We don’t think there is a better way to get lost than in a poem. Moreover, if you feel lost, then perhaps there is no better way to find yourself than in a poem. We encourage you go missing into your metaphors and to vanish into your verse. If you are lost, pick up all those conflicting feelings and let them sprawl out across the page. You never know what might emerge, maybe something lyrical. As for ourselves, we’ve foregone rhyme and meter here, and using free verse take up the theme of being lost on many different levels. All these poems are original and you will find them only on Shadow of Iris.
Lost Dreams
by Justin Thyme
Less his dreams should escape him,
less his hopes should desert him,
he shuffled them all together
and neatly put them in a box.
He sealed the top carefully
and wrapped it all up nicely.
He hid his boxed dreams with great secretiveness
in a place where no one would ever find them
but where that place was
still as of yet
he has not remembered.
Lost in Lentor, a poem
by Marya Ophir
Blubbery, viscid mud you sink into—
forces larger than you
that tug at your descending boots
and pull them from your toes
with a resounding swoosh—
natural inner contradictions that slow you down—
mathematical errors too delicate be be perceived—
burning infections, spasms, but only just below
the threshold of perception—
an increase of reverse action
that frictionlessly resists cohesion—
acrimony as an animal process—
the diminution of you
lost in your own magnified chaos;
all of it, a carefully balanced stagnation.
immaterial assailants, a poem
by Isabel Tolling
I’m blinking back and forth
between one moment and the next.
I’m winking in and out
between the here and the there.
I’m so lost
I can barely even find
myself.
Vanishing ethereal creatures
make a game of me.
I’m an inter-dimensional beach ball
passed back and forth
between this world and the world beyond.
I’ve been targeted –
my assailants are immaterial;
my plight is substantial.
impulse, a poem
by Paul Bearer
Impulse
follows rule
giving rise
to form.
Mysteries
locked inside
empty skulls,
hidden in a closet
and lost in time.
tangential fall
by Tamara Knight
Squirrelly lines
that would have told a story
but got lost
somewhere along the way,
tangled
in someone else’s
loose ends.
mydriasis, a poem
by Dustin Down
Eyes lost
dreaming
in broad daylight.
Painted masks
holding you
in place—
truth
amorphous,
an unknown quantity
dripping.
Conjoin, a poem
by Emma Blue
Hold me,
twist me
round,
bodies contorted—
spiraling toward infinity—
one being,
love lost
in time.
Not all those who wander are lost.
― J.R.R. Tolkien
We hope these poems have helped give you a hint of direction. We encourage you not to ever misplace your pencil or lose sight of your notebook. No matter how baffling a feeling might be, take some time to try and put some words to it.
Remember, if you don’t go to the sidebar now and follow Shadow of Iris, you might miss our next poem!