STEPHAN TASHOFF - POEMS

Stephan Tashoff has been writing poetry for more than thirty years. He writes to remove the constraints of the common form of poetry. For Stephan, writing is a path, a means of getting his feelings from one place to the next. There is nothing more enjoyable than linking words together, cleverly, to create a moment. Whether that moment is filled with love or sadness, both can lead to a significant moment in Stephan's poetry that the reader can partake in.
Stephan believes there is a uniqueness in his writing. It strays from the commonalities of the mainstream. In every sentence, Stephan tries to embark on a romantic journey with words.
Stephan has a fondness for love, and when he writes, love’s life flows in between the words he strings together. A blank screen to Stephan is like a fresh white canvas to a painter. The story does not exist until he links his thoughts to words on the screen.
Stephan has published several poems in poetic journals. Stephan enjoys writing for the love of creation. He hopes you will enjoy his work. Stephan chooses to push the limits of his use of language and takes risks in all that he writes.
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​The Great Schism

My bright side is in the morning light.
When noon tolls, 
darkness encroaches the borders
of my soul.
There is a March on the corner
of my greatness.
Yet the smile from a flower’s stem
can send me weightless.
There is a chance for upheaval
In every beginning.
Though, I plant my dreams in soil.
Nurture is through practitioning.
There is a shatter in the crease
of every minute.
That which is far greater than ourselves
then we could have ever imagined.
Mirrored time is merely the epicenter
of one’s ending
to another’s beginning.
There is a line of spotted glory
earmarking our own schism.
Love is threatened
to the left of our searching, while the right,
the brightest side clings to our love’s story.

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When Night Cannot Sleep
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When night cannot sleep
and
the day can’t stay awake.
I can see it behind
the inside of my eyes’
parched lips.
It is the brighter side
of light that remains elusive
to absent hands in the darkness.
What champions life
are the buttresses
of sovereign love.
the waves that crash against tempered glass
softens the face of strength’s anger.
Regret is temptation
from an egos laughter burgeoned from failure.
What is coupled to a smile?
Is knowing we can do better.


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Something Worth Promising

It is simple, My arousal!
the catch of lace against your skin.
My eyes cannot pin
the relevance of your curves to my heart’s prism.
In a heretic’s wisdom
With a pinch, reality mutes my vision
Our bodies promise illusion
In an underpinning collapse of our symmetry
I feel of your body’s poetry
What is given is received in the synonym of delight
It is my lips that are in twilight
A soft glow atop as we lay supine
you have speared mine
amongst angels afloat.
I grip and let go,
and fall from the sheets of divinity.
I rinse in your serenity. I chase the Sol of your expression
glancing touch of affection
felt after
A performance steeped in flatter!
Between a second parallel of time and emotion
A confluent ocean
brimmed in the majesty of our own animation.
Better than my own imagination
My gait...shuttered with fatigue
I lasted for a league.
Never once did we have to enjoy something missing
You are something worth promising.

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Silence awoke me.

