Youth Poems

Roses Have Thorns

The Conqueror Worm
Of your Love
Has slain me once Again.
The Boots of Peace
That I wore
Have chafed my feet once more.
The Aching Sorrow
of my heart
Has filled my soul this day.
The Burning Anger
In my head
Should end my Life right now.
But How can I die
When Thorns have Roses?

(1987)

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What Was I Thinking?

This young man is depressed.
He is losing something,
Because he is trying to hold on to it.
To Write
Is the only hope.
Write on, Little Wing
The Flame is your image
The Power of your Trust.
Write on, Little Wing
Fly.

The Circle of Truth
Is a Ring of Pain
The Autumn of Translucence
To every King a gain

(1987)

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Sun-lit Thoughts

I wonder
Did Philosophers,
while shading lucid eyes,
contemplate their noses
or watch them with surprise?
Did they make them twitch
or bend or snort or blow?
The things about Philosophers
That we will never know.

(1987)

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Michelle

Michelle is
A tender child
A laughing heart
A twisted mind
Her friendship is
The funny times
The open thoughts
The longest Dream
Happy
Sexy
Special
Wild
All these
Michelle is

(1987)

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Scratched Out Her Name

Oh, the Pain
Oh, the Wonder
The sun swept hair
The icy stare
The holder
Of my treasure
The One that I must lose
For the life that I must choose
The Savior
Of my mind
The Passion spent
The words not meant
The slayer
Of my Trust
Oh, the Joy
Oh, the Madness

(1987)

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Guitar Player

Matthew
Where are you?
Has the addiction
Taken your soul?
The fault is mine,
I know
I was with you
From the start
And it hurts
To see you go
I love you still
But there should be more
That I can give
And now you're gone
But
Matthew
Where are you?

(1987)

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Punk Rock Boy

Hey Bill
Just what do you think
You can do with your life
The emotional man
Who does what he can
To have a good time
God, what a voice
But what is he saying
The life it is full
But empty
Bill is so much
And the Love comes
With knowing
But who knows
Hey Bill,
Just what do you think

(1987)

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Super Challenge

Tom
Of the Hawk-eyed vision
Of the inscrutable visage
Of the eternal pride
The man of a thousand voices
The wisdom of a thousand men
Builder, Destroyer, Wildman, Saint
Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief
The comrade of my soul
The son of my spirit
The hope of my heart
Tom

(1987)

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The Vampiric Lament

The Blood of the Moon
As she waxes and wanes
Is not as sweet as yours
Nor as lovely.

In the heart of the night
When the Moon-blood is dim
The hunger, she comes
The chase, it begins
And there she is waiting
In the still of the Garden
Beauty unknowing
My soul is hardened
Pale white throat enticing
Her there alone, I reach -
The deadly feast
Of the noble leech -
For the blood that is there
In a body white as bone
But she is cold
My teeth close on stone.

(1987)

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Spinning In His Grave

Tiger,
Tiger's
Dying Light
In some Bastard
Writer's sight
What infernal
Tooth or Claw
Could Mar thy
Suspect Imagery?

(1988)

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Choices

I have blood on my hands
I have come too far
And I have blood on my hands
My father was a warrior
My son might be too
I have come too far
And I have blood on my hands
And it

drips
drips

My father was a warrior
My son might be too
I have come too far
And I have blood on my hands
I have blood on my hands
And it comes

from
my
wrists

(1988)

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Love The Devil

I see your mask of black and white, so dim.
Your teeth are bared, the gleam of forks. You need
My love this night before you go to him.
You're mine by rights, but Devil by the deed.
My friend, you're Death; yes, that I will concede.
But love and death are one; see doom enthrall
The midnight dance, embrace; our chance to heed
Your love. You're Love. But now you feel his call.

She leaves and goes to him, I see it all:
Their vengeance screaming violence 'cross the floor,
See clutching claws 'gainst flaming forks. They fall
As equals - Wolf and Grendel at the core.
But now my lover lies in pools of red
And like the Wolf she's dead, she's dead, she's dead.

(1989)

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Moore

The bloodied wrists
Of sundown sky
Seem to speak
With heartfelt cry
Of love that screamed
Through once-blessed soul
In my dream
Of life made whole
Eyes cast downward
Upper lip twists
As to speak
Of bloodied wrists.

(1989)

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Love Poem

Calling
Calling you

Collect

(1989)

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Tremblers

They skitter, rustle, tremble
Down the slickened thread
Thin limbs cluctching clinging white
Their horrid sickening segments
Sometimes bristling outward
God, they are detestable
Spiders still stalk my night.

