This isn't exactly the best way to organize a web page, I know, but maybe I'll do something better with it later when I figure out exactly what a better way IS. Anyhow...
The first poems displayed on this page are from a series that I intended to write about The Endless, a race of beings from Neil Gaiman's Sandman series. Unfortunately, I never wrote too many of these, since I couldn't think of a thing, as is my usual trend. I actually sent Morpheus off to DC, but they never published it in their letters column or anything. This is the second version of the poem, which just has a few phrases removed after talking with a poetry professor I had. Anyhow... the ones I actually DID write are here: Morpheus, Dream, Death, and Despair.
The next one is an Untitled piece. I'm not even sure when I wrote it. Sometimes I read some things I found on my computer and just barely remember writing them. Interesting how that works.
The next one, On Your Return To Earth, was written after the suicide of my friend, Michael Stewart. Mike and I only met in person once. But we shared an on-line friendship for many years. We had our ups and downs, but... I really cared about him. No one knows why he did it. He seemed better than ever at the time. I didn't get to make it to the funeral. It was too far away... This is all I have...
And now we come to one of my few love poems. I guess you could call it a love poem, though it's not really about any specific person. I've never been able to write about any particular person, really. It's called As We Paint Our Masterpiece. As with all my poems, it's terrible, but... the idea's nice.
Next comes a set of poems that I wrote at some point during my high school years, mostly during the junior and senior years. Anything before that has been lost. After seeing these, you'll probably be overjoyed that they were lost. There's no real story behind any of these. They're just here to be here before I put my poems from my college years in here. The poems are: Untitled, Lost Dreams, The Destiny of Man, Shielded, Thunder and Lightning, The Beggar Man, The Archer, and Untitled.
Lastly, we come to some poems I wrote in college when I took a poetry class in, I believe, my sophomore year. It wasn't a particularly good class, but at least it got me to write some poems. I hope you can see an improvement in these. Most of these were written one day when I was laying on my bed and needed to write a whole bunch of poems to put in my final portfolio for the class. It was probably the most productive day I've ever had. Anyhow, we start with Open Spaces. We then come to the poem I'm most proud of, really. To me, As Dragons Do... always seemed perfect. That's the one I'm most proud of. We then come to Silencing the Ages, whose first line I've always imagined Tori Amos singing for some reason. Next is The Squeeze, followed by Tangle, which I always thought was quite nice. The last set of poems have no real stories or comments behind them. So I'll just list them out here. The only comment I can say about them is that none of them really worked out as well as I'd wished. And a few of them have some rather silly errors in them. But... that's the way it goes. Anyhow, the last poems are: O Withered Angel, Paper Dolls, Bone Dance, Revelations, Dreamtime, My Loss, Window Shopping, Balance, and All Night Long. Note that this last one is in NO way related to a Lionel Richie tune.
Well... I hope you enjoy what you see here. If not, it's really not my fault and I didn't force you to read any of it. Again, some day I'll figure out a better way to organize this page. Until then... this is it.
Morpheus
I am Lord Dream,
Master of infinite worlds,
Bending, twisting, pulling,
Shaping dreams within my hands;
I delve into the dreamer's mind,
Digging out the memories
Of children running on the beach,
Of dancing in a verdant field,
Of silence in a world of noise,
Of blood upon the shore.
I am Morpheus,
King of Nightmares,
Lord of Dreams,
Guide to many worlds;
Close your eyes and take my hand
And you'll be on my way.
The sky (a foreign land),
Starlight shines (the lights of a city),
A starship flies (the mind is my vessel),
On stellar waves (the sea is calm);
Flying high with a dreamer's heart.
I wait for her with her sisters:
Desire, Delirium, Despair
(Dream left me a week ago).
Desire's been with me forever;
I met Delirium yesterday
While looking in a mirror;
Despair thinks she has me,
But she is wrong... so very wrong.
Destiny need not be mentioned,
He'll be with me always, he says.
