Paused - Janinka Diverio

Today's poem is a "Golden Oldie" and was originally published here in December 2010

Paused
Washed up, eroded
by the course of, the force of...
...the caressing game of life

Once stirred, once a battle against the odds
Still
Ogre-like in its stature –

- like you

A failed plight, dead of night
A colossus so frail, strewn masts and a shredded sail
Now simply a faintly image, my friend –

- like you

Ghostly clouds embody the secrets of a hoped-for land
of a kind face, a warm heart and a stroke of your hand

Deathly silent, tears shed,
what lies now on the ocean bed?

Paused -
so quiet
Embers littered midst drift woods and lives

Caused -
what caused
shattered hopes, quashed spirits and severed ties

- by you?

Janinka Diverio

The Sonority of You - Janinka Diverio

It’s the little things, like the sounds you make
That fill my heart with joy
Those little murmurs you create
When gone,
that surf my mind
Along with the memories of your face so kind

The contours that echo your words so sweet
The sound of you I love, so discreet
Blackbirds and Warblers can’t rival your voice
Because the song I’d choose, given the choice
Is the song of your heart, I hear it out loud

Alone and standing, trying to see
I hear a voice beckoning me
Through howling gales, the crest of a wave
Your sweet nothings that to me you gave
Sail through my heart and keep me from falling
So long as I hear your voice a calling

Now silence surrounds me
Cloaked by the clock
The music we played, playfully teases
Like a Merry-go-Round, infinite and timeless
Faceless now but your voice is still there
Along with your whispers left in my hair

Janinka Diverio

The Oak Tree and The Pixie - Janinka Diverio

Image: Taken at Blaise Castle, Avon by Janinka

A very different style for me (in that it doesn’t derive from a personal experience) but this poem celebrates the Glos/Wiltscountryside I have grown to love so much and was inspired by my favourite childhood book The Faraway Tree. - Janinka

The Oak Tree and The Pixie - Janinka Diverio

Stoic, tall, proud, high
Branches, trunk and leaves to the sky

Long-reaching arms fingering polka dotted blue
A garland of filigree leaves stretched around of you

A pixie plays and hops amongst your tangled roots
Throwing her hat and jumping with earth-trodden pixie boots

Oblivious and unaware of the sound upon the ground
Blades of grass protrude like turrets of a castle surround

Treecreeper friend scurries messages your way
An invitation for you to come and play

Occasionally, you rustle or a leaf floats gently down
As if it were a feather from your regal crested crown

Midst robin-egg blues and skies of satin white
Pixie calls for black bird and try as they might

With wings out-stretched and in full span
They try to fly to the land of cyan

Cloaked skies turn grey and leaves are shaking loud
As Pixie tries in vain to hop upon a cloud

The yellow beak of blackbird sings a merry little song
As Pixie flies upwards to where she might belong

On the canopy of leaves that sway gently to and fro
Little contented pixie reaps her seeds to sow

Janinka Diverio

Transient Sun - Janinka Diverio

You pass through my thoughts
Often but less now
A cold sky, shy of sun
Above, cools my face
Eyes searching for clues
Fingers touching starched cold grasses
And leaves, he leaves
Me

Once warm, my heart
Now transient between homes
Eyes searching for that place
Where the sun might reach
Me
One day
Where a warm night sky might
Shy of frost, warm my face again

Janinka Diverio

Chapel of Rest - Janinka Diverio

You lay, I sat
Whilst summer sun melted
Yet we were cool inside
Where we’d been sent to hide

I talked and talked
Shed a tear or two
In-between handshaking
And watching people watching you

They came, they stared, they cried, they left
Some came in peace, most were bereft
The thick stone walls offered shelter and shade
Whilst you, untouchable, were out laid

Your eyes asleep, your lashes still long
Your life spread before me, like a song
Your body flat, still, just a shell
Where had you gone, this man who knew me so well

Your skin was pallid, soft and clean
Your lips still full, yet your cheeks unseen
Sunken and gaunt in a body caved in
Smart and well-presented, still in your skin

Your eyes couldn’t open, they were stitched closed
Your arms outstretched, but a hand I couldn’t hold
Sweet Mary above us, dressed in blue
As tainted glass reflected you

Three days, two nights
I was only twenty-one
Seems like yesterday
They told me that you’d gone

Janinka Diverio

Bio - Janinka Diverio

Janinka Diverio

Of Polish and Italian descent I was raised in Guernsey and spent all of my childhood and formative years on the island. I moved away to study and work in Switzerland and Northern
Italy when I was fifteen and never really returned for more than a few months at a time until suddenly twenty-five years later and I’d only been ‘home’ once.

