Vixen of the Night

Dark, beautiful, mysterious -
Melancholic and imperious
Well, people certainly were curious.
"Eine Fremde", some people would designate.
Une femme fatale, others would exclaim.
Vixen of the night
Big and dark her eyes
Raven black her hair.
I followed her everywhere.
I have been trying to meet her for years.
Softly she tiptoed into town.
Now she is here.
And then
The very next morning -
She disappears.

© Colleen Yorke. All rights reserved. 

Nika

Nika's natural hair color is hazelnut brown. She likes changing it. It is mahagony now. She was blond for awhile to see if guys liked her better. They did, but not the ones she wanted to talk to. So Nika went two shades darker. The first wardrobe change was a fiasko. A red stop sign paled compared to her bright new headdress. 

Panicked she called me and her gay friend Paul, our fallback guy with all things relating men. Paul, a hair dresser in Beverly Hills, always had juicy stories about some Alpha personality who woke up one day and decided to change, starting with her hair. Two hours later she would be in his saloon, crying, asking him to fix the impossible.As Paul worked on Nika’s hair and I stood by for moral support, Nika began telling us about her dating experiences. 

Nika succumbed to an online dating site a little over a year ago. At first she found it thrilling to meet men from all caliber from various neighborhoods in Los Angeles. A surgeon, a prosecutor, a professor, a writer, an aerospace scientist. She dated him for several months, before he decided to trade her in for a blond bank teller with a degree in Animal Sciences. We all received our personal share of Nika’s emotional Mount Everest. Back in the dating business, Nika is feeling a bit more pragmatic. She is open to dating older men now. "LA is full of interesting men, I should be able to meet one",  she chirps in a good mood.

Paul is done: “There you are. Neither blond, nor brunette nor redhead. Mahagony.” A flip of a hand-held mirror, Nika is examining Paul’s work of art carefully, combing through every strand of her new persona. “Now I will finally meet interesting and normal men. I mean mahagony isn't haha-cute blond nor do-not-touch-me brunette, it is keck." Paul, the honest good soul, and sometimes blind as a bat, feels he needs to pass on some additional Marsian wisdom before I can stop him:  “Actually, Nika, the interesting men you are trying to meet work all day and go out at night to party hard. And they like blondes. Or girls with sleek black hair."

I shift my feet nervously. I am bracing for a familiar explosion. Nika is quiet. Awfully quiet. Then she straightens up and in voice allowing no further argument, she declares: “Trust me, I will find a partner. This is the hair, I know it.”

I look at her. I remember a teenager with purple hair, who  - being assured of my absolute loyalty not to tell - confessed that the plumed hair was just the right color for a dance with a star athlete four years her senior, Spence. Yes. After decades of knowing Nika, one thing I know for sure: Life never gets boring with her. 

I wonder what hair color she will go for next.

© Colleen Yorke. All rights reserved.

The Rush of Youth

A face full of wrinkles
She was young once. 
Famous for her golden hair
And seven little black dresses
She liked to wear.
Dancing all night long.
Those years are long gone.
The rush of youth. 
As a young woman sailed past her, 
A rapturous breeze lightly touched the older one. 
Then as the young one was quite out of sight
A truck appeared. 
The front-seat passenger leaned out the cabin 
And he shouted: “My god, are you beautiful!”, 
In the reflecting mirror she saw his smile.
A face so full of a lived life. 
 
© Colleen Yorke. All rights reserved.

Full Circle

You're such an inspiration for the ways.
A little less red,

More white,
Something growing inside.
Picket lines and picket signs,
But you tell me it is alright.
We all have a choice
Except I had too much wine.
Seeing the unheard you know
Tasting the truth, it's mild
Some things are best left unspoken,
Afraid to be broken,
And lets hope you are not wrong this time. 

© Colleen Yorke. All rights reserved.

Twenty Timezones

Miles from everything they know,
With millions more to go.
Detours and mistakes,
All the times someone hits the brakes,
Hoping something would change.
It hardly slowed the pace.
Crossing tram lines,
Strangers holding hands at midnight,
She has been here since 1969.
Someone is always keeping time.
Blinked her eyes once or twice,
And they were gone.
She is only a clock,
16 tons of stone,
148 names,
Twenty time zones,
She has been here since 1969,
Amidst order and chaos,
Amidst the lost and the found,
Faithfully keeping everyone's time.
 
