All mini-poems can be read on Instagram or on a computer as opposed to an iPhone or Android. I'm not sure why the formatting for a mobile device omits most of my mini-poems and changes the formatting.
Torrents of confusion
snap the branches
of indecision
which fall
like tossed matches
on a birthday.
- Lauren Taub Cohen
Flakes of sun
scamper through the sky
like winged wishes
born from a child's lips.
- Lauren Taub Cohen
Fears croak
in fields of darkness
but I continue to walk
undeterred
toward the light
of my dawning dreams.
- Lauren Taub Cohen
Once upon a time,
Sleeping Beauty received a kiss
sweet with awakened dreams
and a child’s grasp at freedom’s bliss.
A smile cracked her hardened cheeks
and tremors kicked her heart to beat.
- Lauren Taub Cohen
Last night
I slipped into
a current of joyful tears
and was carried
to the banks of forgiveness
where I finally felt the urge
to step ashore.
- Lauren Taub Cohen
The chalky sketch
of the daylight moon
hangs like a coin
slipped halfway
into the seamless slit
of the cerulean sky.
- Lauren Taub Cohen
Their voices rolled in
like waves crashing against
the shores of heavenly light
and I wept
in the wake
of such unbearable
beauty.
- Lauren Taub Cohen
Their voices rolled in
like waves crashing against
the shores of heavenly light
and I wept
in the wake
of such unbearable
beauty.
- Lauren Taub Cohen
I move through life
like a buoyant jellyfish
propelled by an endless series
of contractions and expansions
guiding me through the succession
of each passing wave.
- Lauren Taub Cohen
Perceptions began to shift
after a frisky breeze
dispelled the heavy haze
of those habitual thoughts.
- Lauren Taub Cohen
Thank you, Diana Gabaldon
The glowing embers
in the nighttime sky
accompany me
as I wade into your words
and am carried away
by the intoxicating brilliance
of your beguiling craft.
- Lauren Taub Cohen
A sun-soaked breeze
whispers through the trees
like a salacious secret
setting the leaves aflutter.
- Lauren Taub Cohen
Being With, Not Fleeing From
Unable to outrun or resist
the torrential assaults
of self-blame and fear,
I stop and seek refuge
within the words
I most need to hear.
“I love you.”
“You’re okay.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
I continue to repeat these words
as the storm thunders toward me,
reaches me, and then drifts away
leaving me sleepy but unscathed.
- Lauren Taub Cohen
I think I may have been a cat
in a previous lifetime.
I can rest for hours
all curled up in sunshine
and pensive solitude-
Entirely unperturbed
and purring with content.
- Lauren Taub Cohen
Grief has no predictable course
but when permitted to flow
it can gently erode
the years of hardened sentiment
and unearth the pearls
of pleasant memories
- Lauren Taub Cohen
I tinker with words
to keep me awake
and connected to
this living life
that spurs me to do
all I can
to experience as much
as I can
before I am called back
to the Mystery
that birthed me.
- Lauren Taub Cohen
I maintain my home
by dusting the past
off the present
and organizing the clutter
into three distinct piles -
What to keep
What's not mine
and by far the bulkiest...
What I've finally outgrown
- Lauren Taub Cohen
The intoxicating scent
of rain-soaked earth
smells like renewal
and possibilities in bloom.
- Lauren Taub Cohen
I am a sparkler spinning acrobatically
through a darknesss
no longer haunted
but set aglow by insights gleaned
after feeling what ached to be felt.
- Lauren Taub Cohen
I stand bathed in the balm
of a sunbeam stretched wide
and rest in this moment
of unhurried
time.
- Lauren Taub Cohen
Sustenance
It was an unconscious choice
I made
to feast on your memory
and starve the emptiness
that threatened to consume
me.
- Lauren Taub Cohen
My lips still retain the imprint of yours
and each day we lived apart
I traced your memory
with a maddening devotion
because I couldn't say goodbye.
Now, here we are.
Enveloped in an enduring love
that transcends the boundaries of time
and all I thought possible.
- Lauren Taub Cohen
(*Outlander fever inspired this mini-poem, which I playfully wrote from Claire's POV.)
The quiet folds
of the moon's milky light
rest upon the silky shadows
of the ocean's ceaseless breath.
