currently running: TEN Poems by Carrie Faith

but first, some links:

• download the somewhat adjusted for the internet (actually for WordPad!!) title page for -10-...and...
  
• download the Greek font I use (SPIonic -- it's a TrueType!)
  

just a note: some of these poems are longer than others...especially the first one and the last one (i believe they are the longest!)...so if you think you'll never get done, just back up in your browser and jump to another poem. i do hope you enjoy my "musings" and please do go to the Indie Forum or e-mail me concerning any comments you might have. thanks a trillion!! *p.s.--if you're not drinking a hot cup-o-joe while your reading these they may sound differently to you than they did when i was first writing them...so go to fido or STONE CUP and grab yourself some beans, man!!*

Ten Poems by Carrie Faith
University of Tennessee, Chattanooga
April 1999 – March 2000

04.22.99 11:41 P.M. on Thursday, April 22, 1999; upon reading...

08.23.99 dual mode – for certain roaming conquistadors of coffee (that I know)

08.30.99 post-day ‘vignette' :from the first week of the 3rd year of school:

09.01.99 from the perspective of a lovesick fool (one of my best friends)

09.27.99 ignorant compassion for #47 – (silence)

09.29.99 synchronous perpetuale

10-11.99 petrified of what – this, I do not know

02.15.00 the color of wonder (for all involved in "A Look Back in Anger" at UTC)

02.17.00 the faithful find – for Marg.

03.04.00 (before the acropolis)

11:41 PM on Thursday, April 22, 1999 
{upon reading parts of Forster - A Passage to India/Petrarch, the Half-Life...}


and the pages are like miles to me
a hundred more mean nothing	

meaningless run the medians of the stories
my mind the vehicle for each arresting curve

disturbing the distance are page breaks and stars
i must stay awake, i cannot lose my eyes in the darkness

and perchance like the little girl of Chinese origin
i wake up with my book all crushed and several pages torn

ripped up tires lining the highway
mountains with water falling upon various shades of rock, of dirt

when did i awaken in or from this
story which is ever travelling, going on until the sun is rising

just like the historical house upon which the moon has set
i am stuck in the mire, the weight of transgressions not mine bares

upon me - bearing my very soul the horizon melts 
into the endless shoulder which will end in 1500 feet

why me oh God, why me for wherefore am i and who is it that inhabits
my soul incessant guest for which i am the host, no parasite

my place in time yet another hundred miles, the relief of
finally reaching home so imminent yet never there never does it find me

forever so i tread or no, the wheels are turning beneath my control
is it i, truly, who makes the earth rotate under the churning weight of stars

how far have i gone, does anybody know, can anyone help me now - find a way outside of
the continual road work, am i under construction,

or is my needless worry and word ever without a thank-you, never with an understanding
inherent in my state of marching, no wait, wait, don't leave me alone for driving

yet when am i ever not, living in such a state of dreams real-ified
(i give them up, this state of being never satisfactorily proven, and

but you never signify a variant way, to get out, to pass by the narrow gate),
i enter carelessly, not exactly knowing it to be the right way but

now what can i say, i cannot leave just yet, not quite, i haven't said anything
i cannot say enough: WARNING your danger is eminent, in life there always has to come such rain

terrible, unspoken and horrifying nightmares like a little colt i am caught by the moon
the rifles chasing after me, i must be now a wild stallion hunted after in the wilderness

but what is it that carries me and how is it that i can constantly return
come back to where it is that seems to ne'er wont be forgotten, it never disappears

when is a fantasy supposed to become unreal, for that is how i live or where i live;
there is no other way, and so just like this, i keep on driving, reading, writing,

stay awake, little one, your time is yet to arrive so don't give up now
you're still the driver and the dreams lead you on, don't disbelieve -

for you can't deny how they hold you, in the expanse of space's whole continuum, i'm sure of it
don't let go of yourself because you're told you are unreal, simply live as you are being made

out to be alone but not for long, the ride is nowhere nearly over, and so this letter is:
To My Soul, deeply entwining my spirit with reality, stay awake or else --

your dreams might slip away, and don't you know
that forgetfulness is death to one such as you, one made in the mountain spring

lurching out of the ocean shoreline with one birthright like Aphrodite, or is it Venus -
it all depends on the world you live in, and so...where am i today?