© Colleen Yorke. All rights reserved. 

Inside the Grey Zone

Somewhere outside black and white,
Hidden amidst the vast unknown
Lies the brink of the grey zone.
An incisive gaze,
Breaking and entering this forbidden place
When there is still time to turn around
Before it is too late
The eerily fog draws them in more,
Much deeper than before.
He knows
Somewhere outside black and white
She is in it now
With no other way out.
 
© Colleen Yorke. All rights reserved.

Ashes By Dawn

In quintillions of years
What mysteries are human tears.
The fires of a heart
Ashes by dawn.
A body at auction,
Whatever the bids of the bidders,
They cannot stack up high enough for this.
Underneath silk and cotton,
A kiwi with dark eyes and ticklish sides long forgotten.
He goes on eating from paper plates.
He is in new company now.
Not less the soul, nor more—everything is in his place.
The fires of a heart
Ashes by dawn. 

© Colleen Yorke. All rights reserved. 

Face of Agamemnon

Where the freeways fold
Over the glistening skylights
Dazzling stars of the night 
And pockets of time
Buildings with a thousand floors,
Reflecting windows and even 
More revolving doors. 
In the same deep waters as you.  
Somewhere amidst serendipity 
And constant vacuums of relativity
A leap of faith, architecture of space.
Fate gives what Chance can not control 
Abiding in mystery the lucidity of soul.
Gazing onto the face of Agamemnon
Leaving without a leg to stand upon
Coming home to look after my fences
Finding them missing
And again trusting my senses.

© Colleen Yorke. All rights reserved.

Crashing Illusion

The moment you push your fist through glass
And it shatters is the moment
You sober up.
There is nothing more refreshing
Than the bleeding reminder of
A crashing illusion.

© Colleen Yorke All rights reserved.

House of Mirrors

A leopard moving through
A house of glass.
A beautiful goddess surrounded by heat
Watching him pass.
Underneath everything
A bright pain.
She knows there are no answers – only beginnings.
He brings her shells, stones and oddly colored leaves
She packs and wraps them
Into many shapes.
She keeps rewriting her life.
Did you like me better as Snow White or Jezebel?
He is casual about preferences.
He moves through
The house of mirrors.
Is he indifferent?
She studies her face.
Tomorrow is already sleeping
Behind her eyes.
They both know the trick is
How long they can keep it going.

© Colleen Yorke. All rights reserved.

Loaded Guns

This too shall pass.
People will forget.
Trust me,
Moments like these don't last.
This is true,
Unless you happen to be
Stuck in between.
Here, in this time and this place,
Believe me,
The past ties a knot and hangs on. 

© Colleen Yorke. All rights reserved.

Transfers

Virtual reality
Communication by electrons
Science in place of life
Humans who are objects
Watched by thousands
Who don't bother to look from their own window.

© Colleen Yorke. All rights reserved.

Outside Everything We Know

Lost and found souls
Drifting through the two faces of the city.
In transit,
The east and the west cross paths.
Between the here and the there,
Between the not yet and no more,
Strangers long for intimate islands of dialogue,
Hindered by a loss of translation.
In a world, outside everything we know,
These wanderers gave up a long time ago.

© Colleen Yorke. All rights reserved.

Little Girl

Earnest little face
Curly hair
Eyes of a teddy bear
Steady pace
Embracing a dream
On top of a balancing beam.
A heart soaring with all its might
Giggles full of delight.
A room holding its breath
To see how far she would get.
One last glide
Arms outstretched wide
She has nothing to fear here.
Two rings on the ceiling
Little did she pause
Fingers all set,
She left cartwheeling.
Motion in flight
Little did the girl know
How much she won that night.

© Colleen Yorke. All right reserved.

