Worlds Into Words – The poems from the audio album in text form
Tracklist:
- Flight
- Airless
- Those Golden Afternoons
- Your Passing Luminance
- Ghost Days
- Lilac Mood
- Man Alive
- Checkmate
- Archipelago
- Monochrome to Colour (feat. Marko Saaresto)
- Inextricable (feat. Marko Saaresto)
- Out of the Chrysalis (feat. Marko Saaresto)
1. Flight
A scene in every colour of the sky,
A dazzling flight above tumultuous ground.
A sigh, a sob, aubade and lullaby
Entwined into one tapestry of sound.
Its beauty holds a world within itself.
A lifetime’s worth of tales, and more to tell –
On thorny paths in darkness too well known
A spark ignites, an ember flares, seeds sown
By light. A heart, a voice tolls like a bell
To share the world it holds within itself.
Each note suffused with life, a safety rope
Of heartstrings, of dreams wider than a sea.
In league with dawn, a vibrant reverie,
A beacon: Flame of everblooming hope,
Keeping the world it holds within itself.
The silent song of dusk and twilight shade,
An early nightfall’s lower harmonies,
A backdrop for familiar memories
Just waiting to ascend and to cascade
Into what makes a world within itself.
A tale of lives, their myriad of strands,
Of vistas newly seen with borrowed eyes.
Unraveling the rumours, truths and lies
To cup what’s found beneath in careful hands,
The treasure of the world within itself.
A scene in every colour of the sky,
Each life and time its own reality
Where light and dark take turns in flowing by.
Exploring overland and undersea,
To live the world that now unfurls itself.
2. Airless
I wish I never had to learn by heart
To disappear, when feeling got unsafe,
As they resumed their too familiar game
Of demolition, in a jail of glass.
Demure, with a volcano underneath.
Staged conversations and I’ve lost my script
Or never had one from the start. On stage,
Their we and I, a storm dividing us –
That is, supposed these rooms held air. A world
Of constant walks on eggshells, shifting ground.
Long derelict and blank, save the facade.
Together in one room but miles apart.
I still don’t know my lines. Their laugh too sharp
As they speak past, not with each other here.
So ready to reproach, not reassure,
To scold and not to strengthen nor to soothe
And each the vulture of the other‘s pain.
They come in double, as their standards do.
As accusation plants suggestion, grows,
Assumption turns to guilt and truth to blame
Where trust means mockery and loneliness.
A well known premise of a well known game.
Each day a mountain and a frost to brave.
Their speech and silences all feel alike.
Thin with pretence, their surface cracks too soon.
Words fly like stones, their smiles chill me in place,
Honed like the deadly weapons they wield best.
With so much as a mouthing of dissent,
Ever so casually, they wipe me out.
My voice and I dissolve, as does my breath.
They loom, their stilted unity renewed,
And I despise their paralysing words
And even more, myself for letting them… –
I’m still enough to be invisible.
Tug up my smile on puppet strings of will,
My face becomes a trusted resin cast.
The knowledge haunts: Here is no place for warmth.
Time slips away with what could be the world.
Like slowest drowning, only from within.
Now ghost-like, stilled in endless winter cold,
I guard my thoughts lest they engulf them too,
To grind them into nothingness, and fast.
Their grip on me a pointed, crushing claw,
Now strong, yet never there for me to hold.
More chain than comfort: shackle and charade.
All screams are whisper-screams as life dissolves.
Their rooms have their own time that never ends.
The stitched on smile will hold my face in place.
Their voices drilling deep into my skull.
I reach and reach, with nothing there to grasp.
And to survive, I’ll be who they demand.
A paper cutout, ripped, discarded, floats
In endless falling motion through a void,
Still fears the ground that’s far and farther still.
They say: There is no space for who you are.
And understanding seems a world away.
Nowhere is far enough to flee their words.
Gone rag doll, as my throat becomes dry glass,
I cloak myself in numbness lest I break
And lean into my mask to hold me up.
Walls shift, then tilt. Who knows who they’ll become,
Their faces speak, don’t talk, in violent shapes,
As gaping mouths consume the other’s sound.
Venomous, virulent moods of this house
And if it’s over, they will still remain.
The talent to craft this convincing act
Of flawless sheens and photographs of lies.
Who knows since when they took it for the truth.