dual mode – for certain roaming conquistadors of coffee


i.
something about your soul.
You trickle past imagination
and into wonder
starving for good words and a pen to keep them down with
your thirst for understanding
ignites my passion for hearing
and somehow, in view of your soul
a flickering light is able to creep in
on the darkness which hides my expression.


ii.
Something about my soul.
night lingers forever here
yet there are a few with spectacles of stars
drink the chalice full of pain and heartfelt emotion
and you will meet the happy-reaper whose hands
drip with light – the fierceness of the beaming
noonday inflected by the movement of his wrists
	O troubled soul which do dwindle so,
	with improper phrasing your duties come up remiss
	ah – but I do need your help;
for I am but an old dog
facing a world of feline
which keeps my tongue transfixed.

post-day ‘vignette' 
-from the first week of the 3rd yr. of school-


seek to avoid the warmth of a dark expression 

for tepid-ation freezes the movement of soul to string 

please leave the fresh air of compatibility in spheres

floating along the border of the ozonous layer of the Earth 

reality beckons mysteriously

from the perspective of a lovesick fool – one of my best friends 


she dawdles onto wonderment 
as if intrigue were pavement
never startled by discovery
she breathes exploration

in every fiber of her soul
there is nonsensical acceptance
of all that is exceptional
to the considerate eye of all the world amalgamated

she tiptoes on a crescendo
yet bringing forth such emotions as would move
the most daringly straightforward of that compartmental species

though dialectical her tongue speaks into existence
the very majesty perceived in God
she is all that I strife to create of myself
by straining to see and do all and be any & every
one thing – all the time...

but her chief vicarious expression
all her being would be exchanged
for the grossest lack of self-creation
in that her comparative form in daily emulation
is that of the moistest mud or the dampest sandy shore
	which ever succumbs to such waters alive
	that draw in her the very lack of scarcity,
such – [Gr]aporou~men[Gr] – as we know it.

ignorant compassion for #47 –  (quiet, rest, calm)


things like that, they trouble me
you burden my soul with your eyes sometimes.
and do I know why? no, not at all – but I still cry.

for in your expression the world is in a flux
& it is when you fear the excesses of your mind
and let loose not more than a clue for me
that I am most bereaved at the sorrow in 
the tinyness of your soul's infrequent smiles.

God, what I would do to climb inside your heart
and there, walking something like 
the softness of a fairy of light,
I think we might just laugh a little while
(if I could convince your funny-bone to wiggle
just right)

but then, the knowledge that I would be there
during the sobbing brokenness you think that I don't know about
would pervade your serious nature,
and bring peace to your very spirit.

synchronous perpetuale


you grab me
pulling me out
how do you do that?
how is it that you can make 
my mind sway
to and to and now

where have you brought me now...
To a certain point 
there
to hold me in the moon?

inanimate touch of flustery
acute blast of will
scattering
a strong yank 
ousts my stillness

in the clouds we move
all at once
never not matching in reality's view

I want you in my wounds
to impale my pain with passion

incapable of letting go
movement
that power of the spoken word which perseveres 
unannounced in your demeanor
your influence mates my squalor until 
I am full of ideas to spend

un-useful in all ability of soul to understand
you made me, and I cannot fly without your streamlined inclusion
in this – my deepest consciousness.

petrified of what – this, I do not know


I missed you at 4 o'clock yesterday
but why am I crying and why is it that even weeping no longer dictates tears actually being present?

hey listen – do you ever have this feeling, not just that you're being watched
 but that someone's eyes are holding you – 

you can look at me that way you do a million times but until I find
 someone who has eyes and arms I'll feel like I do today,
 that inside I'm dying and that no one understands this silent voice which I use to express
 what it is I want to say?

so this is what it's like to be dry and gushing with torrential rains both
 at the same time – to be the sparrow and the swallow – or the owl – all at once,
 never to be less than one again. Where part of me is needing someone else to be at whole,
 the other parts come together and though still wanting
 I am too full.

