Hesitation

HESITATION

–noun
1. the act of hesitating; a delay due to uncertainty of mind or fear.
2. a state of doubt or uncertainty.
3. a halting or faltering in speech.






















We glide
Opposites yet bound
A few steps this way
Or the other
On tip toe
Ready to fly off
To depart from that dance
That is courting
Hesitation.

Sleep

SLEEP

–verb (used without object)
1. to take the rest afforded by a suspension of voluntary bodily functions and the natural suspension, complete or partial, of consciousness; cease being awake.
2. Botany. to assume, especially at night, a state similar to the sleep of animals, marked by closing of petals, leaves, etc.
3. to be dormant, quiescent, or inactive, as faculties.
4. to be careless or un-alert; allow one's alertness, vigilance, or attentiveness to lie dormant.
5. to lie in death.
–verb (used with object)
6. to take rest in (a specified kind of sleep).
7. to accommodate for sleeping; have sleeping accommodations for.
8. to spend or pass in sleep (usually followed by “away” or “out”).
9. to recover from the effects of (a headache, hangover, etc.) by sleeping (usually followed by “off” or “away”).
–noun
10.the state of a person, animal, or plant that sleeps.
11.a period of sleeping: a brief sleep.
12.dormancy or inactivity.
13.the repose of death.
14.Also "sleeper" - a globule that forms at the inner corner of the eye, especially during sleep, from the accumulated secretion of the glands of the eyelid.























The hours
Creep on unwanted
Pushing the hope of sleep
Ahead, ahead, always further
Too far.

For the insomnia prompt at One Single Impression

Indurate

INDURATE

–verb (used with object)
1. to make hard; harden, as rock, tissue, etc.:.
2. to make callous, stubborn, or unfeeling.
3. to inure; accustom.
4. to make enduring; confirm; establish.
–verb (used without object)
5. to become hard; harden.
6. to become established or confirmed.
–adj.
7. hardened; unfeeling; callous; inured.




Indurate love
Gone callous,
Creviced hands and lips
Harsh, splinter-prone, words.

Where has the transient gentleness gone
In all these rock hard certitudes?

Over-grown love
Gone to seed
Tall and stringy,
Nasty weed.

What has become of the tender bud
In this obstinate garden infestation?

Lighthouse

LIGHTHOUSE

-noun
1. a tower or other structure displaying or flashing a very bright light for the guidance of ships in avoiding dangerous areas, in following certain routes, etc.
2. either of two cylindrical metal towers placed forward on the forecastle of the main deck of a sailing ship, to house the port and starboard running lights.



Your love guides me well
Through torment and calm alike.
Focus in the night.
Clearing out the waves of life
With your smile for a lighthouse.

Crown Point Lighthouse appears courtesy of The Library of Congress

Shift

SHIFT

–verb (used with object)
1. to put (something) aside and replace it by another or others; change or exchange.
2. to transfer from one place, position, person, etc., to another.
3. Automotive. to change (gears) from one ratio or arrangement to another.
4. Linguistics. to change in a systematic way, especially phonetically.
–verb (used without object)
5. to move from one place, position, direction, etc., to another.
6. to manage to get along or succeed by oneself.
7. to get along by indirect methods; use any expediency, trick, or evasion to get along or succeed.
8. to change gears in driving a vehicle.
9. Linguistics. to undergo a systematic, especially phonetic, change.
10.to press a shift key, as on a typewriter keyboard.
11.Archaic. to change one's clothes.
–noun
12.a change or transfer from one place, position, direction, person, etc., to another.
13.a person's scheduled period of work, especially the portion of the day scheduled as a day's work when a shop, service, office, or industry operates continuously during both the day and night.
14.a group of workers scheduled to work during such a period.
15.Baseball. a notable repositioning by several fielders to the left or the right of their normal playing position, an occasional strategy against batters who usually hit the ball to the same side of the field.
16.Automotive. a gearshift.
17.Clothing.
a. a straight, loose-fitting dress worn with or without a belt.
b. a woman's chemise or slip.
18.Football. a lateral or backward movement from one position to another, usually by two or more offensive players just before the ball is put into play.
19.Mining. a dislocation of a seam or stratum; fault.
20.Music. a change in the position of the left hand on the fingerboard in playing a stringed instrument.
21.Linguistics.
a. a change or system of parallel changes that affects the sound structure of a language, as the series of related changes in the English vowel system from Middle English to Modern English.
b. a change in the meaning or use of a word.
22.an expedient; ingenious device.
23.an evasion, artifice, or trick.
24.change or substitution.
25.Bridge. shift bid: a bid in a suit different from the suit just bid by one's partner. .
26.Agriculture. (in crop rotation)
a. any of successive crops.
b. the tract of land used.
27.an act or instance of using the shift key, as on a typewriter keyboard.























