I throw a penny,
deep into a well,
to make a pink rose bloom,
between the ivy,
that climbs these Italian walls.
The sandstone buildings,
smaller than my fist,
hide unfamiliar faces,
who drown my heart,
in love and kindness.
Three-dimensional worlds,
from the pages,
of a fairytale storybook,
bring Romeo and Juliet,
back to the land of the living.
And just like that,
a penny in a well,
becomes a wish upon a star,
and ultimately,
and answered prayer.
The heart burns with tears,
as the land turns bones into ashes,
and Eden into a lifeless desert.
Souls rise against each other,
in the hand of the same Creator,
until the earth floods a second time.
Like leaves blowing away on the wind,
that is how Divine wisdom fades,
in the heart of selfish desires.
We have to kneel down and pray,
for the heart to awake from her slumber,
for our eyes to see the darkness we live in.
The light can only remain inside of us,
when the heart is willing to love,
a love that crosses every border.
Only when we learn to reach our hand,
beyond our own human knowledge,
we will learn to embrace this world with love.
Love is greatest power this world possesses,
why then do we not use it to shape the world,
into a place where every soul can live in love?
Belonging is sharing your heart and home,
with every living being the earth knows,
in the deepest love and harmony.
As this world is fiercely burning down,
I pray in the deepest depth of my heart,
that love will not die in the heart of mankind!
A flower growing between the cold stone rocks –
in temperatures that reach far below zero,
and where even the animals do not choose to live,
still survives on the strength within,
that searches for life in the midst of an expected death,
that is who I really am!
It is not the hope or the love that forces me to go on,
but the ever-present reluctancy to give up.
A faith that lives deep inside of me,
tells me everyday that there has got to be more.
More than this endless suffering,
more than this heart-wrenching pain,
that forces my pillow to catch my tears in the night,
and my soul to hide them during the day.
A Force that is bigger than all of this –
bigger than our entire universe,
is what the last piece of my heart holds onto.
All I hope for is that this Force,
takes my pain and nails it on that cross,
where it can die along with my tears,
to restore the hope,
born from love,
that establishes a fountain of joy,
within every corner of my heart!
Purple dresses reflect sunlight,
wrapped in red sashes they reflect the soul.
Golden bracelets start joyful music,
where feet dance to the melody of the heart.
I look at her auburn hair,
bouncing on the light steps of her life.
I hear her laughter like sweet melodies.
She is a reminder of a past life,
which formed the start of my current journey.
A trip to faraway places,
where sweet spices make me dream,
and foreign languages fill my heart with wonder.
I walk into the Ganges river and submerge,
to resurface in the river Jordan,
where I start my pilgrimage to Rome.
My feet dance on the sound of tambourine.
I fall asleep on relaxing soprano melodies.
This journey brings me back to life,
as past, present, and future collide,
in a beautiful array of colors,
that reflect every essence of my soul.
I am more than I currently know,
more real than any dream I ever dreamed before.
And as I await the gates of Heaven, I know,
my life was lived to the fullest,
in the utmost sense of joy!
Soar,
My lips are painful and dry, as if I have been walking, through the desert for weeks. Now I am longing for streams of water, surrounding my body and soul. For the wind to lift me up, and give me wings like angels, so I can rise above myself – to see myself from a new perspective, if only these glasses were helping me! I spend my days in meditation, where a continuous flow of words, makes her way from my heart to yours. Gratitude is what I always learned, but now I am longing for more, because I feel that I am ready, to open my heart and fly, out of this desert into the promised land, I am ready to soar!
Creative minds
I walk the temple grounds,
in my jungle colored harem pants,
declaring the state of my heart,
to a summer blue sky.
Parrots repeat my prayers,
like an echo across the mountains.
My mountains,
that I have climbed,
millions of times.
If only I could fly,
holding onto the lianas,
like that fictive man from the jungle,
I would let my heart sing,
screams of joy across the world.
But maybe I was born,
for this meditative state of my mind,
creating her own jungle,
in her own fictive mind.
Sometimes the greatest reality,
is the one that captures you,
and holds you tight.
Where a firm grip on your heart,
tells you that this jungle you created
isn’t so fictive after all.
Believing in your own reality,
creates a connection,
to a supernatural God,
who created you,
in his own imaginative mind.
Sometimes the greatest reality,
is the one that you create yourself,
in your own creative mind,
where faith makes the impossible,
your greatest possibility,
in a sometimes fictive world.
Inside of us
Withered away,
I wait for life to grow again,
but the green stems break,
in my frightened hands.
The black shadows speak,
their toxic words in pink colors,
to hide the lies from my fragile heart,
until the truth vanishes out of sight.
Screams of pain fill the sky,
but a blue blanket represents the silence.
The louder I scream,
the greater is the silence.
So I have to become calm,
in order to find peace.
Memories engraved in stone,
are written on the walls of my heart.
Portrayed on parchment paper,
they are shaped into hundreds of poems.
Looking back at the past,
invites me to learn lessons,
to celebrate new hope,
illuminating my soul,
in millions of colors.
When Heaven remains silent,
lessons we have already learned,
become the indicators on our journey of life,
and growth appears inside of us.
Broken dreams
As the fallen snow turns into ice,
the freezing cold blows me away,
forcing an ice-age into the summer,
where icicles melt in the desert heat,
and water is a burden instead of a relief.
My eyes hurt with burning pains,
the tears have turned into dry salt,
while fire burns my skin to the bone.
I’m blaming the snow-storm in the desert,
for its lack of interest in the growing pains.
Selfishness is always the beginning of nothing,
but when I search for something,
selfishness comes knocking at my door.
My life has never been my own,
no matter how I wrestled with the universe,
it never chose my side in the storm.
Now I’m fighting thin air on the steep slope,
beating me into the thick trees on the road.
As I lay down in the snow and pray,
the daisies cheer me up with their mandolin music,
and the sun warms my face with peace,
until Love breaks the centre of my soul,
and thick teardrops work its way down,
for the broken dreams I never wanted to give up.
Bring back my broken dreams,
and plant them in the ground,
to grow them into rose bushes.
So my dreams will never get lost in the snow,
and my teardrops are not a waste in the universe.
Give them a place in Your paradise,
so Your children can find their way home.
Jesus’ Final Prayer
Landslides tear my heart in two.
Silently I wait for the tsunami,
to flood my burning heart,
until peace has redeemed it from its pain.
My voice is numbed by the many prayers,
spoken with perseverance and repetition.
But I feel as if Your deaf ears have denied,
my heartfelt request that is always present.
Tears are an undeniable consequence,
to a rejected heart, silenced by fear.
When prayers are left unanswered,
the desert will slowly kill me in my grief.
Where are You, oh Mighty Creator?
Why have You forsaken me?
This cup, too full to drink,
is shaking at my quivering lips.
Now that I have spoken my final prayer,
my final breath escapes my painful lungs,
and in the silent darkness I am fully aware,
I have overcome the greatest test.
Gineke van Keulen 