Poetry by Lesley A Webster /aka Katelyn Bradley
4.10.23
In the Darkness
Come to me in the pale light of daybreak
With sleepy eyes and unguarded heart
Let me kiss you awake
And trace the lines left by a fancy pillow’s braided cord.
Let us lie in the hush of early morning
The dreams of a day stretched before us
Come to me in the afternoon
Sun high and shadows short
And tell me of the all the things that you have done
Let us fill our bellies as we dine
On cold sandwiches and warm conversation
Energy for the remaining day
Come to me as evening falls
Fireflies flickering, calling to their mates
As I call to you
Let me melt in your arms as we watch the drifting sun
Sky blazing, hearts on fire
The peace of a day well accomplished
Come to me in the darkness
Night cannot hide the hunger in your eyes
Let my fingers find on your body
Every dip, every bone, every secret place
Whisper words on my skin
And let this moment last forever
6.28.22
Show me your scars
I am not good with
small minds and
pretty faces
Show me your scars
your broken bones healed crooked
your jagged edges and
sharp teeth
Show me your wrinkles and
all your lines
and the dreams you have forsaken
but they still make you cry
Show me the ugly parts
made beautiful simply by
being who you are
Everyone can see your beauty
I want to see your soul
5.28.22
Shiny Things
Gleaming glitter, flashy chrome,
Shiny things don’t make a home
Give me copper weathered green
Softly glowing, beauty’s sheen
Living long through storms and sun
Embracing everything as it comes
Give me weathered battered truth
Of all the things that live in you
Shiny things may catch a glance
But I want so much more than that
9.22.08
shallow grave
I thought I had taken care of it
buried in a shallow grave
out in the desert
ten miles from nowhere
in the tumbleweeded wilderness
but unexpected clouds
reversed their typically empty promises
pouring out memories
onto hardened clay with
nowhere to run
gullies turn to rushing streams
cacti lined arroyos diverting
unwelcome emotion
across the barren land
digging up my past
fleshless bones floating
and i scramble to reassemble
what should be dead and gone
5.25.22
If hope…
If hope
is the thing with feathers
that perches in my soul to sing,
I should like to wring its neck
to smother that incessant chirping
which keeps telling me
“Things will all work out”
when clearly they will not.
I have given up the futile task
of praying that my love will change,
his love will change,
I have made peace with the daily reassembling
of my shattered heart.
I do not stifle the sobs that escape
the moment I forget my guard.
All I ask is this one small grace,
this one raindrop of mercy,
only this
To scrub out Hope
that damnable stain which blots out Reason,
that merciless torture which will not let me go,
to carve it from my beating heart
my bleeding soul
to leave a gaping wound oozing Pain,
the stench of the Forlorn,
fed upon by maggots and worms and Wretchedness,
Sorrow pouring from the incision,
the excision.
Agony of heart I can bear.
It is Hope which breaks me in two.
6.2.09
Shelter
Do you remember that day
bruised sky and
us with no umbrella?
Splash dashing to the treeline
and huddled laughter
while you reached your jacket over
us like a soggy canvas cover
to shield me from the unlikely event
of a tree branch falling on my head,
and even though
we knew
it was so silly,
for those few moments I honestly believed
that your love
was all I needed.
8.7.08
Phoenix
to soar
to rise from my own ashes and to touch the sky
to resurrect and redefine
to see the world
and make it mine
to fly
to rediscover just what makes me me
to come to life and start again
finding self and
strength within
to be
to form myself into this brand new thing
so close and yet so far from what is old
a thing of beauty,
powerful and bold
to sing
to feel each breath as i unfurl my wings
to measure every beat within my heart
this is my moment
this is when it starts
7.9.2013
SP,HFS
Every time I hear the word
Malibu
I think of you.
It is not
a memory we shared,
not a special word,
not a cherished inside joke.
And yet
every time I hear the word
I think of you
even though
of course
for you it should be
a green Corvette but
it is not.
It is a
Malibu
that looks
like an Impala
or vice-a-verse because
it is not
like you
to miss a detail,
to mistake a moment,
to misremember a single line
of the thousands we
have written
and spoken
and whispered in our hearts
which is why,
I suppose,
it sticks in my
behumored mind.
The
Malibu
is probably Purple
like you
and I wish
that we could
sit and simply
talk or even
breathe the air
together.
It is not
like we
haven’t both
wanted the same thing
from time past
through
time lost
and
all this time we can never
get back.
So the announcer shouts
Malibu
and
every time I hear the word
my mind
drifts to you
and
my heart
catches
and
for one moment
everything inside me
hurts with hope
razor sharp
but
it is not
enough nor will it
ever be.