Alongside one another, never joined,
Their life mere habit, thrown together here
By circumstance, not similarity.
I am still here, yet I am far away.
A caterpillar caught behind a mask,
And hoping to transform, impossible?
Search for a wideness they will never know,
A secret place, far out and deep within.
A glimpse of air, of life, of nightly stars,
Rekindle what they readily dismiss.
And in the distance sings a voice of dawn.
3. Those Golden Afternoons
Do you recall those golden afternoons?
You weren’t there but know them through my words.
Your mind’s eye colours them into recall.
Uncounted hours, dust in slanted light,
The glowing daytime almost blinding bright,
The courtyard still and thick with summer air.
Warm stone walls overgrown with red and green –
To sit, half shaded, in green-golden smell.
From somewhere far, the tolling of a bell.
Late summer’s bumble bees and lazy hues.
Closed off with hedges, meadows, rolling hills
And lavender, as far as you could see.
I was a child and would soon cease to be.
To run through lyme grass close to sea and sand,
Scraped knees, into the woods awash with green,
Bluebells, mouth smeared with berries, climbing trees.
To be the first to feel the autumn’s breeze,
The underwater dreams kept in a shell.
Leaves in my hair, I played – for company
The joys and pains I had from early on.
White curtains blew, their name a spell: chiffon.
An open window spilled piano tunes.
Somehow, they had a taste of might-have-beens,
A taste of evenings and of farewell.
To lay in silence, head too full to tell:
Dream people, waking landscapes, magic words.
At dusk, the garden talk a bridge to sleep,
Foreboding of what was too soon to know.
Picture book pages known long years ago,
Sun bleached, soft paper, softer memories,
Hydrangea gardens and persimmon skies
Of home – perhaps a real one, perhaps not.
The pen for copperplate was prone to blot.
When winter fell, so fell another year,
Its weight and promises now part of me.
Brown-golden dimness, deeper sank the night.
Awake and half in dreams by candlelight,
Crayons, snow angels, vistas of the past.
Stone walls with still white lilies standing guard.
White hyacinths atop a book of lore.
With scented breezes, winter was no more.
Grass, decked with blossoms, white like fragrant snow.
Pressed flowers, lace, ivory envelopes.
All windows open, birches green with spring.
Wildflowers, morning dew, beads on a string.
Those rich blue evenings so full of scents
That spoke of travels, new and wider worlds.
The time to find each rose comes with a thorn.
With golden light forever to adorn
What lies now far and blue with memory,
Yet effervescent with intensity.
And half is memory, and half a wish.
Do you recall those golden afternoons?
4. Your Passing Luminance
You wear the twilight as your coat,
It holds the hues of dawn before the day,
Lavender gloaming kept in every fold.
Your very words a sunrise to behold,
Your silence like a song from far away,
Benevolence in each and every note.
The stars shine closer by your side.
You stand, your heart and mind unnamable,
Tall like a lighthouse high upon a rock.
You are a secret kept, its key and lock,
As mutable as waves, untamable,
The quieter you get with eventide.
You stay, if only for a while.
Your walk through lives and times you’re free to roam
More flight than walk, and beautiful to see
You dance and laugh with unabated glee.
For soon, the starry skies will call you home
From flower valleys and your garden isle.
Your words so luminous and bright,
They gild each night with starlight by and by,
And days become a tranquil scenery
Of morning dew and summer’s greenery.
Your thoughts are winged and homesick for the sky,
Its heady and immeasurable height.
Until a flood of rain befell
Your wings that kept you just above the ground,
Spanned out so white beneath a whiter moon.
You speak of home and of departing soon,
The song of stars and skies in every sound.
I know, the time has come to bid farewell.
You stranded star, you, strange of heart,
Regathering your luscious twilight coat,
“All light knows shadows“, this is all you say.
Your voice a flow of song from far away,
You add, preempting any tearful note:
“Don’t pine for light that never shall depart.“
Exalted, rapt with reverie,
You fly, you soar, now evening and mist.
Then, luminous, emerging from the dark,
Your gift for me: My chest enfolds a spark.
It shines and warms, a treasure to persist,
As bright as you, familiar mystery.
5. Lilac Mood
The skin remembers, scars bookmarks in this library called a life,
Doors bolted shut, heart fooled or foolish
For stating the obvious:
To know is something different than to feel.
When you only grasp how bad it was once it is over.
