washed away.

Our sun is doomed to meet both.

-

A SIMPLE DRAFT

Sometimes a simple draft

can make a poet whole

that is left with half a heart

and feelings for a hundred

it would take to bear.

A few words can cover

the whole world,

creating light for the darkest of lines

one can call a home or paradise -

only a few can also lay bare their soul.

-

CONFESSION

Sometimes

I feel like the lines of mine

are in the way of every love

that tries to cross the last bridge

I have left leading to my heart.

For I burned every other one

while numbing the wounds

the fire caused -

setting alight to all that is left of me.

I must admit

that I kept on to the match,

long after it burned down

and reached my fingertips.

—-

WE ARE OUR OWN CREATION

How high a sinful mind can wander before it reaches heaven?

How deep a second love can run before it is forgiven?

How many lines a poet can write before being criticised?

How many lines can a painter create before being copied?

I say, there is no limit to any of these for we are still our own creation.

-

OCTOBER MORNINGS

How your eyes gleamed like emeralds 

once autumn's first day arrived, 

how amber was the glance that met my tired eyes.

Like silk was the light of morning that came through half-shut doors 

and made a line of gold upon our bedroom floor.

Silent creeks

empty hallways full of doubt, 

the room is empty now.

-

PRISONS/GARDENS

Cages are made

for people living on the outside to catch things evil, beautiful or just unaccepted;

Nothing ever outgrows the space of captivity nor does it ever bloom.

If we ever offered some light to the shadows we hide we could have a whole garden within our society by now.

-

CHIANTI

The yellow sun lays low upon the fields that are covered in dry grass.

Soft is the rain that falls in the distance yet does not dare to come near the places where summer lives and dies.

The haze is the aftermath of the kiss summer shared with the land so gracefully.

And now, I may kiss your wine-stained lips within September's pale delight.

-

THE SHEETS & THE LIGHT

Sombre echoes

that mark the dawning greying on the hill;

the steep streets still wet from rain the small buildings look emptier with each day passing on;

Thoughts are done passing rounds counting circles inside my head.

Pale mirror-faces

crossing me on the way back to the place that felt like home - falling back in time.

-

COLOURS IN THE MIRROR

One day my pride will outlive myself and whatever remains of its colours will be remembered by others - for I was always my true self.

I live too little for things that make me dream & care too much for fears that sleep in between the fine lines of my weary mind - so write me gentle words, for it may break.

My diversity should not be a mistake but a celebration of identity & guiding light to others who ache to leave the numbness of »pretending-to-be«.

We are not broken mirrors that hurt the world by showing our true reflection;

we are merely hearts used to rejection - yet, their words will only blur but not break our shine.

-

ATHENA

They fall silently.

the steps of her arrival - crossing snow so pale even the morning sky would fade into nightfall's amber;

For she has entered the palace of gold - her hair braided with hope and tainted with red leaves

which colours remind of a hanged man's rope - for her name is war

and her crown is crafted out of grief.

-

CROSSROAD

Lights flicker above the crossroad shining in green now and then for people who won't cross and red for others - which won't stop;

The dull grey splits the city in pieces of lines and corners, sometimes outshined by heavy rain and flooded glimpses of chaos;

Broken glass upon crimson roads empty silence and nothing to say - while the city sleeps on and will awake, eventually.

-

SAN GIMIGNANO

The towers align the hills like crowns of heavy stones;

Empty are the dreams of the ones that built them long ago.

The thirst for power still stands frozen in its tracks - the only witnesses of it stand high against the silver sky.

The distance gets smaller, and the towers become higher.

So many have fallen,

laying their family's name to rest, in gentle forgetfulness.

-

A POET'S HOMAGE TO FLORENCE

What heart dares to look upon a city so golden and is not moved to write a single line?

Whose soul can bear such beauty

and not praise it with all its words?

May there be poets without a page left, artists with no colour to give a memory of you; and even lovers who refuse to burn?

My love, your likeness is like marble that makes the altar of paradise.

-

PIECES OF LIGHT

I see the art of each heart reflecting the mirror

that the world put it in front of - for so long that the lines so once so clear became hate for everything we see - blurring out the real;

Seeing a thousand lights reflecting one's own means nothing anymore, now that we live by the one offered by the world;

The price of being a small part of everyone's standard is being praised so, we may break into one single piece.

-

ASBOLUTION

Our paradise is not made out of worldly things but of the broken fragments of heaven - laced with doubt and forgiveness;

Nearly silent we promise each other absolutisation for every promise we ever dared to make with words and deeds - yet I feel incomplete.

-

PERSEPHONE (the spring ballade)

Every heart

is blooming upon a field of doubt and the flowers autumn reaps

- he knows every name about.

They grow

never in line, although

always in the shape of each soul of every lonesome doubt.

So whenever

I wander along my sorrow's path the horizon behind me glows crimson with all the broken hearts it carries on.