Both of my parents died before they were fifty whilst I was in early adulthood and with no family home or paternal base I found myself constantly questioning topics such as
belonging, abandonment, home, death & love. In my quest to understand myself, my losses and my own thoughts I took to exploring my own creative intuitions and writing seemed to work best for me.
I wouldn’t however really call my self a poet but more of a ‘sorter of thoughts’ and I am very happy that through the Guernsey Poets Blog I have found a home for them at least.

My other inspirations are music (improvised, jazz, indigenous) and conceptual art. I admire the uncompromising nature of artists working in this challenging area despite the odds against
fame or monetary gain.

I am now living in North Wiltshire and run a party business (shop and venue) in Cirencester, Gloucestershire. I feel privileged to be able to contribute to John’s special project and love having this connection with the island which will always have an enormously special place in my heart....as will all of my Guernsey friends, old and new.

Janinka

Nothing Less, Nothing More - Janinka Diverio

Nothing Less, Nothing More - Janinka Diverio

A memory now
Nothing more
Nothing less
Handless
Under this cold silent day of summer
With still blue skies
I ask myself
‘Were they all lies?’

The gathered momentum of months gone by
Like a wave growing in force only to crescendo and crash and chase
The eroding shingles to the shore
Just a memory now
Nothing less
Nothing more
The wave tugs, like a beckoning spirit under a
Distant silent moon….and
Pulls and repels the flotsam
Again into the hungry mouth of the ocean

Too much emotion
Too many defeats 
Too much to bear

I 
I stand
Alone
Powerless
Alone, afraid
Face to my face
And I ask myself
‘Were you really ever there?’ 


Janinka Diverio

Blisters and Balloons - Janinka Diverio

If I have to lose you
Then know I will be with you
Angel wings around you

If you have to leave me
Then please do not forget me
And please try hard to see me
In the sky
The pebbles
The lanes
The lines
The music
The rain
And in the balloons and blisters of life

I’ll walk with your shadow
Wipe away your tears
Dance for all your joys
And fight away your fears

I’ll cloak you when you’re down
Lift you when you fall
Just please do not forget me
Please remember it all

Janinka Diverio

Curtain Down - Janinka Diverio

Coming to terms
Which lesser of two evils
Will hurt me less?
Fingers slipping
Tears wiping
Heart breaking
From memories
Of love making

We teased, played, delayed
Facing
This moment
This wrenching
Tearing of souls
Dripping and falling
And writhing and calling
Yet you answer me not

Is it with time
You forgot?
Are you hiding
Till your heart does rot?
Your back towards
Self-turned once more
The curtain down
Yet no encore

Janinka Diverio

Our Law - Janinka Diverio

A wave, a hazy line
Campfire smoke
Passes by, meanwhile stinging
My eye
A tingle of the skin

Thoughts of him
Too late for me
Friendship defeated by
More than hope
Departed why

Our law of
No expectations
Collapses around me
Tears of lossFor you, for us

Fighting back
Worth less
Less worth
Our loss, our law
Open book, Closed door

Janinka Diverio

Cooled Molten - Janinka Diverio

Fly by night
Fleeting and now forgotten
Once entwined like filigree
Hearts, body and hopes
Now cooled molten

Morning light
The sun within shone
Yet cast a shadow
On our imperfections
And now you’ve gone

The thudding crash of hope
Space I can feel
Seventh heaven
Now fallen
Seems unreal

Two eager souls
I thought worth fighting for
My eager soul
Paid the price
When you walked out the door

Janinka Diverio

To Miss - First Movement - Janinka Diverio

I miss you
I miss the voice I hear
and the moving images
I miss your silence
that filled the space
I miss your tales, your wisdom, your recollections
I miss
I miss the anticipation
of your words
I miss my yearning
of friends to be
I miss my limbo
I miss
I miss your ways
I miss your many anyways
I miss imaginary days
I miss
I miss the hope
I miss the maybe
I miss
I miss you

Janinka Diverio

Anger after Pain - Janinka Diverio

The quiet too loud
Alone in a growing crowd
Of me and me

Your resonating last word
Goodbye with an x
Now familiar, now yours, just one more
But you patiently said goodbye at least
BEFORE YOU SLAMMED THE DOOR

