David Karlsen
@vonkarlsen.bsky.social
Prose writer and poet. BA (Hons) Humanities, Literature. Non-binary. Interests: The Arts, Natural History, Geology. Vegan. Francophile. EU ©️David Karlsen [All poetry, prose and photographs] Paintings belong to the artist I repost.
Anaïs and Flavia they studied the river's reflections where they'd swum across white cloud lay in lazy formation they went back to where their clothes hung on a tree became lost again in the forest when they kissed a blackbird watched a beech tree rusted but they felt warm #poetry
We Didn't Realise you were pointing out to us the statue we've taken photographs of so often Flavia fell in love with her you know every time we come to this town she takes her photograph staring out to sea quite naked it was unveiled in 1923 perhaps like Flavia you are in love with her #poetry
I Think of You as a purple veined tulip occasionally while at the keyboard remembering how you struck middle C violently and told me about your Athenian lover her name escapes me unless deliberately her name began with C I was the woman caught in the middle of two others #poetry
In The World at large we eight can't care about what others think there are too many storms breaking out in several places to be conquered if the sky is blue it is blue but we know clouds are vital questions to be answered love is primary in this world's equation #poetry
We Saw not this September but a past this thick short coloured bow come to visit briefly and all the waves bowed momentarily in recognition of their beginning and possible ending and I thought It's possible I've drunk the same water as some venerable or wicked ancient I closed thought off #poetry
The Fall If they could stay not fall enter the earth, they would but the tree and its cycle must continue and playing their part the colour of a sky did not solve the exhaustion of crisping leaves branches bore no decision roots and trunk were rational, unemotional clinging motionless #poetry
Anaïs went to see how the construction was going. Not as fast as she hoped!She asked Danish to speak to the foreman Ragnor, then back at home made love to Laura intensely while the sun held them like an inquisitive spotlight through a window. Laura's nostrils were sore #poetry
Reeds in their yellowing domain dressed in sway and breeze bare this marsh will never be mud encircled moss or lichen covering branch and trunk the shy bittern unseen an egret fishing while a heron stands immobile and a fox looks curiously over a shoulder living very carefully here #poetry
Sparrows sky a strange phenomena Kazu thought as if she'd wiped out one of her paint brushes across its wide expanse she was cutting split ends from Lauren's long hair who sat on a chair in late September warmth around them the large garden full of the sweet chirp of sparrows #poetry
Stay on the river where you sleep each night's a dangerous escapade leaving home for land ICE cold fingers are around between five and ten they fear the water which will drag them down you will be the doing of their drowning finally the river's ice cold suction #poetry
Autumn leaves turn and float fall memories turn with them days of running, cycling swimming fencing and photography our extraordinary long walks together isn't it a good thing our house is full of books a cat and music keeping a page a day diary is still well worth while #poetry
International Reading book shelves should be full and with collected volumes from so many different places you visited ours come from all over this country other places India, Africa, Europe from cities Madrid, Barcelona Copenhagen, Paris Berlin, Prague, Dublin love library books too #poetry
in sea lanes and on land mercurial change has evolved last day of summer entered Autumn crossing an equinox spilling weather equally between sun and cloud burst till the golden season makes way for winter. Scientists believe an ocean greater than all on its surface lies under our world #poetry
The Spear Thistle is well able to protect itself its armour always ready only bees and chosen insects does it allow inside its territory using its claymores liberally as it so often has done throughout its colourful history #poetry
Flavia had an allergy caused by Ku's fur. She was constantly rubbing her nose, pulling it about. Nightime was the worst as Ku slept in the bedroom. When half-asleep, Flavia would rub her nose on somebody's back; but Kazu would always rub noses with her as she thought Flavia's nose perfect. #sketch
These Places with their tortuous cliffs jagged unreality coupled with small vertical islets leftovers towering no longer broken teeth the sea left behind in a lost and ancient geological age long before dinosaurs walked the world and infinitesimal lives living in oceans became fossils #poetry
totally alone in a world of her own drawing from solitude a subsistence from that state I could not but help fathom in her beauty a reminder of pale Laura how in fact she might be living alone and choosing that life this flower too was totally a self-sufficient rose #poetry
Climbing there was never easy you can't imagine because there was nothing to hold on to with except your own strength of legs your arms flailing for balance and that vital element not to keel over not to be a figure flying through space it never did happen to me but now the sun has set #poetry
Under the Greenwood Tree Danish and Lauren were reading Hardy. Through the summer heat they sat in the tree's shade wearing sun hats, dozing in heat, print blur. A July evening they slept there in sleeping bags with reading lights, fell asleep before moths arrived. Morning hair full of tree debris.
Seaward they saw vast tracks of water travelling north a warmth in which rips lay waiting Anaïs had once been caught in a rip taking her seaward she'd put a brick wall up in her mind swam across strong but terrified the small range of mountains cut into blue water picturesque scene #poetry
Forty Eight Preludes and Fugues were written in two books she doesn't play them on a harpsichord but piano at times she plays them to her wife or a roomful of people she does not know and there's those special times with seven rapt personalities either holding hands or arms around each #poetry
we were both looking at the ancients one far older than the other a shaft of sunlight embedded them we came to life your hands in mine my mouth feeling the wet lips of yours I saw wide eyes kissing them too looked away a moment breathless and you had gone I was alone in the room #poetry
Bringing Back a True Story you were once a large past a massif or a cliff sea undercut leaving tides to bring you to this beach finally where you were photographed only you know where you are now lying in some other place a tide referred you to you could be smaller or sand granules #poetry
She thought I'm so lucky to have red hair every morning she woke to its envelopment she would walk along the town's streets knowing other women wondered at her confidential colouring she never considered men as human entrapments as her concerns lay entirely with women alone #poetry
Danish left the conglomerate on a table for Kazu to examine heavy, an enormous egg it sat beside a vase of tulips its silent presence in the empty house older than anything else it was an incongruity like the fierce rain lashing at the windowpanes left unrecognised fear in a vacant room #poetry