- Lauren Taub Cohen
Again and again
I train my attention
to catch and release
those small, unfettered joys
which flit toward me
asking only to be seen
and savored as I undertake
the demands of the day.
- Lauren Taub Cohen
Sustenance
It was an unconscious choice
I made
to feast on your memory
and starve the emptiness
that threatened to consume
me.
- Lauren Taub Cohen
Just knowing I am held
in the sanctuary of your love
gives me the strength I need
to live amidst the past
which often masquerades
as the present.
- Lauren Taub Cohen
I watch as dusk gathers in
the motions of the day.
Long, lean shadows stretch themselves upon the sidewalk and blanket buildings
in deepening shades of bluish gray.
Each passing second
accentuates a growing stillness
that guides me back
to the home within.
- Lauren Taub Cohen
I crave poems about
survivors and seekers.
Poems that are unflinchingly fierce and stripped of all armoring.
Give me an undiluted poem at any hour
and I will sip it slowly.
Intoxicate me with the clarity of truth
and the spirit of everlasting wonder.
- Lauren Taub Cohen
If the cold, damp chill
of despair and doubt should
burrow its way inside your bones,
then take comfort
and warm yourself beside
the hearth that holds
the truest words I know -
you matter
- Lauren Taub Cohen
The Northern Lights
A single strand of kryptonite green
unfurls from a source unseen
and whips across the sky
with a commanding presence
that stuns me into awe.
- Lauren Taub Cohen
My story is a galaxy
comprised of speckled stars
and clusters of constellations
formed by traces of transitory
experiences.
- Lauren Taub Cohen
The scarcity of silence
is sullied by the ceaseless assaults
of man made noise
which desecrate
the sacrosanct.
- Lauren Taub Cohen
There is a placid stillness
beneath the crackle
of incessant fears
inviting me to rest
within the words
my wounds
ache to hear,
"You're okay now."
"You're okay now..."
- Lauren Taub Cohen
Puddles of sunlight
undulate with ease
upon the ambling current
without the tension of worry
or the incessant belief
that something is
amiss.
- Lauren Taub Cohen
I was foolish to think
you'd remain on the page
contained in verse
and tethered by prose.
- Lauren Taub Cohen
Summer nights have a knack
for untucking memories
and enticing them
to slip between
the folds of time.
- Lauren Taub Cohen
With the sun upon my back
I feel like I'm held
in the cupped comfort
of a wordless prayer
loving me into being.
- Lauren Taub Cohen
All poetry is an attempt
to find a wholeness and beauty
amidst the pieces and tears
the ruptures and repairs.
A shelter of meaning
a respite from the pain
that forged us poets
and birthed our words.
- Lauren Taub Cohen
Sun-baked pine
and taffey-pulled clouds
Starved for sleep
but able to rest
- Lauren Taub Cohen
His voice
had the cadence of a hug,
and his eyes spoke
with the clarity
of kindness.
- Lauren Taub Cohen
Some memories
are seductively sneaky.
They slip away
from the receding tide of time
and are delivered into the present
upon the soft winds
of waking dreams.
- Lauren Taub Cohen
These moist, melodious notes
of spring's eternal return
rest me into
a raft of steady
supportive
ease
- Lauren Taub Cohen
Written by the Teen Within
I have a hidden stash of experiences
that rest in charcoal sketches
rather than photons
pressed into photos.
Unlived memories
framed by regrets
hung in remembrance
of what might have been
had I been willing
to try
to do
to dare.
- Lauren Taub Cohen
Sitting Upon A Moss-Barnacle Rock
Full of birdsong
and sunlit leaves.
Empty of want and doing.
Just resting and receiving.
- Lauren Taub Cohen
I want to learn to lollygag
like the lumbering black bear
that ambled across my front yard
late last night.
He moved with such bold, confident strides
and groggy, lackadaisical ease.
What a relief it must be
to live without hurry
and the motoring hum
of tireless thoughts.
- Lauren Taub Cohen
She loved like a leaky faucet
in drips and drops
and fast sputtering spurts.
- Lauren Taub Cohen
Sometimes I feel like a baker
combining words to create
flavors of experience,
tastes of memories.
- Lauren Taub Cohen