DIANA MARIN

Category: poetry

  • Rite of passage

    the texture of hell can seep through a broken mind,
    but its lingering echoes will leave a mark
    looking ahead, I see parks filled with disease,
    a small, kaleidoscopic winter coat wrapped around
    a phantasmal presence that screams:
    I am Home-
    I am a haunted home
    where it rains.


    her hand reaches out to
    wipe the morning dew
    off a snowdrop lost
    in the glittering white-
    a mystical anachronism


    I look at her with a half-smile;
    as if sensing it, she turns around,
    mirroring me-
    meanwhile,
    the world is disintegrating
    in secrecy


    an ethereal cage descends to envelop us;
    a moment cannot define an entire existence
    unless it echoes
    its beginning and its end
    our fate and lips are sealed
    it’s more than a folie à deux
    bred in liminality


    a pact between blue hedonism
    and dazzling dissimulation
    clears the way forward-
    some voices may forever
    be confined within
    yet the dreams ascend.


  • November light

    Dark November, darling November,
    my birth month, a glorified time
    of contradictions,
    of re-emergence from dreams,
    wearing adornments
    and smiles of
    miss “seen it all, heard it all”
    Scorpio depth,
    shrewd intuition,
    and inner power-
    It’s nature and nurture
    even when the nurturing is done
    in a glass castle
    it is said that art is life intensified,
    heightened experience
    is this what it was, an artistic process?
    all-consuming, delving deeply into
    my life force, the closest I’ve ever got
    to a spiritual experience,
    however demonic,
    in all its ambiguity and uncertainty-
    was it but a psyche glitch?
    is that what it takes, a cognitive distortion,
    to erode the pillars holding up
    a self-concept, a world,
    in a most magical way-
    heaven knows no human could do it-
    aren’t most, if not all spiritual beliefs
    a coping mechanism against
    cosmic futility?
    Here I am, inevitably returning
    to the eternal question
    that injects everything I do and feel;
    Surrendering to Phoenix wisdom-
    with my Eagle’s eyes,
    fresh perspectives materialising
    from the flames of the opposites
    inner chaos leads to stillness
    leads to outward ascension
    from a special hell-
    the tension of the opposites
    within;
    oblivion is laced with sweetness
    it’s a universal truth: life is escapism,
    just like wearing a tiara on your birthday
    to forget about the flow of time
    Although shifting from limbo
    to a personal dystopian hellscape
    and then into whatever followed
    (labels have become frivolous)
    has made me revere time,
    realise I’ve had a coddled existence
    for the most part
    You can’t write words revealing
    you are convinced of
    your innate grandeur anymore,
    without being deemed narcissistic
    A good night kiss bearing all
    the gentleness and sacredness
    of a celestial being
    should be a tell-tale sign
    that it’s not pathological
    but it’s hard to understand
    a moment of uncanny ecstasy,
    an awakening, how deeply moved
    a sceptic can be, on a soul level.
    Pour your life source into me
    and lift me up
    I am trying to be authentic
    but I am not estranged from
    the light and darkness of ego
    something tells me ego
    has shaped you in my mind, too
    Whether external forces were at play
    or you are just a part of me,
    I have to say
    thank you and
    no, thank you.

  • Her Rebirth

    Haunted by Ophelia’s phantom,
    enraptured by vernal murmurs,
    she succumbs to dreaminess
    lost in the stream
    of consciousness
    carried away by Woolf’s whispers
    and echoes of myth from
    a scent of white Narcissus-
    fluid nostalgia in full bloom-
    she remembers her touch
    before the plunge;
    the sacred memory shatters
    underwater-
    her pale skin resurfaces-
    she is beaming;
    her alter ego withers
    underwater
    Nature witnesses
    an act of self-love.

  • A poem: Sakura season

    The world was sick – physically, mentally,
    we were part of the minority left uncontaminated.
    My calcified shell unravelled
    down by the river
    among sentient trees,
    shimmering shrines,
    underneath celestial splendour,
    next to your magnetic presence;
    Bonded by the common revulsion at
    destructive forces, we were here for the art
    of letting go, unburdening the heart,
    re-emerging from ourselves,
    this arcane ritual, this sacred moment,
    this hallowed place-
    I let it permeate me with light.
    Enraptured by hanami,
    I shed my outer skin
    and drank in the beauty of the instant
    until I was intoxicated;
    I let myself feel instead of thinking
    because life was safe here-
    I felt tingles that were going to reverberate
    throughout decades.
    For the first time, I believed in something
    other than myself:
    you, the radiance of the moment,
    the glimpse of eternity
    in a landscape filled with
    reminders of mortality.
    I had witnessed too many shared delusions
    to fall for them,
    but this wasn’t a fall-
    it felt like ascending,
    like a slice of life that’s borrowed from heaven-
    a strange view coming from a secular soul.
    Your wisdom was gonna stick to me
    and I would wear it like armour
    in times of hardship;
    I could tell you shared what you believed in
    and felt religiously-
    you exuded your truth
    through all your pores
    and it resonated with the murmur
    of my soul,
    of the river, of the petals;
    now every time I find myself
    at the crossroads, this mantra
    is loud and clear in the midst of chaos
    “Look, we are what we believe
    and nothing else truly matters
    except that your heart is invested
    in the right thing. See how that light
    travels across the river?”
    I will always see the light.