Unfinished Business

Like flashing headlines,
Deadlines occupy our minds,
Keeping our reality in check.
Other tasks are dotted lines,
Allowing us to fill in whatever we like:
Unrelinquished promises,
Broken resolutions,
Unfulfilled propositions,
Taunting inflictions.
Unfinished business
Is coming back to haunt us yet.
We are separated by a few miles,
And you still have me on speed dial,
It has been awhile.
But, until one of us has a change of heart
We can't move forward.

© Colleen Yorke. All rights reserved.

Last Mohawk

Many legends and songs remember “the people who occupied the desert”.

Hank is one of the last of his generation, one of the last of the lines of chiefs. He lives on a reservation, on a piece of land that once whispered the voices of the free.

Our longing desire and passionate search for space dimensions bewilders him. How can we attempt to conquer the universe, if we have not yet understood the earth? How can we forget our mother and our fathers?
“I am old”, he says, “I am staying here.”

Soon the last ghosts of the past will pass through the mirror. Who will dance their songs and tell their stories?

© Colleen Yorke. All rights reserved.

Blowing Winds

Have you ever loved someone
That you are unsure
You will ever love again?
Have you ever watched
A boat sail?
The harder the wind blows,
The further is the distance.
But it is a chance too.
A chance to love again.

© Colleen Yorke. All rights reserved.

Between the Lines

Playing strange mind games,
Quoting bands with bizarre names.
It is a punch show,
Of moments going by too slow.
I am trying to read between the lines;
Tell me, is he talking to me at all,
Or he is just setting me up for the next great fall?

© Colleen Yorke. All rights reserved.

Art Nuevo

I turn a corner.
Ahead of me,
She disappears
Around the next.
I can't see her.
In a fleeting moment
I catch a glimpse
Of her dazzling gown.
But, the white material
Has been stinging my eyes
For years.

© Colleen Yorke. All rights reserved.

To stay or to go?

Maybe he stays.
Maybe he leaves.
It is more likely that he leaves
And less likely that he stays.
But the question whether he stays or leaves
Is after all only a question.

© Colleen Yorke. All rights reserved.

Afterword

These years were a time of growing up and growing away, as she held on to the delicate, precious tether of the written word. Sitting cross-legged on her bed, with her journal on her lap, she spent afternoons writing and inking her memories.

There were stories about Minnie, the neighbor who played Bob Dylan loud enough that her sister could have polkaed to his music had she wanted to. There would be news about Jim and Eleanor and their relatives, who lived a long drive away on the West side. Of sunny days and heavy rainfalls. Of changing seasons, arriving and taking leave as quietly as a wind breeze. In her words she chiseled the shape of the days; sometimes as participant, sometimes as observer, she would reveal or conceal her own presence in the moment unfolding on the delicate paper. She attempted to explain the seductive quality of this inner space to other people, these endless years of self-imposed exile from life, wrestling with the feeling of being misunderstood and the havoc of letting go. They did not understand. Write, write, and write some more.


She drove out to Ventura very early this morning. As she stood on the cliffs of the State Beach, admiring the sunrise dipping the skies into a subtle rosé and breathing in the salty, crisp air, she finally made up her mind. Gently she placed her last journal on the edge separating rock and sea. Words were meant to be shared.

Life now was not about understanding herself as much as understanding the others.

© Colleen Yorke. All rights reserved.

Burnt Words

'Blocking' real people for her shot and for the stage, knowing that how she places them manipulates how the viewer perceives them. While preserving an ember of emotion, empathy perhaps, feeling with strangers and their life stories intensely, realizing that she will always carry a part of them, of their "touch" with her, she accepts getting "hurt". The pain of someone else's pain, the scars that define and transform people through life, is what makes people what they are and what makes their never-wavering courage to "go on" breathtaking admirable.

He admires her for that; it is just not him. Living on a base, working with trauma patients every day, hardened him. An order is an order. There are no alternatives. Discipline and the perfection of skill are to be desired. Privately, he pleasures in testing his cavalier senses, setting ambitious goals and getting his kicks from the ultimate satisfaction. It takes patience and practice. Perhaps selfishness. And certainly cold detachment from any muddling emotions.