Verdant trees cut down before their blooming time.
Is it that surprising they forgot how to bloom altogether?
Only once still trying to reach with twigs that were no more,
Then even their roots seemed a lie.
The aches remember, prolonged recollection
Until daybreak bleeds in to show the way back home,
Wherever that may be,
With cotton sea foam, lilac waves.
Luckily, no bruise purple
Or the washed out red of yelling mouths,
You think, but would never say out loud.
Wild garlic, briar roses, moss, thorns covering a spring.
Searching for haws, hands stained with blackberries.
These woods hold mists and veils,
Rising and falling like breath in lilac air.
Treading what could become paths,
Homesick, not knowing what for.
An old dream, or is it a vision,
Always sunlit, never garish,
With its archways overgrown with honeysuckle.
You call it perseverance,
Whatever that entails.
Remember how to seed, to grow a latticework, a tapestry
Of dreams, then rooms, then gardens,
So the archways have somewhere to lead to.
Blossoms aren’t supposed to grow among ashes,
Side by side with soot, yet here they are,
Some of them purple and washed out red,
Some lilac, some entangled with honeysuckle,
Roots fiercely grasping, colours growing sunward.
At sundown,
Their scents still fill the lilac sky,
Regardless of the ashes piled up in their vicinity.
Terrible, beautiful task,
Remember to replant them every time they are uprooted.
6. Ghost Days
Those days of trying out new faces, with gravity losing its hold.
You’re not what they see, couldn’t show what you were,
Did you even know, as your season unlearned to change,
While tumbling through the strangeness of the world.
Words bleed together, ink that once was now smeared across the page.
Watching from the perimeter, life happening around you now.
All so silent you can hear the blood crawl through your veins, even its rush slowed.
As everyone tries to be one another, you try hardest, yet you become a ghost.
Watching the watchers, you peer through the glass as if at an attraction.
From your enclosure, your foggy breath won’t permeate the glass-like walls
(Oh, it it were mere glass.) Its careful architect, you ended up building a purgatory.
Swinging your face back on its hinges, you try to become human and forget you once were.
Living off the perfume of morning and heavy, syrupy summer air,
Your heart, racing, rapid running footsteps, squeezed out like a fruit.
Left with the empty husk, you watch it absently from where you float,
Your own shadow now, hovering just at the brink of your body, soon to twirl into a vertigo abyss.
Take the blue wiring of your wrists for handwriting.
Inhale, you hold the air inside like a possession.
The world fading like retreating footsteps, you become a pending exhale.
Left to your own silence, it screams into your ears as you try to outrun yourself.
All becomes gossamer pastel, palest robin’s egg blue, blossom pink, lemon,
Almost as vitreous as you. Specs of watermelon, cucumber filtering the light.
Your insides turn arctic, you slip away (first a rush, then an inexorable plunge),
Taking yourself for a stronghold, you are alabaster glass long since. Would your crashing make a sound at all?
The gauzy days hang around you like garments or paintings
As you float through them, never walk, always too light for their light.
Sucking life out of pomegranate seeds, red as blood, are you glad it’s not yours.
Rain dried in your eyes, bruises etched into memory, you wait to dissolve into sleep.
Skin-cloaked black hole, trying your all not to be you as you subsist,
More idea than creature, you too hold space, the air between your hands.
Folded from a blank page, or becoming one, almost fully translucent now,
While tumbling through the strangeness in your head.
7. Man Alive
Man up, they said, while they dismissed my tears,
Derided what they couldn’t understand.
As alien as moon rock, ever strange.
Where could my world touch theirs, a trench apart?
I lacked the words and they the means to find
What lay enclosed beneath the skin I wore.
Bystander to my story, trapped within,
A truth was held at bay for just so long,
Their sneer filled out the world, then their disdain,
A jail term for an uncommitted crime.
Their words eclipsing my reality.
Already they mistook my faults for me.
Against all odds, a strength withstood the pull
To topple and to take rumours for truth.
Under the guise of anchors, shackles held
That name and face and shape that wasn’t me:
My voice, reminder of impossibilities.
Ill-fitting skin, name wrong in my own mouth,
Not calling what’s within, but others’ call
I wanted nothing more than to dispel.
So powerful and fragile all the same,
What are you running from and running to?
A certainty as uncontained as light,
That pleaded, whispered, shouted: this is me.