(1989)

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Waiting For Your Call

There is a Pit inside me
Sometimes I follow the stairs
Past the Great Ornate Wall
Down the last Intellectual Hall
To the grease slickened sides and stones
Down I travel, looking for the rope
Down I go, subcranial sojourner
Passing haunting victims of shame
Caressing hopless faces nailed to the crosspiece
Until the visions rise again
And I see you broken at the foot of the stairs
You were precious
Down I go
I see you hanging, blackened, above me.
Down I go, past demons dancing
Fires crackling, leaping shadows taunt
Wild gleaming reflections
From darkened blooded walls.
I need to hear you,
And here madness waits:
A vast cavern of swirling sanity
A collage of murder, my pain tangible...
The rope is lost to me
and the stairs have disappeared.

(1989)

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Two Days Later

Jesse would like us
To have a wonderful time
In Westwood.
He's driving this bus
That's taking me away
From my hallowed home.
Me, with my friends
(foreign tongues gliss
with abandon)
Jesse says that if
We're lost in Westwood
To ask the police
For J.C.
And that's not Jesus
Christ.
A misty grey surrounds the bus
The foggy Californian moors
We're cutting through like demons
Like a blazing knife in margarine
Like me into you.
You are in me
And yet I make contact,
A brief inquisitive glance,
with the girl with the Bon Jovi tape.
She's going to the museum.
I'm just sitting on the bus
Singing the Replacements
Thinking of you.
Mistress, my mistress
Jesse would like us.

(1989)

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Mirror

I have this picture of us
We're together in our black
And our hands are entwined,
Both of yours clasped around mine.
Red nails and white flesh
Enveloping my tan.
I can still feel their cool caress,
The gentle sliding of your silken gloves,
Their comforting pressure.
Our hands are joined;
Frozen dynamically forever.
Our intercourse;
The comingling of fire and ice.
Beauty and The Beast,
We are holding hands
We are pressing close
We are contact and passion
We rise up
And explode within each other.

(1989)

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Realization

"You must be so alonely"
My life alonely:
Home gone, alonely I am
Alonely wandering
Through my aloneliness
A most alonely Beast
Created me alonely
Alonely I sit
In my alonely isolation
Alonely thought comes creeping
Alonely tapping at my mind
I shut the door; Alonely.
That's how we want it to be.

(1989)

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One Day Before

This Plane flies on
Toward the night
Faster we move and
Behinder gets the sun
And my player gets slower.
The haze backlit
And purple with the sun
Who stands still
While we move towards the night.
We're moving towards darkness
(about three minutes ahead of the flight plan)
And we see land and clouds
But mostly clouds
The exploded sea,
hanging in the sky.
And I chuckle
And think of David Hockney
And move towards the night.
I'm moving away from you
But the girl to my right is too young
Even for flirting
And I wouldn't
I wouldn't
But I'm on my way to night
Faster than nature
Better than the God
Who made the night.

(1989)

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Father And Son

Mordred, you are murdered
-Your own old father's hand and all-
It seems a shame you haven't won
But this sword, this sword has- never mind,
Your excellent existence will soon have me undone.

With darkness creeping close
Although it's bare past noon
Your beautiful face lost in the rain
The wages of sin for loving my sister and-
And even more myself,
Too eager to abstain.
And now you know the truth
You see, my son, I think I knew.
And knowing this would come to pass
Did naught to hold my hand or still my lust
And to have made a son
Is worth my kingdom's ashes.

Mordred you are murdered.
And we never had a quarrel
Never had a hope to do
The things we could to set our lives aright.
Your father had no choice
Dead child, I love...

(Enter Parsifal)

(1990)

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Breakdowns

In a raw drawer

He kept the bludgeoned metaphor

And dragged it

(For the sides stuck and grew glue)

And propped it up

Beside the cellar door

And

And

And

And

Anything Goes.

(1990)

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It's Always Tuesday

If you had a perfect clock
And time to wind it
Monadic gears wandering lostly
Sending point-wide hands around...
Could you wind it?
Knowing if at midnight
You set the long thin hands turning
And the third quick one began its fall
The mad, lost gulf 'tween Zero and One
Halfway across that whiteness
The Point could be marked
But then again halfway after that...you see?
The second never passes...
All the clocks are broken.

(1991)

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Poetry © 1992-1996 Mark Anthony Masterson

Those who write can drop a line to misterdark@mail.oocities.com