Hours after minutes after seconds
Every single blinking moment
A subtle shift
No more than a sleight of hands
From the clock
Stealing time from under our feet.

We turn around
And tomorrow isn't quite
That other day any more
Too busy becoming yesterday.

Elusive

ELUSIVE

–adj.
1. eluding clear perception or complete mental grasp; hard to express or define.
2. cleverly or skilfully evasive



Elusive story
Refusing to come to light
Taunting my pen and white page.

Descent

DESCENT

-noun
1 an act or the action of descending.
2 a downward slope.
3 a person’s origin or nationality.
4 (Followed by “on”) a sudden violent attack on






















Descent to a tomb
Snaking, snug, inside the hill.
Damp earth aroma.

Fog

FOG

–noun
1. a cloud-like mass or layer of minute water droplets or ice crystals near the surface of the earth, appreciably reducing visibility.
2. any darkened state of the atmosphere, or the diffused substance that causes it.
3. a state of mental confusion or unawareness; daze; stupor.
4. Photography. a hazy effect on a developed negative or positive, caused by light other than that forming the image, by improper handling during development, or by the use of excessively old film.
5. Physical Chemistry. a mixture consisting of liquid particles dispersed in a gaseous medium.
–verb (used with object)
6. to cover or envelop with or as if with fog.
7. to confuse or obscure.
8. to bewilder or perplex.
9. Photography. to produce fog on (a negative or positive).
–verb (used without object)
10.to become enveloped or obscured with or as if with fog.
11.Photography. (of a negative or positive) to become affected by fog.

–noun
1. a second growth of grass, as after mowing.
2. long grass left standing in fields during the winter.























I seek the faintest trace of fog
On the mirror,
A sign you might still be there,
That you still thrive and sigh,
Measured in wisps of vapour,
In faint feeble heartbeats.

But the mirror does not collaborate,
Stubborn,
Refusing to reflect life's shadow,
To bear ghosts and witness,
Pristine in its defiance,
The statement all too clear.

Thirst

THIRST

–noun
1. a sensation of dryness in the mouth and throat caused by need of liquid.
2. the physical condition resulting from this need, in any of various degrees.
3. strong or eager desire; craving.
–verb (used without object)
4. to feel thirst; be thirsty.
5. to have a strong desire.



Thirst in the eyes that fail to see
Drinking shadows for a soul
Or anything
That might make them blink
Just one more time.
That one last time.

Blue

BLUE

–noun
1. the pure colour of a clear sky; the primary colour between green and violet in the visible spectrum, an effect of light with a wavelength between 450 and 500 nm.
2. something having a blue colour.
3. a person who wears blue or is a member of a group characterized by some blue symbol.
4. (often initial capital letter) a member of the Union army in the American Civil War or the army itself.
5. any of several blue-winged butterflies of the family Lycaenidae.
6. the blue,
a. the sky.
b. the sea.
c. the remote distance.
–adj.
7. of the colour of blue.
8. (initial capital letter) of or pertaining to the Union army in the American Civil War.
9. (of the skin) discoloured by cold, contusion, fear, or vascular collapse.
10.depressed in spirits; dejected; melancholy.
11.holding or offering little hope; dismal; bleak.
12.characterized by or stemming from rigid morals or religion.
13.marked by blasphemy.
14.(of an animal's hair) greyish-blue.
15.indecent; somewhat obscene; risqué.
–verb (used with object)
16.to make blue; dye a blue colour.
17.to tinge with bluing.
–verb (used without object)
18.to become or turn blue.






