I know not where she is,
Yet her siblings seem to know.
They say that it's up to me;
Only I can bring her here.
I feel the blood spill from me,
Warming my leg, cooling my heart,
Calling for her to take me away.
I hear her voice upon the wind,
I feel her wings cutting through me.
No words are spoken, none need to be said;
She knows how I've wanted,
How I've longed to be pressed to her heart
And set free.
Silence--
Who's there?
It's my only friend Despair.
Oh, my dear,
Come you closer near,
Wrap your arms around me here;
Take my breath and
Steal my heart;
Hold me fast
To never part.
Dig me sweetly, dig me,
Cast your hook into me.
Throw me first
Into your pit,
Help me fall and fall away,
And there forever shall I stay,
Where you surround
And fill the air,
Cutting through me,
My Despair.
Rape me sweetly, rape me,
Cast yourself into me.
Silence--
No one's here;
I'm forever in Despair.
A fairy fire, caress the cheek
At dawning hour, a maiden sleeps
In fields of honey, gleaming dew,
A flower bud, a blooming rose,
Grass as sweet as birdsong's notes
Sung high above the sleeping one,
Her hair a river, twisted black,
Her skin of Mother Nature's clothes,
A heart like springtime, full and fat.
Through nature's gift, through nature's bed,
She sleeps a restful dreaming sleep;
The angel's favored child of man
Sings songs within her dreaming land,
Songs to rival feathered notes
To make the trees and clouds bow low
The honeysuckle to spill its dew,
And yet the concert soon must end
Her waking hour's close at hand.
In the twilight of your hour
Your feet planted firm
Your fingers clenched around the moon,
Holding tight;
You let your breath go,
Seeping from you like a spectre
Into the safety of the dark night,
Pin-pricked with hope.
Did you whisper your answer to the stars
As they winked out of sight?
None shall know,
For the stars will never tell.
Colors cast on a canvas black,
Rolling over darkened dimples,
Into cracks and filling spaces,
Dripping down to hide the dark
In glistening pools of rainbows.
Bristled brushes dance on darkness,
Dance with me, my fingertips,
Leading me as I lead on
To cover up this empty canvas
With the colors of our masterpiece.
Dance to the tune on the canvas floor,
Flow within my fingertips,
Splash with me my world with color,
Filling all the cracks and spaces
With a rainbow palette burning bright.
Things that grow in colored places
Having found the perfect scheme,
The dancers, close, alive with painting,
Admiring every aspect
Of the effort of our masterpiece.
The dew on the cusp of a morning blade
Caressed by dawn and new day's light;
The smoke that drifts through phantom skies
Burned fast to warm the inner host;
The willow trees that dip and bow
To keep and shade those on the ground.
These are the things with which I sing
Whene'er I wake to see you here
To see the sunlight's warm embrace
To see the love that sleeps with me.
Have you seen the stars
That once burned so bright
But have grown so cold?
Have you seen the stars
That were once such valuable jewels
But are now just so much glass?
Have you seen the stars
That pointed out the dreams in the dark
But have lost their way?
I have.
Childhood dreams
Float endlessly,
Shimmering and growing in
Childhood eyes as
Tiny fingers grasp
For giant wishes.
Hands decay and grow
But never reach
The childhood dreams that
Shine in dead eyes.
With dying hearts, the children wake
To adult nightmares.
I am made of earth and sea,
From rough-hewn stone
And storm-tossed waters filled
With salty tears and
Life.
Behind a misty veil I wait,
Guarding secrets from
All those whose eyes are closed
To sharing themselves with
Me.
Thunder blossoms and roars from the clouds
As I, cold, pull a blanket around me
In preparation for the storm.
A single candle lights my way
Across a darkened page
Aflood with love, life, and memories
Of the living, the dead, the forgotten;
The lightning brightens the sky
And illuminates my book, my life,
Before it falls away again
Into the unseen thunder and silent darkness.