Meeting her was a direct and rude cross of his agenda. Their encounter was a dance, and how she waltzed through his life; not only could he no longer remember the steps, he was losing control. Their last conversation about the mysteries of the ‘soul’, the undefined, unshaped something making a person immortal, had been invigorating. Her remarks that in the end, it is all a "reflex" of a life and pictures lived...a person's life is flashing by, memories lived to scramble up in full color yet once more before they fade into nothingness as the event of death kicks in, befuddled him. “Did you come up with that,” he asked intrigued and somewhat stunned. Who was she to speak so extemporaneously? He was getting lured into a very dangerous game. A game that he foresaw himself losing, if he did not end things right there and then.

Final words of many many things left unsaid will leave them wondering for time to come. Moments people let slip through their hands to find something new, thinking it is better than what they have...Their story is one of many. As a writer and as a story-teller I can only watch, never interfere.

© Colleen Yorke. All rights reserved.

The Scream

The festival is far off.
The light is a lie.
He is standing in the park, alone.
He wears white silk,
And he knows he is not awake.
So he flees terrified into the dream.
Cool and silent, the night wraps around him.
“Are you the night?, he asks in a timid voice.
She smiles.
How he wished that he was in shining armor.
In full armor.

© Colleen Yorke. All rights reserved.

Minute Thought

What is a minute?
And how do we measure?
Do we watch the tick-tock of a clock?
Or do we calculate time by moments -
Such as the smile of a beautiful stranger?

© Colleen Yorke. All rights reserved.

While You Were Sleeping

The past is asleep.
The present somewhere in between
And tomorrow is wide awake.

© Colleen Yorke. All rights reserved.

Faces of a City

I stood there and stared out at the city, lost among its incredibility. I watched the shadows of light in its midst thin to nothingness; this was the highest view in town. And if someday I have to hike up odd tweaked trails to get a murky, smog-ruined view of Los Angeles instead of this brilliantly defined closer look at a lower and far more pleasant city, then I would just rough it in.

Staring out from that smudged window, I remembered a painting hanging in the far east gallery of the Norton Simon Museum, the mural yellowing at the edges, its once vibrant colors faded with time. And now this picturesque setting so bright and alive in my memory, trailed to an ancient event, centuries old and long since forgotten. Strangers continued to walk in and out of my view.

There he stood. The smoke of his cigarette mingled with the thick vapor of his breath, and I realized that he was posing, offering a picture of a man at ease. And successfully so: His posture and slow walk, everything about him highlighted his relaxation and content, his face mirroring his inner beauty – he was glad to be just where he was, alive in that moment and place. Just by looking at him, I sensed he moved through his life in unquestioned certainty that there was a reason for being. And that is something worth having, and losing it... is to lose something vital.

Most of the faces do not have that look now today; when left alone, they are blank, expressionless, alien and separated from the city they live in, suspicious perhaps even of it. Even though I studied this man only a matter of minutes, retracing features marked by a time long vanished and yet frozen timeless in the making of a moment, I felt as if I read deeper bits of a life lived in a city hardly aged.

© Colleen Yorke. All rights reserved.

Connecting dots to 9/11...

We all have our stories and memories of 9/11. Ask anyone anywhere in the world, and you will get a personal point of view of planes crashing into both towers of the World Trade Center ten years ago. Today, we all remember and reflect what we have seen, heard and felt and how 9/11 changed the course of our lives.

On September 11, 2001, I was in Rome with my mother.
We had been sightseeing all day, soaking up Italian impressions, capturing snapshots to take home and to collect in our keepsake albums. It was four o’clock in the afternoon, and we were looking for an authentic place to unwind and to discuss our day. Ahead of us, a crowded pub. It was happy hour time in Italy. An experience we were told not to miss.

As we walked into the door, we noticed the densely packed grapes of people in front of two television sets. For the size of the crowd in the room, it was awfully quiet. We combed through and found two stools at the bar to sit down. You could have heard a pin drop. My eyes wandered to the TV: Shaky footage of black smoke, red bold letters screaming: “Terrorist Attack on America”. Dear God, another catastrophe film made by Hollywood, I sighed, as I spotted a plane approaching the World Trade Center. The titles shifted to “LIVE REPORT”. A fireball, an unified gasp shook the room.