So your last word
Pauses and causes
My mind to instruct
The recently overused tear duct
To well and spill
Onto cheeks bathed warm
From a bath too hot
Only I forgot
That pain for pain is no trade off

The rain, the rain
Remembering you

Again, again
Seeing you

Refrain, refrain
From touching you

The same, same
Ghastly view

Janinka Diverio

Plinthless Angel - Janinka Diverio

You've gone again
And this time I will let you
My heart drained
Left full with pain
Endless - too tired now to hold on
I let go
And succumb to
Drowning in my own tears all night
Under a growing moon
Into the morning bright

Resigned, defeated
Your protests, reasons
Too much this time for me to take
You crave a shackleless heart you say
Yet a heart half full is
Black, black, black
Under a moonless sky

Awake from no sleep
Into the still of a Sunday dawn
Dismayed, bereft
Your fallen, plinthless angel
With damaged wings
Will let you see
Walk far away now
Walk far away from me

Janinka Diverio

Memory - Janinka Diverio

My imagination
remembers
the embers once hot
now cool

My heart once joyous
surrenders
the victim
you forgot
to the fool

Janinka Diverio

Lounge Bar Observations - Janinka Diverio

Palm trees in the clouds
Oversized curtain tassels
Reproduction prints
After dinner mints
Family conversing
Eat as much as you can
Dark inside when sunny
Packet trifle, frozen flan

Carpenters on the radio
Pockets of chat at the bar
Melamine chipped place mats
Wondering where you are

Varnished wood
Sachets of sauce
Frosted windows
Between each course

Old man
Sat all alone
This hotel bar
His second home

Tourist season
Coming soon
A few new faces
Would lift the gloom

Lights dimmed
Heaters turned low
Machines fall quiet
It’s time to go

Janinka Diverio

written at Grange Lodge Hotel whilst waiting for Lester Queripel,

Memories at Cow’s Horn - Janinka Diverio

Hour upon hour
Our
Memories of days spent
Time went
Out with the tide
Side by side
We swam with white horses
Crashing into once rocks
Popped seaweed, pierced bloodsuckers
Threw pebbles as far
As our child arms were able
Down on Havelet Bay

Time on
Childhood gone
Seems like yesterday

Time gone
Years on
Since I went away

Janinka Diverio

Skin Tight - Janinka Diverio

A wave of hazy dream stuff floats by
An apparition, a glimpse, a wish, a desire
So real, so near, so true

Skin tight no more
Love lessens but the bond intact quivers, shudders
Unable to wander

A window into tomorrow
A whisper from my past
Something awaits, is awakening, is here

Janinka Diverio

Remembering Friday - Janinka Diverio

Hyde Park early evening
Sun streaming through the
Buildings of somewhere
We didn’t know

A pub, a bar
Seems a long time ago
Failing more, more, more
Under a first spring London sky

Then Saturday, river edgeland
Thoughts, walks along
Pebbles in the sand
Sometimes hand upon hand

But too soon
Pool-like eyes
Infinite, clear, full
Of your heart, heavy
Laden, heavy, full of

Till time caved in
Stopped too early to begin
Pulled away too soon
Down a faceless track

After, regret
Alone, empty, searching
Attempting to accept
Mindful choices made

A wanted hug
A needed touch
Too much
Though not enough

And now – remembering Friday
And
Despite what I know
Where to?
Forward to where we can’t go!

Janinka Diverio

One Sky Moment - Janinka Diverio

I have not included an image with this post as Janinka prefers to let the text stand for itself she says; "It allows the reader to conjure up his/her own images and relationship with the words. I respond very well to visuals but in this case I like the words to stand alone in their own naked and raw glory.... "

One Sky Moment - Janinka Diverio

Effervescent sheets of mauve
Dance around the mallow
As crisp, cotton and
White lace
Doilies and paper shapes
Pirouette and beckon
And spin themselves around
Street-lined and bobbinesque bays

Umbrella clouds float above
Horizontal falling rain drops
Whilst a phalanx of sheep’s wool momentarily
Shrouds the sky.
The horizon trimmed with pinking-shears
As zig-zag tree tops protrude and pierce
The ever-white infinite, yet sometimes
Interrupted blue as
Pallid mauve ribbons
Remind me of you.

Janinka Diverio