Download PDF Here
Live Encounters Poetry & Writing April 2023
Stay, poems by David Dephy.
Stay
She sleeps. Softly breathing next to me.
She has a body of a lilac shadow,
circled by the mist of dawn.
Stay. I can feel what you would do
if we could do all we can,
it makes you wonder
if I know what you are looking for.
Faith, up against the choice. How is it
possible? I want to say, but she sleeps.
She drifts on the lilac rays at dawn
slowly smiles from her secret
silent drowse.
Long Ago
Long ago, the wind knew my plans. I asked myself:
“If the wind knows our plans who can defeat the wind?”
Long ago, I knew the answer. Silence.
I always knew that we all are going to the garden,
and there was a street, empty, tiny, calm street,
with the tiny wall, at its very end, and a garden
beyond that wall. Ruins, as precious dust of hope,
and wishes. Long ago, in noisy night I was attacked.
I don’t remember those faces, voices, I left for dead.
All I remember is my own breath,
strangely telling the truth— meaning of loneliness,
as if that garden beyond the wall
was the sanctuary of my own heart, always alive,
always beautiful from the very beginning of time.
I lived to revenge myself against my enemies,
not for what they were – for what I was,
from the end of childhood, friendship, war,
from the beginning of understanding—
when we all were created as a crown of the world,
I thought the loneliness, and even that pain meant
we were not loved, but standing on the other side
of alone, I felt the cold breeze of bay shore,
and took a deep breath, I heard the seagulls up above,
“it’s all over now,” I realized, and it meant we loved.
When the Hero Strikes
The clouds above you form as the moon rises,
you try to give them a sense of purpose,
you know that the messenger with the bad news
won’t come, tomorrow, there is no bad news
after this stillness in the world, anymore,
but emptiness, the wind, as your memory,
will vanish as the storm arrives,
the world around you— inside you,
cannot return, children can smell the wind
more than pets, as you know they prowl
the streets, and the smell of the wind
will color them lilac, and the wolf
will freeze for a second by the smell of blood,
though for now only the moon rises,
and each tree, remains as the heart of a wind,
each wind a string on time’s lyre,
divine love reflected upon its own reflection,
wickedness kindling that flame of darkness,
but when the hero strikes her anvil of freedom,
the vision returns, here the mist is a single thought
floating within islands of silence.
In Between Chasms
A sound of breath touched by night
drifts through silence of expectation,
in our life there was a song of night,
there was a word, “Night”, in our sleep,
sometimes their meaning was different,
but in my childhood, it was transparent,
as my mother’s voice calling me home.
Mother always walked on the rays
in between chasms of the night,
for some reason, even now the night
couldn’t bring itself to hurt her,
and when I went to sleep, and took
the same path, and ran away believing
myself as a wolf, a white wolf with wings
of constellations, I felt sounds of night,
surrounded her, attracted her, she released
my wishes, that is how even now that word
Night responds to a spirit of my childhood,
and each time the night retreats, precious
breath of us is taken away. See the lights
across the night right there? Have you
heard that silence right in your heart?
We experienced ourselves as a breath,
touched by night, turned into a revelation.
We Were Wings
Memories flow around our bodies
from the heart of the rain this morning,
we are empty. Sorrow pulses through
memories, swallows up our noisy minds.
We are absorbed by water,
and can feel the sounds of ocean,
as something familiar is dawning
deep within us every morning,
then it disappears again. Memories of us
have the roots right in the air.
We were the wings for each other,
but stillness breaks before dawn,
in the name of all that’s hailed,
and face it all—
the past remains unclaimed,
driven forth by faith.
© David Dephy
David Dephy is an American award-winning poet and novelist. The founder of Poetry Orchestra, a 2023 Pushcart Prize nominee for Brownstone Poets, an author of full-length poetry collection Eastern Star (Adelaide Books, NYC, 2020), and A Double Meaning, also a full-length poetry collection with co-author Joshua Corwin, (Adelaide Books, NYC, 2022). His poem, “A Senses of Purpose,” is going to the moon in 2024 by The Lunar Codex, NASA, Space X, and Brick Street Poetry. He is named as Literature Luminary by Bowery Poetry, Stellar Poet by Voices of Poetry, Incomparable Poet by Statorec, Brilliant Grace by Headline Poetry & Press and Extremely Unique Poetic Voice by Cultural Daily. He lives and works in New York City.