Its fingers shook me in my sleep. I could feel it speaking to me. But, all sound was absent, and I could not hear what I was being told. Frightened, I sat up in bed. I touched my chest to check if I was alive. I could still feel my heartbeat! In my try to better understand this phenomenon, I look down and see the rise and fall of my chest. I knew I was breathing, but I could not hear my own respirations. Frustrated, I cover my ears with my hands, and my heart gave no sound, but I can feel my heart beating.
My panic increases, and I cried out, but my voice was taken. My breathing became more rapid, but my chest felt constricted like a rubber band was around my lungs. I sat alone, though Silence was in the room. Then Darkness arrived and sat with me. Humbly I lowered my head, and like sound, words escaped me.
Moments past where I could neither see nor hear! Then my emptiness deepened and began to fill the void. I questioned how nothing could fill up something? Then clarity came into focus... Silence can be heard, and Darkness can be seen! And as quickly as they arrived, Darkness lifted and stood before me. My voice returned, and I asked, "Where are you going?" I watched as its mass narrowed and light peeked around its body.
I remained at the foot of the bed. I could hear my breath again and my heartbeat. I still was not sure what I was experiencing. Was I dead or alive? But something else was coming; my fear rose in anticipation of its arrival. I stood up from the bed and turned around behind me. I turned back, and I was no longer in my room but rather in an open field. I was still barefoot, sweats, and no shirt. I looked up; skies were blue and not a cloud in sight for miles. I looked down and around and as far as the eye could see were soft rolling hills of bright green grass perfectly landscaped to the same height.
I began to walk forward slowly. It was useless to pick a particular direction because there wasn't a landmark to help me determine a destination! Step by step, I walked to nowhere. I looked up, looked down, then around, and repeat. Over and over! It seemed I had traveled for miles, then at some point, I had looked down at my feet, and I was no longer alone. I froze, and I looked to my right, and Death was accompanying me! Its form was not crisp, and I could not distinguish its face, but its presence was light and not heavy as I would have imagined. We walked together without a single word exchanged. Then eventually, my tension with him subsided and I felt compelled to share what I had written about him before. I slowed my pace and recited this line, "Death is a closed-door we're afraid to open up. Too frightened to be curious about what it might show us!"
Immediately afterward, I gained nothing from him. It was as if my words went unheard. Then slowly, I began to sense that what I said soothed him. His step softened, and the space he took next to me seemed to have gotten smaller. We walked together for what seemed like hours until we reached a point wherein the distance I could see the leaves of a tree rise above the hills. I ran away from Death as fast as I could. Exhausted from running, I fell to my knees at the base of the tree.
The wind picked up, bringing the tree alive by rustling the leaves. But in the leaves moving, I heard Life speak to me. It sounded like a whisper in the wind passing my ears, saying, "Your life could not exist without you!" I understood what it meant. Your Life is not yours alone. You share a part of yourself with everyone you love. You are always relied upon, and you're giving impacts the world around them. It could be considered the most selfish belief that one's Life is solely their own. I stood back away from the tree, taking in everything that had been revealed. Then all four rose before me... Silence, Darkness, Life, and Death. I got a sense that they were pleased with me, for through them I had come to know me!


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One Moment

There was one moment without space and time in Zay's young life. When the night squinted through its own eyes and the air blew from the moon's lungs, I found Zay wide awake.
Her smile, so clever; even today it brightens the sky's mind outside.
I saw the pause in her question before it escaped, "Why do we breathe?" her arm shot up toward heaven's ceiling, fetching my hand.
I spoke words as soft as a Spring flower's breath...so that we may live to Love, Zay!!
There's a kingdom on the moon that lives in the hands of morning Sunshine, surrounded by an ocean that glistens like blue dimes. And inside, you will find the dreams of a child's laughter.
And in that same vein as grandeur are row upon row of polished orbs touched by celestial gold.
These ornate spheres rest in vanilla oak trays Until the arrival of a star pronounces your name.
For there is only one ball cast for every soul behind heaven's gate. And when these gates open, you can hear the orchestra summon the march of winged saints. Escorted by summer doves flickering in the moon's dust.
Love begins with the soft grass whistling under his feet. It is the tickle of his flesh from your heart's joy that he's remembering ever since he was a boy.
Because an August love occurs with every birth and in that love, there is another on the moon that coalesces with yours on Earth.
If you could only see what takes place when each of your orbs is released with swift speed, falling like autumn leaves from a Vermont Birch tree.
The colors, the silence that moves through the air, the roll of each sphere on its marble run, with beautiful chaos and its climbing peaks, watching your ball descend as if life was pushing you two to meet.
With near misses, collisions, all of which were meant to put you back on track.
France was just the beginning...love took a deep breath and whispered in your ear for you to say, "Yes."
And in that precise moment, just as the seas rush from the shores of Galilee, your orbs converged in a solar eclipse at the bottom of the run. When the world looked up, your love was etched in Bailey's Beads encircling the Sun!!

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