Category: Photography

Sage

Published on by Tosha Michelle29 Comments

Tonight I surrender everything
I have left undone to the wind
broken promises, letters I wrote,
but never sent, almost loves,
lost loves, regret. No questions.
Why or how no longer matter
They’ve been used up by yesterday.
Some just hallucinations
along my misguided way.

I’ve lingered too long in bramble
My skin marred by briars
Looking to find my way out
by the light of others eyes.
Hoping someone would decipher
the hidden shapes of my soul.

Alone with the begotten shadows,
iilluminated by the moon
I find clarity. The answer in release..
In letting go, I become lighter
Besotted with the fever of liberation.
A lomg time gone now
I find myself.
I am free.

-Tosha Michelle

Misguided Ghosts

Published on by Tosha Michelle21 Comments


Sometimes everything is rhetorical
Everything is monochrome
My limbs wracked with rain
I tread gingerly.
I make promises I may not keep
Go on with my soltuide,
my soliloquy.
I’m almost out of words.
Knowing you cannot grasp
what you cannot hold
Things vanish all the time
And what is only left of me, is
me only.

-Tosha Michelle

Upon Viewing The World

Published on by Tosha Michelle25 Comments

We’re all in the dark
and it’s not early
Maybe not too late
We sleep in narrow beds
in rooms shimmering
and burning from a sickhearted
moon.
The stars reflect a defective hue.
We long for a powerful eclipse
or for a comet to appear.
Angels feet on fire.

Thinking our world is woven
by the fragile string of fate.
We waste the moonlight.
Gazing at static air.

-Tosha Michelle

Matter

Published on by Tosha Michelle30 Comments

Sometimes we have to
carry what we can and
discard the rest. I’ve
been talking inventory
of my life, trying to
decide what to leave
in, what to leave out.
My back sore from
the weighted
backpack of other
people’s burden I
lug around. I’m
cutting insanity from
my life with no written
apology. I’m burning
bridges so drama
can’t follow me home.

There are people I can’t
live without. People who
litter their bedroom’s floor
with clothes and always
forget where they put
their keys.

I do my best to give them
my time. I give them my right
not what’s left.

Tonight I say a prayer to
the God of humanity, to
give me people I can
love and dispense hope
to.
and the courage not to
wish away my plea.

Tosha Michelle

The Answer 

Published on by Tosha Michelle105 Comments


My heart is hungry

for what I didn’t know before

the light. The air.

The tree branches sway to

ghosts on the wind.

The grass, a graveyard of regret.

I walk away, knowing what comes after

can only be better.

Next time, I’ll find the one

who’s been looking for me.

The one who’s eyes search

the sky.

I won’t settle for less

than what I hope for.

I’ve shed claws and sprouted

wings.  The moon nods its

approval. The crickets sing

a song of respect.

If you are not looking for me,

I don’t want to be found.

I’d rather stay in my shell

until my own resolve cracks

it open.

Free. I’ll listen to the spirits

of Dante and Beatrice,

and await the smoke signal

of someone who could matter.

Whether it’s the earth or me

who answers,  depends on

the flame and the charred

particles of the dust of my heart.

-Tosha Michelle

Upon Stealing a Kitkat

Published on by Tosha Michelle47 Comments

You’ve taught me how far
I can go toward myself.
No need to run from who
I am.

That’s how it is with us.
Windblown fragments,
two are we.

We live in a shareable place
our little patch of green.
where I’d rather hear you
than all.

We converse fluently in
a language only we understand.
Your charm never lies in the
way wedding songs and
love sometimes do.

In my head you’ve cut a groove,
leaving your initials there
Absolute. Right. Permanent.
They tell a story even when
my mind shifts and happenstance
grabs the pen.

The darkest ink is not dark enough
to eradicate the thought of you.

Our kinship, a sonnet to pathless
woods, always ready to explore.
We reach for a state of grace,
Knowing life can only get worse, but
better too.

Tosha Michelle

Variations

Published on by Tosha Michelle43 Comments


I call him eccentric
He thinks it’s a reprimand
He doesn’t realize
His exquisite eccentricities
reveal his unique inner form.
like Gould last recording of
the Goldberg Varations

His illuminated soul
seemingly always in motion.
I read religiously his light.
Text etched with acid.
but cut with gentle sweetness
The light only growing brighter.
He coaxes me out of my
shadow box.

I could take refuge in his uniqueness
The magic of his mind, linger there
in the smudge of the stars.
Let him read the face of my spirit,
my wildest wishes, the lure
of eccentric things
Framed by endless strings of grace.
A concerto of serenity. defined
composition, melodic hope.

-Tosha Michelle

Heavenly Day

Published on by Tosha Michelle78 Comments

image

The sky announced the sun
on a day when the sun’s arrival
was enough.

The clouds curtseyed and then
fell away.

The dogwood branches swayed as
with divine provocation.

The poppies pondered providence
the afternoon light, and alliteration.

Lovers and children were devoting their hours
to the wind and newly sprung gardens.

Coins were tossed into fountains devoted
to wishes, on a day so bright surely all
desires were fulfilled.

All day long, the sun lingered as if
a love sick suitor hesitant to say goodbye
to the now blushing sky.

Sadly, the sun learned you can’t roll
back the hours or the day’s resolve
to fade into night.

All you can do is abide the darkness
and await the promise of another spring
struck, soulful blue day.

-Tosha Michelle

On the Clouds Eating His Shadow

Published on by Tosha Michelle27 Comments


The clouds drank in ravens
making the pines lucid.
His shadow fell beneath
the sky. If she listened
closely, she could hear
his melodic cadence
delivering soliloquies
adrift on the wind.
He as he was
She as she became
Awake. Aware.
Taking color and form.
Both somewhere between
what was there. What’s
not there. Someone you
remember and can’t
quite forget.
Lost mail on someone
else’s kitchen table.
The parenthesis enclosed.
Time takes away. Gone
in an instant particles
of the past.
She stays.

(She can’t stay)
Tired from this slow
burning off of yesterday.
That which was lost
will not become again.
She always thinks she
see gleams of him,
glimpsed and then gone.
The stem decimated but
drowning in rose petals.
No longer powerless
to the undertow.
His presence merely less,
but no longer wholly more.
His shadow falling,
falling into dust.
The only sound she
hears now is her
voice turning into
an early frost.
To every poem there is
a time and season.
Seasons that coagulate
into lost years.
In this one, she scourges
the past with lyrical ease
The wind no longer
contradicting itself.
Her pen drops ink
of flames, no longer
pointing to the sky.
Dr. Syntax gives her a
lollipop and a clean
bill  of closure. 

-Tosha Michelle

Angst in Verse

Published on by Tosha Michelle36 Comments

 

cropped-wp-1465485078962.jpgMy poetry knows how to
sing the blues.
It finds rhythm in lost loves,
an empty room, a whiskey shot.
It’s cadence of roving eyes
a wallet devoid of
cash. the desire to stay.
The need to go.
Misery flows from lyrics
that refuse to let it fold.

My poetry channels
Ella Fitzgerald and
dissonant chords of a broken
someone.

It thrives on restless things and memories
that come to life in a song

Moaning the words so fervently, the ink drips
to save me, even when I’m out of tune.
And I can only glimpse
where I’ve been, not where I’m going.
The want for new history
and a new song spurs the poet on.

-Tosha Michelle

 

And on a u related and happy note. I am in love with this song. It takes me to a serene place.