Suddenly it dawned on me. A tear silently streamed down my face, I had no words. “Are you American?”, an Italian woman asked, “I’m so sorry”, and she hugged me tightly. For the rest of the night we were glued to the TV set.

That day we were embraced by the world – what happened?

For the next ten days, Chasing Visions Films will cover a variety of voices looking at America ten years later... for today's promotional trailer, please click connecting dots.

© Colleen Yorke. All rights reserved.

Project Me.

I dread family reunions.  Surrounded by children, the family dog, and the smell of my cousin's apple cobbler still lingering in the air, I feel oddly out of place.  I spent half of my childhood in this house, and had always felt it far removed from the life that I imagined.  But now I was comparing my life to that of my cousin's - married, two children, a house, two cars, family trips to Mallorca - and I wondered if I had really struck the better end of the deal.  Compared to my cousin's life accomplishments, I failed.  I am over 30, a law student, single, and I live with my parents.

Some say that times have changed: Today the 40s are the new 30s, and the 30s are the new 20s.  My friend Tom, 43, a successful partner at Big Law, never married, is unconcerned: "I haven't found the right woman yet.  But I'll have a family when I am 50."   He once told me why his last girlfriend left him: "She said that she always had the feeling she was dating a single. Work was always more important than she." - "And? Was she right? " I quizzed. "Of course, she was right," Tom replied.  "Work is very important to me.  I worked long and hard to get where I am today."  

To work, for most of us means something different today than it did for our parents or even  grandparents decades ago, who for the most part had a job and a life, and they were separate.  At the end of a work day, they tended to their private lives.  Today, our private lives have become inseparable from our work.  Thanks to the smart phone, we carry our office in our pockets and can respond to clients' emails at Disneyland.  A job is more than a job, a career is a calling.  Work has become a form of self-expression: Of our personalities, our hopes and wishes, and our dreams. We cultivate our passions, and continuously shape our working life towards the lifestyle that resonates with us.  Landing our dream job gives our lives meaning, and we pin all our aspirations and ambitions to reaching that ultimate platform of perfection.  

The center of our lives has become what we do.  But, our biggest project is "Project Me," work is just detail.  Self-centered, we become our own brand, we selfie ourselves on facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.  We model and profile our lives for befriended contacts, followers, linkedins, and at the work place.  We work on our career, our figure, and finding our soul mate.  We frame and arrange our lives, the correct, updated version, and every detail is a statement of who we are:  What we wear, what music we like,  what cities we live in, what we eat - and consequently, what people we surround ourselves with.  We live in an instant, ever present status of self-optimization.  We know that everything can get better.  Until it is perfect.  The problem with perfection, however, is that one can never quite attain it.

In our never-ending quest to complete our Self, we search for another human being that fits into the empty frame we have already built for them.  We cannot have distraction from "Project Me" and no compromises or restrictions.  A few months ago, one of my running buddies broke with up with his girlfriend, telling her: "My career is taking off, and you are not the right woman, you don't fit in."  As brutal as the self-serving observation sounds, it is not uncommon.  When the Ego expands in such a way it blends out our partner, we tend to forget that relationships are about forming a picture together - that you and I become "We."  In a relationship, we learn about ourselves.  We see ourselves from a different perspective.  Through the eyes of our partner.  Our partner is our mirror, and relationships provide opportunities for us to improve ourselves.  This process naturally leads to conflicts, and many of us are less inclined to have them.  Breaking up seems much more feasible than a compromise that - God forbid! - may hamper our Me development.  But self-focus also blurs everything else.  

As I placed down my fork and pushed away my plate, I wondered if I should tell my cousin that I am single again.  She studied my face, and taking my place, she said: "You are in law school, and you cannot have any distractions.  Besides, you wouldn't have time to fit in a relationship with all that you do.  You need to focus on yourself right now."  I nod hesitantly, maybe she is right.  But deep down, I know if the right person already walked into my life, then I want him to stay, and figure out everything else together.  Life is about progress, not perfection.

© Colleen Yorke. All rights reserved.