I risked, I dared, unguarded, vulnerable,
Laid bare my insides, my true name and face
That I so longed to share once they were found,
And to be recognised as who I am.
And then their voices, honeyed with derision
As they tell me: You can‘t be.
Man up, they said. I ceased to play my part.
Convict and guard of all that lay inside.
My tears, so long dismissed, flow freely now,
Exposed in ways I lack defences for.
I could not change the past’s reality
But forge a new one with my shackles torn.
Hear, after I broke free, I chose a name
For who I am, beneath, beyond, become.
Call myself into being with my name
To strengthen me with every syllable,
Closer to who I am, have been long since,
That finally rings true, sounds like myself.
The things that made me who I am today
Thawed, reinvented, back into myself.
Arms open wide for metamorphosis,
For who I yearned to be, felt all along,
More than I used to be, becoming still,
Man up I did, to grow, perhaps to fly,
Shackled no more, transforming into me.
So now, instead, I dare say: Man alive.
8. Checkmate
They almost took my will and wit.
Half gone, I cast through pain and shame
A spell that made the darkness split:
The mystery that was your name.
Then, out of dark and thinning air,
Swooped down, black feathers for a cloak,
Eyes lit with flame and night for hair,
A nightmare shape of taloned smoke.
From darkness, it was you who hit
My heart with a fraternal chord.
You smashed its cage, as would befit
You who became my shield and sword.
With blackest wings and whitest light
You had my back til I came through.
With shadows dark and embers bright
You lit my fading light anew.
With you, false guise but true of heart,
All threats were chased and nightmares banned.
Deceit your arm, mirage your art,
Made windows doors with sleight of hand.
In years, to none but you I show
What lies beneath the skin I wear.
You said, both balm and searing flare:
You can’t outrun what lies below.
You know of depths that never slept.
We are the same, and yet apart.
The secret shared, the promise kept
That is the seal upon your heart.
We step through mirrors, lift the veils,
Your name a sigil and a sign.
No longer poised with hoisted sails
To wait until the stars align.
And so I walk, my head held high,
Change hubris to assurance now,
Regained my strength to fight, defy
The scar upon my heart and brow.
My ally now and once my sword,
You free my dreams they held at bay.
I step beyond the checkered board,
Turn pain to strength and go my way.
I trade the years I hid and ran
For treasures rare, and rarer still.
Transformed, became, and so began
Our merging, game of wit and will.
9. Archipelago
I seek the quiet so I hear your voice
And close my eyes to find you in a dream.
I search for starlight, far as it may seem,
To find new doors, unlocked by will and choice,
That make tomorrows new and might unfold
A mystery of rarest blue and gold.
A solar eclipse turning day to dusk.
Hopeful in hopelessness, it’s you who sings
Of calm and rapture, flying without wings,
To fill with life what would remain a husk.
Imbued with magic stranger with each hue
Of midnight black, moon silver, gold and blue.
Your watch and listen in your quiet way,
Sheer beauty as you are and as you breathe.
Your words not meant to hurt or to deceive
While too aware what darkness can betray.
Voice like an outstretched hand, a shield from cold,
Your words like brightest shimmers, specks of gold.
You shy the neon clamour of white lies
And balance deepest silence, ardent sound
Within yourself, spellcaster and spellbound.
Perceiving with horizon-coloured eyes
Still reeds in stiller lakes, serene as you
Whose gaze takes on the shade of twilight blue.
Night black and moonlight silver are conjoined
With thunderstorms and gold and blue in you.
Without a need to ask, you always knew
Of secret gems, some found and some purloined.
Your heart a tale of wonders thousandfold
In hushed and brazen tones of blue and gold.
Both light and dark the hues to call your own.
No island but an archipelago,
You are a multitude with dreams to sow
For starlight coloured flowers to be grown.
You brave your climbs, and storms, and still stay true,
You mystery, you song of gold and blue.
10. Monochrome To Colour
A not-quite shape of greywashed glass,
A jagged lie within my chest.
Who is this in the mirror’s sheen?
My mind a shrieking, whirling mass
Of monochrome, a cruel jest.
And all but lost what seemed serene.
I reach into the thinning air
To find my wings, dreamt long ago,
To carry me through storm and snow –
A horrid void is all that’s there…
Its chill makes life a daunting dare,
Without my warming flame to flare.