Blue is the colour of your smile as you lie in your grave,
Colours robbed from you with the air you breathed.
I wonder about the shade of your softly closed eyes
And that of the world they held in their throes:
The golden fire they once flashed about, faded to ashes
Life, a melancholy tone of greys and blues.


Vintage beauty appears courtesy of Inspyretash-stock at Deviant Art.

Copse

COPSE

–noun
a thicket of small trees or bushes; a small wood.



Copse in bloom
Strangling the wharf.
Purple shade

Ocean

OCEAN

–noun
1. the vast body of salt water that covers almost three fourths of the earth's surface.
2. any of the geographical divisions of this body, commonly given as the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, Arctic, and Antarctic oceans.
3. a vast expanse or quantity



Like an ocean...
I sailed the sea of your eyes
Scaling every wave on your face
To lose myself in the maelstrom on your laughter
Let the ripples where mocking gulls dive
Gurgle and giggle
Back to serenity.

Stranger

STRANGER

–noun
1. a person with whom one has had no personal acquaintance.
2. a newcomer in a place or locality.
3. an outsider.
4. a person who is unacquainted with or unaccustomed to something (usually followed by “to”).
5. a person who is not a member of the family, group, community, or the like, as a visitor or guest.
6. Law. one not privy or party to an act, proceeding, etc.
–adv.
7. in a strange manner























Read from your left palm
A most tantalizing threat.
Frost on your caught breath.

Decussate

DECUSSATE

-verb tr.
To intersect or to cross.




Eaten by time,
Missing intersections
Fail to decussate.

Tolerance

TOLERANCE

​-noun
1. The capacity for or the practice of recognizing and respecting the beliefs or practices of others.
a. Leeway for variation from a standard.
b. The permissible deviation from a specified value of a structural dimension, often expressed as a percent.
c. Physiological resistance to a toxin.
d. Diminution in the physiological response to a drug that occurs after continued use, necessitating larger doses to produce a given response.
e. Acceptance of a tissue graft or transplant without immunological rejection.
f. Unresponsiveness to an antigen that normally produces an immunological reaction.
2. The capacity to endure hardship or pain.
3. Medicine
a. Physiological resistance to a toxin.
b. Diminution in the physiological response to a drug that occurs after continued use, necessitating larger doses to produce a given response.
c. Acceptance of a tissue graft or transplant without immunological rejection.
d. Unresponsiveness to an antigen that normally produces an immunological reaction.
e. Acceptance of a tissue graft or transplant without immunological rejection.
f. Unresponsiveness to an antigen that normally produces an immunological reaction.
4. The ability of an organism to resist or survive infection by a parasitic or pathogenic organism.




Weather more than time
Had abused the tolerance
For hardship and woes.
The diva mutilated
Into climatic zombie.

Twilight

TWILIGHT

–noun
1. the soft, diffused light from the sky when the sun is below the horizon, either from daybreak to sunrise or, more commonly, from sunset to nightfall.
2. the period in the morning or, more commonly, in the evening during which this light prevails.
3. a terminal period, esp. after full development, success, etc.
4. a state of uncertainty, vagueness, or gloom.
–adj.
5. of, pertaining to, or resembling twilight; dim; obscure.
6. appearing or flying at twilight; crepuscular.




A man with blue paint
Colouring the graveyard's wall
In his soul's twilight.
Looking for new horizons
Looking for a new way out.

The silhouette appears courtesy of Emily aka The Strawberry Tree at DeviantArt, with thanks.

Spectral

SPECTRAL

–adj.
1. of or pertaining to a specter; ghostly; phantom.
2. resembling or suggesting a specter.
3. of, pertaining to, or produced by a spectrum or spectra.
4. resembling or suggesting a spectrum or spectra.


















Looking at the edge
Where what is not starts to be:
Energy rainbows.
Memories of other lives.
A door into somewhere else.