Question With No Answer

Published in Celebrate! (Spring 2000):

Remember?!
Remember when you asked me,
What I loved the most?
Then I did not know.
I replied: „My life.“
You left irritated.
I thought about it
For a long time.
Now I know the answer.
I love the sun and the moon,
The happiness and the sadness.
I love everything around me.
In short, I love my life even
When it is sometimes difficult.
You are gone, I only wish
I could tell you that
You are my life.

© Colleen Yorke. All rights reserved.

Starcrossed

In the heat of the night,
Caught in a gleam of light,
She dances.
Her hair swirls around her face,
Taking part of the race.
She thrives on mistaken identity,
Her shadow, no longer fallow,
A Glasgow of her serenity.
Hope is what holds her onto rope,
To cope with her life,
Ask for help in overcoming strife,
And not to be caught by the knife of time.
She dances.
Her feet are not touching the ground,
There’s a heavenly, eerily glow around.
Bound to the stars, she watches the cars race by
Moving on, racing with the issue of time,
Fast, dry, vanishing.
In the heat of the night, in beats of drums,
Caught in a gleam of light,
She dances.

© Colleen Yorke. All rights reserved.

Dreaming Of Paris...

Hollow sounds of squeaky shoes and clacking heels, reverberant, washed out voices, movement everywhere – I am lost somewhere at the Charles de Gaulles Airport in Paris. Now where is the ticket booth for the RER train? A luminous sign ahead: “Billetterie” – and of course there is a seemingly never-ending line snaking in front of it. Great. My dinner date is at seven. “You can buy tickets at the machine, “ a nice French gentleman informs me and kindly points me to the direction. Relieved, I jog towards it, tugging my little suitcase behind. I punch my destination into the cold screen. The metallic box, churning and gnarling, mulls over my selection for a few seconds, then demands eight Euros and seventy cents in coins. As I frantically search for loose change, my robotic conversation partner impatiently beeps and threatens to cancel my reservation. Finally I discover the credit card slot, take a deep breath and feed the monster; very soon, the wicked slot mouth spits out a slender strip of paper.

An hour later, passing densely packed metro stations of Paris’ underground, picking up and dropping off people from all walks of life, I arrive at Gare du Nord. Here, in the middle of the platform, my friend – who I had not seen in years – and I decided to meet. Will I recognize him, I wonder. I wait for twenty minutes: several trains have arrived and departed by now, a group of police officers eye me suspiciously. There! Across from me, on the opposite platform, a man smiles and waves. Sandwiched between strangers, we are pushed up the escalator to the exiting gate. The ticket vanishes through the slot, the first gate opens, and I am in a glass cage. A small surveillance camera is pointed at me. The lash of my suitcase already in my hand, I prepare to exit. Suddenly the warning lamps flash red and the system’s alarms go off: I remain locked in. A second attempt fails likewise. Curious stares into my direction, for a brief moment, Paris’ buzzing underground has come to a halt.
Finally, a soothing hum, the gate doors in front of me click open, a dashing French officer waves me through. Vive la France!

Colleen Yorke. All rights reserved.

Somewhere in the Attic

There is a box
With a lock
It took me awhile
But I found the key.
Looking inside
I found
Letters and letters
And pictures too
With him and you.

Happiness and sadness
Hellos and Goodbyes
A lifetime
Hidden -
Tucked away.
In a box with a lock
Up in the attic.

Colleen Yorke. All rights reserved.

No Train stops at Pi....

A circle fell in love
With a square.
They paired and created
A triangle with rounded corners.
A trapezoid fell
From a great height
Bending one of its sides.
It hitchhiked the country
As the only five-sided quadrilateral
In recorded history.
Two parallel lines
Had a grand passion
But could only meet
At the farthest horizon of time.
Even then,
It was illusory.
A crooked line found
A short cut
And got from one point
To the other
Before the straight line,
Breaking the rules of shapes
And achieving short-lived fame.
How sad it was
When it failed
To find its way back.

Colleen Yorke. All rights reserved.

About my Writing

I much rather write for myself, allowing my thoughts to storm on the empty pages, conquering and battling each other for more space and an after-life.
The mundane routine of everyday become a wild ride through fantasyland, when you let words rock and roll your memories.