Clouds open and depart,
The sunlight is revealed,
My book is so much brighter now,
So much easier to read.
I stand and let my blanket fall
To set my sunlight free;
I step outside and see a spot
Where the grass is brown and scorched,
A remnant of the thunderstorm
That brought its mighty sparks.
I stand inside that little spot,
Blades still tipped with rain;
I curl my toes in the darkened grass
And am filled with my life again.
The blind man heard but did not see
The crazy beggar crying out,
"I am but a poor man,
Bereft of wealth and will;
I have been a beggar man
For the worst part of my life;
Can you find it in your hearts
To give this man some coin?
Or better still, if your purse be light
Could you give this man some love?"
The blind man stumbled as he walked
For he could finally see
The blindness that lives in their hearts
And the beggar man was he.
The dying archer raised his bow
To place his final shot,
And launched a flaming arrow
Into the dark night sky.
His glazed eyes remained open
Until the flame went out,
But it only takes a tiny spark
To build a greater fire.
In the dark, the cries went out
And the bows were brought to arm,
And a thousand flaming arrows
Pierced the cool night air.
Hope will flame eternal
If it burns in but one heart.
Spectacles rest on the nightstand
The clock ticks time away to pass the hour;
Night breezes, cool
Your shoulder shivers at the touch
My fingers caressing
Awake in the dark hour of night
While the chimes tingle
And the faeries sprinkle dew in flower beds
To pass the hour;
Our time is close to you
To me it seems like forever in a kiss
Dew drips over my eyelids
Into the open buds of tomorrow's dreams
And yesterday's fantasies
Enclosed in an embrace
As I lay myself beside you.
The moon is grey as
I am cold as eyes
Stare back from darkened
Spaces.
Rooms that I will never see,
Places I have never been,
Doors I am afraid to
Open.
The lights are on
But I'm still shaking,
Movement trapped in face of
Fear.
What's here to fear
But open spaces,
Darkened places still
Unknown.
We sigh with dragon's breath to the stars,
Cold in the moonlight
That enfolds us with its wings
And turns our skins a silver hue.
Bronze leaves fall like scales from dark branches
To the nest of earth below,
Dark and soft, rich and fertile,
Replete with age and seed.
In the near-dark of heaven
Dark coal eyes glisten with warmth
As we sail just over the clouds,
Caressed by their silk.
Our bodies entwine, head to tail,
Gold skins like soft leather
In the light of our flames,
A dragonfire at dawn.
The leather cracks and the pages crumble to dust;
Knotted threads untie and fall
Like strands of time cut from the loom,
Wispy and fragile on the wind,
Burning as they touch ground,
Lost forever.
The disease twists, serpentine,
Inside the glass cage,
Jeweled and clear,
Flicking its tongue,
Coiling in the strangle hold
Shedding skin for more dangerous coverings --
And the venom
Spread thick and deep
Turns once clean walls to black.
Hack, hack, hack
And the teacher raised his axe
Saying "This could be much better verse
if your writing were more terse."
Then with a smile he closed his eyes
And began to fantasize
Of the perfect poetry
Writ on something like a tree.
Please, professor, sympathize,
Why must I cut this down to size?
To make my poem more concise,
So many words I sacrifice
[And now my poem is completed
for the last twelve lines have been deleted]
Slick sticky sweet
Wet with dew, honey water
In the morning, golden sunrise
I'm tangled in your hair
Swimming in the crystal blond lagoon
Upstream
In a home-spun prison
Of my own desire
Tangled in your hair
As the wind blows strands
Wrapped around my wrists
Wispy sweet like butter
Melting in the sun.
Trapped in an hourglass
Sifting sand onto a beach
Where the young ones are
Dancing in the lively waters
And an old man sits
Wrinkled in the sun
His wings clipped and dirty
Surrounded by feathers
Red and brown.
One ceiling, three walls,
A cardboard castle on concrete,
Encasing my consciousness
As mother's tears slip through the frigid air
Seeping through me
Into the dark, crusty carpet
As I lose the cold to numbness.
