Poetry

I figure this is a good place to share the few poems I’ve written over the years. So here you go…

The Love Poems

Destiny or Damnation

Starry, starry night
Stars that burn so bright
But no star in heaven as bright can be
As the love for you that burns in me.

But those stars are crossed for you and I
Even as they shine so perfectly on high
At least that’s what I’ve been told
For such a revelation, I can’t be consoled.

Still I see these luminaries of the sky
Sparkle in the endless depths of your eye
And again I look upward and wonder aloud
How I could bring you this pain under which your back has bowed?

Is it destiny or damnation?
Surely some way there must be
That our love will find salvation.

Far away you are
It seems as far as that lonely star
Somehow I drive you farther away
How I’d let myself I could never say

These myriad orbs together can never be
As beautiful as the radiant face I see
That’s yours, always when closed are my eyes
A vision more magnificent than all the night skies.

‘Tis all of this, now matter how I act
That you are all of everything to me is a fact
I fall to my knees and cry out
To the Master of these skies and all below
Tell me how of my neverending love
You can be made to always know.

Philia

Not that I asked,
But you came.
Not that I cared,
But you did it all the same.
Not that I gave a damn,
But you were still there.
Not that I’d listen,
But you still thought to share.
Not that I’d acknowledge your love–
Even imagine it? I couldn’t dare.

Seasons

for it is always spring in my heart
as the love’s flower ever blooms
of she who enchants me so
summer is frigid by measure of
our passion’s fire, and
though we may reach the autumn
of our years, we shall know no fall
from our own private heaven
for the only winter I’ll ever know
is when we are apart.

Song of the Body Electric

My body calls for you,
Every cell sings in joy of you
Every nerve burns with your fire,
Every heartbeat reminds me how very true
That my blood runs hot with desire
Every breath inspires me
With the fresh air of your soul
My dim eyes now brightened see
A beauty whose brilliance is yet untold.

Sonnet

Tell me now that I might be allowed
To know and thus write of this thing called love
Which unlike death oftentimes still stands proud
But not like vain eagle, rather meek dove
On steadfast wings flies distant from the crowd
With quiet assurance rises far above
In springtime sunshine fertile fields are plowed
Dove’s flight, new harvests, and more I write of.
Love bends naturally not towards strife
But molds and shapes by power of its art
All that is vital and best of life
Filling, healing, purifying our heart.
What else love is can, must be heaven-sent
Who then am I to give it such comment?

Tonight

Tonight I held a dream…
It was lighter than air
Yet firmer than steel
For the moment I didn’t care
If it was or was not real
For that dream held fast
In my arms so tight
Could it truly last
Or would it soon take flight?
I have but one wish to make
That this vision come true
Joy comes when I wake
For my dream is you.

Us

I would love to love you
To call your name
And claim it my own
To hold your hand
To capture your eye
To entwine our arms
To join our lips
To harmonize our hearts
United in rhythm
Beating with and only for the other
Our minds melded
Completing the other’s thoughts
Each soul slowly saturating
the other until they are
Indistinguishable
Inseparable
Integral
One.

Poems A-M

Beautiful Oblivion

Our day is past
Gone down is our sun
Nothing to embrace but at last
Beautiful oblivion.

Much we have lost
For this we have won
Never small is the cost
Of beautiful oblivion.

No task was too great
We moved them by the ton
But we arrived too late
Upon beautiful oblivion.

We had many a moment
Of frolic and fun
In the end all it sent
Was beautiful oblivion

After all our drink and dance
And merriment wanton
Choices led, not chance
To beautiful oblivion.

So spent has been our time
And this is the last we sung
Submitting ourselves in rhyme
To beautiful oblivion.

Not alone are we faced
But now we stand as one
To embrace and be embraced
By beautiful oblivion.

But

I look at you and wonder
What lies behind those eyes
Those devious glances away
As you deliver your half-compliments;
You are betrothen to the word
“But.”
Never a word you speak
In simple praise or kindness,
But each tinged with irony
And laced with translucent doubt.
As I look, do you think I can’t see?
Sarcasm is just repressed anger,
Someone was fond of telling me…
Someone much like you.
You, who I believe in
Or at least want to,
Who has so much you can give.
Give it then, honestly, fully,
Do not hold back by fetters of past pain.
Do not murder by feigned niceness,
But resurrect yourself
By the purifying trial that is the fire
Of your passions, your hurt, your doubt
Let them breathe, so that your soul may gasp
The air of all the good I know still within you.

Chances

Life is like a passing shadow
So soon the sun comes by
Tis like a wisp of smoke
Quick to the winds doth flyPatience is a virtue
Many say this to be true
But impatience is a necessity
In a life so plainly temporary

So in this life and its brevity
Take advantage where it can be
For seldom it is that opportunity knocks
In the face of our lives’ ever-ticking clocks

Should ever rare opportunity prove
To your human spirit upwardly move
With the one gift most from above,
The greatest of all, which we call love.

When this most precious of chances
Happens upon your doorstep,
Know it stays even when gone your life is,
Be sure then to fail not it to accept.

