even encased, your
vibrancy cannot be held
captive, you gleam on.
© Ali Grimshaw 2018
Author: Ali Grimshaw
No More Tears
Do your eyes remain dry
cried out from
tears for the one
and one
and one
another one
and years of the countless
ones?
Those ones that were the most precious one
to someone.
My heart beats in you this day as tears run down my face.
Grief’s hand must change
what hope will never be able to.
Before all eyes have run dry.
– Ali Grimshaw 2018
Words are inadequate after another US school shooting. Still I try in the honor of those who fight for change and the grief that countless others must bare.
Dream of Love
Awake in the darkness
with a different kind of knowing.
One of souls connected in an absence of time.
Understanding not limited by words.
A sigh that offers comfort,
only possible from the deep inhale proceeding it.
Melding without becoming one.
A miracle of wholeness from separate beings.
© Ali Grimshaw
Valentine’s Day 2016
Expectation
late
broken
incomplete
misunderstood
unable to prove
“If you would just try.”
disappointment in their eyes
defeated layers of books and papers
accustomed to going unnoticed
“Why can’t you be …?”
“Why didn’t you?”
just below the line
left far behind
deep sighs
“Again?”
shame.
© Ali Grimshaw
This poem is shaped like a bell curve to represent the people who have endured feelings of shame for not performing in a way that someone deemed as success.
Locked up
Locked up, but not away
cherished in a closed loop.
Desire for the everlasting
secured with full disclosure
of our imperfections. Rusty
raw, real acceptance.
The very charged electrical
zing between our eyes that
speak across the loud crowd
like a room gone silent just for us.
Our eyes say, we are forever.
© Ali Grimshaw 2018
Photo take in Vernazza, Italy – Beloved
Message
You may have forgotten
I have not.
The strength of your heart
to carry you across the hard times.
It has never left you to swim ashore alone.
It never will.
Believe.
I hear it.
among the fallen plaster
disrepair, wrinkles of error
some may think irredeemable
not broken beyond salvage
surrendered in thick layers
your heart lies beating.
I hear it.
© Ali Grimshaw 2018
Heart wide open
Today I wrote a gift for you
my pen pulled my hand along, (it is braver than I)
it knows how to lay my heart wide open,
like a prairie to the sky
nowhere to hide, expansive and still
miles from adequate for what I wish to give.
© Ali Grimshaw
Originally shared February 2017
Slightly to the right
One step to the right
not a stretch, just a nudge
shift of weight to the side.
One step away
between worry and wonder
landscape of exhaustion
or possibility.
Not a marathon, nothing to train for,
just one
small
step.
Get your shoes on.
wonder is waiting.
© Ali Grimshaw 2018
Photo credit to Pixabay.com
Unwind
Thinking in reverse
months tip, like dominos
to revisit that summer day.
Longing for this cleansing pool,
offering of chilled calmness
encircled by stone, here I joined
the river of slow movement,
pulling at my rapid pulse.
Plucking the notes ever slower.
Heartbeat dissolving
until I was
just being
water.
© Ali Grimshaw
flashlight batteries - Ali Grimshaw 