My city's black road twists,
Writhes around the steel garden
Choking the paper dolls dancing in a row
Burning softly as they fall
Off the edge
Into the bright, green carpet
Too early.
I stand and walk
Attach myself
And dance.
Bone dance
Bone dance
Shuffle off the Bone
Dance
Learning the steps
All life long
Bone dance
Bone dance
Push up the dust and
Sift
Dancing your way
Into the grave
Bone dance
Bone dance
Let go the bone
Settle
Down to the dust
Last steps, twist.
Lustrous Darkness
Heaven and Hell wage War
In the final test of Creation's creation
And a chance to see
Just how well Earth sticks together.
A boy runs through tall stalks of grass
That tickle his very palms
Chasing a butterfly
Slight enough to be caught on the wind
Into the crystal skies.
The Four shall come
The vanguards of the End
Bringing forth at last the Light and Dark
The battle of all souls
Created by one He and Him alone.
A girl child in a spring dress
Dances on a hardwood floor
Summer bright winds
Drifting through windows
Caressing her knees as she falls.
And Creation's Fallen shall spawn
The dark general, Earth Ending
One who shall devour the world
And bring never-ending
Light or Darkness.
You and I together
In the dark night light of the moon
Melding in our ignorant ecstasies
As we make new Life
Extending Creation's legacy.
The serialized cartoon dreamworld
Swirls in a daze of bright color and daisy dreams
Cast against the backdrop of never-moving clouds
Billowy and white on blue, crisp and sharp
Imagined to be the home of the fairies in June
Whose sleepy wings open to catch the sun, the dew
And the rain that falls, always in vertical columns
Like the fisherman's lines by the docks
Catching mermaids and weighing their prizes on scales
To judge who's found the better bride
Snap!, the picture's taken and the memory never goes away
Of the day he found her, that land-bound merman
And the day she wore the veil that captivated all
With the greatest ever to be found over and over again
The same day repeats forever,
The cows moo,
The fairies open their wings,
A dream of perfection incorruptible
By the passage of time.
Death delights me on the edge of a knife
Taunting me with rich darkness
And a sort of bitter smile
Reflected in the blade from some point behind me
Someone I once knew
And I twitch with recognition
As Death's grinning visage
Is replaced by a familiar face
Younger than now
And I am ashamed.
The knife twists in my grasp
And slices through rivers blue,
Leaking red over white snow;
My eyes close, weary
I see Death smiling at me
And feel her wings enfolding
A greater soul than I had thought.
Marilyn weeps in the storefront window
Cries because of the pane
That keeps her from walking on the slate
Dancing with the gents who walk by
And stare at her with her painted lips
Her crystal eyes and pointed nose
Skin that glistens in flourescent lamps
Perfect curves, slim hips,
Forever a Size 14,
Bedecked in modest lingerie this week
For the Sale Of A Century.
Marilyn cries her invisible tears
Her lips upturned at the corners, pert,
A careless painter's dab on her nose
Stands out proudly
As the parade of faces walk by
And she stands, posed;
The lights go dim.
Sea waves trip
Over rocky shores
Under the undertow
And over the seabed
Caked with dirt
And thick with life
Coming always from
Inside
The heated place below
Where the rocks churn
And all slithers
Unstable foundations
Trembling
Causing waves to trip
And seas to swirl
The Earth to spin
Just a little faster
The creatures
Try to keep the pace
But they just fall back
Further and further
Until the ground
Lifts away under our feet
And we lose our
Balance.
The moon sprays bits of cheese over the land
Stars twinkle, pinpricks in a velvet cloak
The wind washes over, lifting leaves from their slumbers
Carrying them away to another land, another place
Where other children dream of golden streets
And silver branches laced with diamonds and honey
Sweet to the eye and the tongue
With scents more powerful than the dreaming senses
A dream to last the night
To shift the winds just slightly.
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