Dare

Dare, for just one day…
Dare to believe the world can be made better,
Dare not to bow to cynicism.
Dare to smile for no reason at all
Dare to jump back when you fall
Dare to say I want it
Dare to do it
Dare to say yes when others think no
Dare when others only tell that you will show
Dare to laugh when you’d sooner cry
Dare to hold fast when you’d rather not try
Dare to think first of others before yourself
Dare to treasure your health before your wealth
Dare to do all this just for one day
Dare to know it’d be better that way.

Insubstantiation

I awake from these dreams again
Wondering where my life has been
Wondering where it’s going
Always searching, never knowingI reach out to grasp what isn’t there-
Was it once?
It seems not fair
Days into weeks, weeks into months
Time weakens my will to even dare

To try again to recapture
The thrills, the joy, the laughter-
The sterling quality of life in pure rapture
That once was mine, or so I thought-
By no possession can it be bought;

I feel the thief, trying to claim as my own
The vague memories of a man I have not known
And if I did, what would he say?
Could I just borrow these for the day?

Go ahead, says he, take them for the day;
Be merry, laugh, and enjoy all your play;
For this time you may do as you will
But when the day is done, remember, they are mine still.

And so for this day I shall laugh and sing
Lust and conquer, love and do everything;
All such actions failed shadows, yesterday and tomorrow;
But today, all is success, no hint of sorrow.

Now so soon my midnight draws nigh
And my frolic collapses in the heaviest sigh.
My existence, in name only, the returning state;
No means nor magic may delay the date.

Midnight strikes, and I’m no fairy-tale pumpkin
Just bone and blood cased in this tired old skin
For all those questions, the answers I vainly sought;
I know only that I’m alive- would I be better off not?

Poems N-Z

New Year’s Resolution

I resolve
To live this year
And each one hence
Inside that one
Brief shining moment
Where all was good
All was joy
All was love.
Can you build your life
Inside a moment?
Can you stand breathless
but resolute
Upon the battlements of the sandcastle
As high tide rushes in?
Can you make your world
Within the globe of the soap bubble
As it wafts perilously on the summer breeze?
The past without
And the future within
Is the eternal present.
Here is no fear, no doubt;
No loss, no pain, no death.
Here is the life you always imagined
Finally experienced
In this one transcendent moment,
Captured forever
And gone in an instant
Both at once.
A fantasy you say?
Are sandcastles and soap bubbles not real?
And is not our mind’s resolve
Far stronger than either?

Order

Do I write again
To vent my anger
Festering inside
Or my love
Crying out to be heard
To take wing on the open air
If I write of either
Is it ever enough
What can words do
They’re only ink on paper
Or if you’re
A postmodern Renaissance ma–
I mean person–
Then perhaps emblazoned on
Your monitor screen
Even this, in a way
Lacking more meaning
Electrons fastened like dead flies
Onto the firmament inside
Forced into recognizable patterns
When their movements- by nature–
Are in truth always random
Never exactly definable–
Is this, then, real?
Is it truth?
If not, what is?

A Part of Me

Procrastination
Five syllables?
I think I’ll put off
Pronouncing that.
Rather let’s call it
My peculiar paradox
My perennial problem
I loathe it
In myself
Think of all I could be
If I would just
“apply myself”
Potential
What does that word mean?
The dreams I’ve had
Are not those
Had for me.
But those
yet to come
Now there, I can
Realize me
All I shall be
More, so much more
Than that spoken
Upon the lips
Of peer-tied pragmatists.
What they see
Proves no depth
Of perception.
For this problem,
As they call it,
Holds me back
Socially,
I am unfit.
Friendly? Yes.
Easily known? No.
Chronology
Was always
My worst subject.
Let’s discuss
Ideas
In their true form
Holding to no lines
Fluid in their motion
Expanding, contracting
Opaque bubbles floating
In the atmosphere
Of metacognition.
Even now, do you see?
Ha! I strayed off topic,
My train of thought derailed,
But my thought
Doesn’t like rails.
And if you haven’t
Seen that yet
Then
Open your eyes.
Embrace your cosmos
For it belongs to each of us
Every moment a snapshot
And you
And I
Existing in each one
Of an infinite number
So there’s no time at all
Then I’m never late
Why rush madly then
At a last minute that
In one lucid,
Beautiful frame
Is always,
In all places
Sixty seconds away
And ever shall be
But so will then be
My adrenaline-fueled
Crescendo of
Lucid ectacsy
When yet another
Deadline is barely
Ever so barely beat
Then I love it
Love it, wrap it tight
In my soul, that
So-called problem
Of mine.
So I say to you, Time
You illusory stranger
If you are a fiction
Don’t tell me so
Don’t let me know
Because you and I
We’re not friends,
Never will be
But we need each other
Forge, forsake, forge again
Our uneasy alliance
That gives us both
Our being, our existence
If it’s true
If it’s real
For what it’s worth.

Past, Present, and Future

A hazy vision
Blurs my eyes
I look, straining to see
The future
But the shapes of things to come
Are vague, indistinct
And dissolving, melting away
Flowing behind me
Down into the great chasm
Over which I am suspended
I peer down
The haze darkens there into
Pure darkness
An endless night
Into which I am not falling
Though my balance is unfirm
Yet as I reach ahead I grasp
Only the haze, insubstantial
in my hand
My grip is none at all
Safe in my moment
Others may be dangerous
But I must know,
I cry out
Unanswered.

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