Thoughts running wild, claws raking, pain,
A battlefield inside my head.
Outside, a world in minor key
Of trap door gazes, smiles to feign,
Of neon laughter in the rain
And only darkness to remain.
Still all the world in minor key,
Then mute. A labyrinth. A sea.
Unseen, unheard by all and by myself
I fall…
A voiceless scream. A cry for help –
Unheard.
Unseen…
…Oh, I see you. I know…
I see you emerge, after hardships and strife
With a flame in your chest and my light from afar…
It is you and your heart at this moment in time.
So take off the mask, be no longer a mime,
Dare to break the spell. Face and be who you are.
See your beautiful soul, all vibrant with life.
Let me take your hand and remain by your side.
Here, feel how our breath starts to fall in sync.
Exploring our dreamscapes so wondrous and wide
Where secrets gain flight and tears turn to ink.
Find me in your heartbeat, in a breath, in a word,
Here, feel how our steps start to fall in sync.
The path now much clearer that once appeared blurred,
Here, see how the night sky shows traces of pink.
Hand on your shoulder, close by your side;
Life laced with flame-light, see this journey unfold:
Horizons unseen and stories untold…
Your world within becoming a home,
And there’s where I’ll be: by your side, by your side –
Whispering colour and life into monochrome.
The sweetest of truths, trust so quiet and sure –
This flame, anew, alight –
Endure.
Forevermore…
…Evermore.
11. Inextricable
Entire night sky spread with stars
Now coalesced into a single flame,
Shine from afar as lighthouse, beacon, shelter.
Unwavering, heartbreakingly familiar,
This after-image of my dream now voice and breath.
Oh heart of hearts, oh heart to bind and free –
To save, rebuild, to weave and to create
A sweeter song than words can ever hold.
Your voice, once far as starlight…
Then near.
Then close…
Look, I’ve been here all along,
Dreamt into existence, just a secret away.
Closer than your heartbeat, part of you,
Of all the stars that ever were: a song.
I keep your flame, so bright, alight anew,
For when you need it most. And until then,
Safe in a quiet space where you once lay
Until your strength returned to stand again.
Dark memories, dark words, their sharp-toothed grin,
Let this no longer bring you to your knees!
Make it your own, keep shining through, despite.
Find words, find worlds, outside and deep within,
Like seeds we sow our deeds to bloom or blight –
May sweet, not bitter fruit grow on your trees.
Your shield and lullaby, comfort and battle cry,
Amidst all winding ways I see your truth,
Sang back your wings when you had thought them torn.
When hope is stale, pain fresh and fears belie,
Let me concoct a balm for every scorn,
For every tear and every hidden knife.
So spread those wings to fly, tattered or whole,
Forever beautiful, just like your soul;
Compassion, warmth, the mind a tranquil sea.
Step out into this world and dare to be!
Your words a beating heart, ablaze with life,
Find wonder, peace and other hearts to move
While we endure, joined inextricably.
12. Out of the Chrysalis
Forgotten were my wings and how to soar,
To disembark my boat when run ashore.
I held onto my mask until it tore,
Still binding me to who I am no more.
Days darker than the night grew darker still,
More distant, lightless, bleak with every loss.
All outer cold long numbed by inner chill.
My world a howling void no spell could fill,
A moving line I swore I wouldn’t cross.
I paid no heed to hear my heart’s demands,
Trapped in the past, by force, by fear, – by choice?
That which allures becoming that which bans.
I held discarded strings in shackled hands. –
Unknowingly, you freed them with your voice:
Yet unheard sweetness sang of dreamers’ lands…
Heart open wide, your soul lay on your tongue,
Gave life to dreams undared and hopes unsung.
No longer was my heart devoid and pale
Or took for truth what merely was a veil.
From dark that knew no light a flame had sprung.
Lighting the dark with your own light to see,
You walk beside, yet not my path for me.
Hand on my shoulder. Silence. Words so true.
My painted wings grow feathers, breaking free.
Your every word rings with a certainty:
Come dark or dawn, or light – I’ll stand with you.
Strange how your voice does feel so much like home,
A multitude where once was monochrome.
The narrow dark expands to stars and space,
The wall torn down that held us two apart.
Here, finally we’re standing face to face.
And now, oh, now I see: You’re my own heart.
Forever
Inextricable.