  • A poem: The ark

    I dream of emerald grass,
    sapphire waves,
    idle legs shimmering on marble,
    crystalline laughter
    I miss this-
    Do I miss myself-
    this self?
    let's enjoy it while it lasts
    before the tide of darkness floods
    our frail world
    I want a fresh view:
    we unfold - the tides unfold
    we walk on water
    we get to the ark-
    how do we lift the anchor?
    it's so heavy, heavy, reflecting
    the heaviness of the hearts
    the veil over the ark protects
    the sanctuary, meanwhile
    our dreams function as fuel
    to get us there
    What about the iceberg? 
    beware of the iceberg,
    the way it shines, the way
    the part submerged in the dark 
    knows more than you and I
    combined
    ever will, 
    it's a point of reference
    shrouded in an aura of mystery
    which seems to whisper:
    abandon all hope
    before you penetrate the mind
    obliterate preconceptions
    sometimes we are water, 
    sometimes we are stone.

  • A poem: Velvet glove

    An iron hand
    in a velvet glove,
    soft veils over roots
    unwavering- your core,
    honey-mouthed- your discourse,
    your silence.

     

    Within,
    there is the hibernating
    alpha-serpent,
    awaiting resurrections-
    you bathe in the light of
    her uttered incantations.

     

    You spot the red flags
    of the dark triad,
    you never wave white flags,
    for there’s no fire in your soul-
    not the red type that burns,
    and destroys the self, no,
    only blue flames that glow,
    soothe, and create the selves.

     

    What about the heart-
    underneath the layers- is it
    iron laced with velvet or
    all velvet beneath armour;
    is it slippery?
    What about the flesh?
    the snow melting under the skin
    until it gleams?

  • A poem: Freesia girl

    I am intoxicated
    with the saccharine mystery
    in your warm gaze,
    your sylph-like appearance-
    a misty dream haunting
    idyllic paths
    inexorably, I find myself
    in the same spot
    under the tree archway
    as much as I try to escape
    how sweet-
    sickeningly sweet-
    my suffering,
    the uncanny feeling of being
    hypnotised to return,
    to haunt and be haunted
    I feel masochistic urges
    to re-enact scenes of
    long-lost delights
    of the senses
    delicately,
    then vigorously
    wistfully all along
    You never wither,
    I decay in the scent
    of nostalgia.

  • A poem: Snowdrop girl

    Snowdrop girl,
    I can feel your presence
    in the first whispers of spring;
    I can hear your breath
    in the windy corners of life-
    it’s my favourite lullaby,
    it makes me cold sometimes-
    you could be cold sometimes,
    in a scintillating way that
    I never wished to oppose
    or even dared to question-
    my fear was not of
    your reaction,
    but the possibility of
    your contamination
    on some elemental level
    Beneath many layers of
    innocence and frivolity
    and even more layers of
    impenetrability and frostiness
    I know what lies, I know
    the substance, the kindness,
    the taboo dreams,
    the sweet desires-
    and that makes me smile
    you opened up to me
    in the still wintry light in
    a moment of rare vulnerability
    I am thankful to have been
    entrusted with.
    The world may have seen
    your masks, but who else
    has recognised the rarely-resurfacing,
    pearl-like gleam
    in your eyes?
    I have and I enveloped it in
    my spirit shell
    where it shall shimmer forever,
    even after our farewell.

  • A poem: Heavenly aspirations

    I want to purify my body and soul
    to reach my version of
    blasphemous heaven.
    I want to summon the stillness
    of the dormant light within
    to exorcise all feelings
    provoking inner conflicts.
    To become an empty vessel
    for a moment,
    penetrated by light
    no longer dormant,
    now shining so bright.
    Such cravings are born out of
    a darkness
    with the power to enslave
    any spirit
    and yet, I am its conqueror
    I have tamed it and moulded it
    into something beautiful,
    fulfilling, ever-growing, and hopefully,
    ever-lasting.
    Once you taste this version of
    inner freedom, untainted,
    it’s the only nurturing addiction,
    the most welcome overindulgence,
    the most heavenly sin.

  • A poem: Evocation

    There was nothing left
    except her orange blossom scent
    in the air,
    her skin cells
    on the conspiring blanket,
    the energy he was feeding off
    and her seraphic aspirations,
    elegantly penned
    in a forlorn diary
    before her concept
    of the world expanded into
    postmodern depths and
    her self-concept became
    a liberating fluidity
    of thoughts and impulses.
    She’d been through a lot of
    symbolic suicides before
    deciding to resort to
    serial homicide.
    She loved herself, yet
    with every touch
    there was a numbness-
    perhaps in her multiple deaths
    she was seeking
    life,
    perhaps in her metaphorical murders
    she was seeking an escape from
    pseudo-life.