Perhaps I should cease to think these things or just sit back and realize contentment;
 oh sorry, I don't have peace yet so I must keep on the hunt for it – 

somehow I know you'll be there, you who I cannot address all this to.
 So this is why I never came at 4 o'clock –
 this being afraid – which I am – of such communion.

the color of wonder 
:dedicated to the cast/director of "A Look Back in Anger":


this evening, I find that I should like some tea 
rather than my usual coffee
so what am I pondering

the moon is shining in the stage I've named after you

precisely when this occurred this lady asked me if she could park by the yellow curb and,
 my new top sparkling in all its reflection of the most glorious blue sky
 I politely tried to explain to her the price of wine in France –
 or however that old line goes…

but oh,
 my,
 God,
 that midnight
 blazing of the most seizing blue –
 you captured me…
the moon did not belong to wolves or torment tonight, no YOU
 it was…you were, you ARE the man inside it – 

yet the sky grew dark sputtering stars in familiar patterns,
 but the ocean you are still held the moon –
 oh, I still feel so far away

and though I cannot – I know that should I ever chance to find my true voice in art,
 I should endeavor to draw for you that aching limber of emotion
 which ever reaches for your sky –
 the complexion of more impoverished passion I saw in that tree
 by that ironic amphitheater –
 so now I know, I am the tree which beckons for your world –
 the atmosphere only your beautiful and blue phase
 of sky could communicate to me

and I am overcome-amazed at who you are –
 though I cannot say I know you, or anyone…yet.

the faithful find – for Marg. [1941-2001]


sweet girl in the South
pretty little girl from down South
waitin' for big-daddy
come and carry me home
I'm so ready to go back home

		smokin' prison in the South
		damn-damp work camp in the South	
		plowin' at the farm and fixin' fences
		can't go home for these electric walls – get in my way
		reckon I gotta pay my dues before I b'lieve I'm ‘lowed to come home

	honey brown hair in the South
	lonely as hell, wife in the South
	knowin' where he's gone, frettin' for his reason
	couldn't understand why he didn't just say we were gettin' poorer

love and men who stick around must be anywhere but in the South
first time – what a guy, but he's definitely not from the South
his mama liked my way, his father – my pretty face
God, I miss my daddy,
why'd I go so far from home?

so many tears I haven't cried since – when I went lookin' for my heart again – back in the South
writing life and drivin' through rain in the South
big-daddy's been home, been waitin' for me
breakin' out of his own prison – the life he taught us – we're still learnin' how
I was betrayed still hangin' on to my ‘Yankee' love
before I could understand it all – my life – I had to carry my heart home, home to the South.

what did my crushed faith find? that (I am) living ever patiently with
 love, hate, separation...reunion and the only men who stick around –
 where else but the South?

 (before the acropolis)


this critical blue
unseizing
still snatches away
my restlessness

all gone, wiped free
in the promise of your existence
I am caught in a rainbow 
of fading – ceaseless
until dawn – measured by senses

if only you could see what you look like:
God, who can be your mirror?

at last the ocean, Poseidon 
claiming all his treats for Hades is vacuumed 
away by your sky – so blue
unseizing
still catching – 

for all the stars are yet invisible
don't wait – another moment else
Iris shall fall from you
to the mountain's horizon

and will I ever be where you 
are – where this is – 
and all I am never
ends in sorrow – only 
continues to persist
while your blue might
finally seize me

– lines of white
could it be the precipitate
of someone else, not you?

nothing but the deep 
swells where sweet
Penelope bitterly
dreamed or swore
suicide to be with her mighty faithless,
nothing but the liberty of the mind
which Icarus drowned for,
nowhere but under this 
critical blue – in this 
inevitable place – could I find
my version of you inside – free.

© 1999-2000 Night Lilley, a division of *.bmp productions; Please contact rainyday@thevioletburning.net for information pertaining, and permission regarding these poems. [Contents]

2000-2001 I studied in Malta...Here are the Poems from that Sojourn.

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