Colleen Yorke. All rights reserved. 2015

Windows of the World

Published in the 2011 Anthology of Poems:
They wake up.
Windows open, doors unlock.
The first pajamas and slippers appear on the lawns.
The dogs begin the usual morning morsing
With the rest of the neighborhood.
Wake up, dawg, they seem to say.
A woman leans out.
Her hair is curling down her shoulders.
A pillow is shaken out.
Stray feathers sail onto the ground.
Every day, from a deep sleep, they wake up.
Even the dead.

© Colleen Yorke. All rights reserved. 2015

Déjà vu

"Take this gun, girl," he said, "or you won't stand a chance", when in reality a row of tanks wouldn't have made a difference, once he entered the room.

© Colleen Yorke. All rights reserved. 2015

Castaway

He likes driving the high grounds
Through Badlands and ghost towns
Holding fort up north –
Among the lost and found
Another battleground
Sticks and bones
And graves of unknowns.
Looking at sunrise and sunsets
Starry nights too.
Visions too good to be true.
Lost in a moment of you
Not keeping time.
When darkness aligns
He looks for scorpions he hasn’t met
Wearing boots and a flash light
He leaves no stone unturned,
But the pesky crawlers have all adjourned.
Not all those who wander are lost.

© Colleen Yorke. All rights reserved. 2015

Footprints in the Sand...

One step at a time,
She prints her tiny feet in the sand,
Fascinated by the mark they leave behind.
She is the first one this morning.
The waves will come in eventually.
Faster and faster she runs,
Her feet fly through the air
As she skips and jumps.
The marks in the sand
Stretch every time.
Soon they will disappear
But their owner will come back.
And the marks will be larger this time.
Years pass by, she becomes older.
But she will always come back.

© Colleen Yorke. All rights reserved. 2015

Someone Else's Chair

When you go, remember, no matter where
You will always sit on someone else's chair.
Even if you dressed up until you look like them,
Even if you are ever granted a view around the den,
Even if you straightened out what you feel is askew,
You are always a guest on somebody else's seat.
The sooner you understand, the better off you'll be.

Travel all you want, marry a girl from a foreign land,
Even if your family doesn't understand.
Crows bite doves, sooner or later, alligator,
Things will get out of hand.
Wrong doesn't get wronger
And now or never, never becomes forever.

The world belongs to someone else,
You can look to understand her better
Or take her advice and find yourself, jet-setter,
But remember, when you go, no matter where
You will always sit on someone else's chair.

© Colleen Yorke. All rights reserved. 2015

Shooting Star

Have you ever watched a shooting star?
They are smaller than a grain of dust.
And yet, people place wishes on them
Sometimes so high -
That they light up the entire universe.

© Colleen Yorke. All rights reserved. 2015

Eye AM

..We rush about, doing what we do. We have a routine, a plan. We arrange our lives in some order, and we have our goals straight ahead of us. But sometimes life catches us off-guard. We halt in our tracks. And we find ourselves in a situation where we are touched. A stranger enters our life, a fleeting golden moment - and suddenly, we find ourselves in a magical Amelie-like world.

Today, as I burst out the subway station to rush to the theater, someone calls out behind me: "Wait!" Surprised, and maybe a little bit annoyed, I turn around. An excuse is already hanging on my lips. The words stop in the middle of my throat as I stare in pure astonishment at the appearance before me. A slender woman with long sand-blond hair, fair skin is standing there. She is most likely the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. She smiles at me shyly- but, somehow she seems to be somewhere else. I can't really put my finger on it, why. She is not really looking at me. "Do you know where Schildergasse is?" she asks. I hastily wave my arm to show her, when it suddenly hits me:

She is blind.

A smile curls on the corners of her lips, a slender, small hand stretches out and lightly touches my arm. As I lead her to Cologne's busiest street, I attempt to describe what I see and I realize just how hard that is. The entire time I am thinking: How does she see her world? How does she feel the beauty? What is beauty to her? The cold winter air? The chatter of voices? The vibrations of many feet touching the ground? Wow. What an ecstatic moment.

Thanks for unforseen circumstances.

Eye am.
© Colleen Yorke. All rights reserved. 2015
All names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this blog are fictitious. No identification with actual persons, places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred. © All rights reserved.