A thought

yet not dreamt is a love unplanted by hands of grieve - For each who does not bloom by now is long lost in summer's eyes,

For autumn

reaps but does not give a single tear to water the ground in which he steers sometimes so aimlessly.

-

WEDNESDAY MIRAGE

How far do they reach the rivers of our grieve - far beyond the horizon and deep into a soul;

Suffering can feel like drowning in numbness and being awake for days;

It's roots growing further then our mind can go and make dark a heart that once was full of light;

-

THE MEADOWS OF MEDEA

'The meadows lay weeping with tears like an emerald's gleam; while every nightingale is seeking the shelter of its only willow's green.

And silently,

my step falls on leaves

that carry me much further than I'd dream; for willows and thoughts are fading slowly while everything eternal is not seen - and yet they keep

so many of us in good company - for some can not be on their own, nor can they be free.

So I found peace,

the one eternal each one seeks

and so I left my soul for emerald's gleam; while the meadows still lay weeping with grief over my grave so quietly for it lays beneath the shadow of its only willow's green.

-

MARBLE GRAVES

The silver moon stands silent between two cypresses - its light leaning against the walls of the old palazzo that lays in ruin.

Hidden behind olive groves lays the tomb of forgotten men and unsung heroes.

Their souls found peace

within the Allgrove's of singing cicadas and rustling long grass.

The marble is heavy

and their graves cool and dark - deep is their sleep eternal their demise.

The moon is slowly covered by a shroud of clouds, cypresses now lay in darkness - silence.

-

OUR OLYMP

At this altitude of wavering faith and dying stars our love could not stand a chance;

it disappears slowly within my rhymes sky.

Fading along the pale darkness like a path of crumbling anecdotes on old crumpled philosophers' notes.

I can not see the moon anymore - neither I can imagine the place where it should rest tonight

in the sky of ours, where it used to be so bright.

The Gods themselves dare not make a home at this height of our hearts, for even the immortals would refuse to hold sacred a place so high.

Even our wishes refuse to fall at the mountains feet, still climbing, trembling, and slowly loosing

- defeat.

-

DYSTOPIA

Dark, early streets and high walls of empty houses a lonesome bird singing a hollow duet with its own echo -

autumn feels like spring once you have lost everything and stand with nothing to hold onto at winter's edge -

walkways glooming in buzzing orange neon light imitating fallen leaves, making the city's concrete jungle a forest -

soon November is here, crawling along the pavement and dulling the grey of the ruins they call buildings -

sudden flickering accompanied by loud buzzing: the lights went out while winter's edge cuts violently through the streets & building cracks -

the bird stopped singing.

-

FLORENCE

Soft emerald valleys lay in crimson light beneath the rolling hills;

the waters of the Arno gleam like bronze the city's vein, so still.

Each artist at the shore of the river stares in wonder and delight - how far do the lines reach across the bridge, beyond their work?

One may seek rest under the cypresses and soft light of the August amber sun - here, at his grave, the city walls lay high around the garden, he knew once as paradise.

His dark eyes still seem to pierce the lines of the hills,

like he searches for his soul - still;

(somewhere between the Arno and the nightfall).

The trees - heavily laid with summer's fruit - stand high above the city in marble glance.

Clear is now the dark sky - full of shards which dreamers call the stars.

-

THE MONSTER & THE MAN

One obstacle pierces his soul and calls him down the dark road - heavy sighing he must carry on and at last, the thorn is retrieved

- with agony in his brown eyes - he suddenly sees:

Fever dreams, scarlet on blue velvet, like ink drowning in words - words drowning inside his veins - words that pleaded in vain - words so scarlet... so stained.

Empty lines for empty souls that carry too much inside; empty pages for empty hands with nothing else to hide

nor to control the beast inside his soul.

-

SIENA

I wander down the steps along the walls of bricks and high houses -

down to the waters that lay deep.

Streaming down from the hill on which the old city was built with a tower standing high, that reaches up

not far from the grave that these waters lay in.

Alabaster is the hand that reaches in it and cold is the heart that touches the pale divine.

Beating fast after climbing back to the light and narrow streets - I found now what it seeks.

Descending down, down to the hidden stream - oh Siena, my goddess without a pomegranate seed.

-

THE BALLADE OF SUMMER'S FALL

Hues of pale green, on delicate olive branches the soft rustling of somberness along the fields of gold that lay themselves to gentle rest after another long summer.

I have nothing to bury under them

except my own heart -that is my soul's greatest regret, once my lines begin to fill in autumn, under the velvet gloom of shortening days.

The admiration of the Florentine sun had doomed my words to become eventually a remembrance once September falls in October's pale hands.

I shall have nothing to grieve for

once the winter arrives, coming over the distant hills and laying bare the orchards along his way.

I doomed them to become ruins by overthinking, hoping - at least once too often - for change;

So, let it be then.

I will mourn my mere passion for life in the presence of death - though my art may be eternal.

Uncorrected EPUB and PDF downloads are available here. The revised and paperback version is available worldwide.