Sunday, November 17, 2013

Confusion of Dreams

I broke through the earth,
I knew not where,
Save that I felt the splitting air
Turn inside my spinning heart
Like a piece of modern art.
When I awoke, I felt the sun
The clear blue sky,
The earth of dun;
But I have found confusion lies
There, in silence, within my mind.

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Bell of Harvest Time

A precious sound fell through the air.
Even the ravens knew not from where.
A peal of thunder, or of light
The storms of autumn, and of night.
It seemed to shimmer in the clouds,
Down pathless places in the woods;
The peal went curling through the cool
A meadow fire's only fuel.
It was the bell of harvest time
That rang through orchards ripe with wine
That sent the children running home
Before the falling stars of glome.
In the rain of windy dark,
When owls cry and foxes bark,
The clanging notes can still be heard:
The song of some strange brass-bound bird.

Monday, August 5, 2013

Quickly

Far away, in an empty meadow
A doe stands, her back bathed in shadow,
Her head held high in a ray of sun.
Warm, dusky breaths leave her diluted nostrils,
The weeds flick against her legs
Hooves of raw brass and hide made of dun.
The pines alone behold her start
Out from the sheaves to a separate place
Leaving only a print in the falling dust
And a shivering stalk of Queen Anne's lace.

Friday, August 2, 2013

Pale

An island sat sleeping in the sun,
Its beaches white as palest dun,
Its emerald trees swept up by moss,
And perched in by an albatross.
The waves rushed on into the sea,
As if they touched eternity;
A beam of sunlight hit the sands
Their grains untouched by beast or man.
No ships appeared against its coast,
No sound except the dying notes
Of whales which swam within its bays
And hid by underwater caves.
The sky was clear, unaltered blue:
Against its chest, a parrot flew
And flashed its wing against the sun
Above the sands of palest dun.

Thursday, August 1, 2013

Wind Daughter

I wandered through the world---
How empty it seemed.
The breeze was blowing coldly against a silent willow tree.
A bluebird tilted his sky-bright throat,
Singing sweet things the cherubim wrote.
I wanted to be emptied into the shifting waters,
Flow on to the ocean, become the wave's daughter;
There was a longing within my heart,
That could never be touched or blown apart.

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Wilderness

The reed tossed her hair in the wind today.
Tomorrow, the brook will, too.
Crystal foam, diamond light, amethyst stones
On a bend where the breezes blew.
The herons danced in the rain today.
Tomorrow, the fireflies will, too.
Fields on fields of small bright flames
Flickering, then dying, then burning anew.

Sunday, June 16, 2013

Shadow Seeker

There are easier meadows then those I tread.
More beautiful places one may rest their head.
Blowing reeds, bent by a passing breath
Sprinkles of seeds in the graying west.
The soft, fuzzy rim of the world is setting,
The sounds of crows in the forest abetting;
I can see one robin in a dusk-edged tree
Placing an expressionless eye on me.
I must go away through the stone lined meadow
And find a place not sought by shadow.

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

A Part of My Soul

In the morning, I see a star
I know not where it comes from,
Nor where it goes.
Its loneliness, its evidence
Of foreign regions and far-blown snows,
Its breath the crystalized intelligence
Of irregular show.
It is the random quantam of my
Breath,
A savage piece of goodness,
Greatness, glory;
Though long ago I ceased to
Know from whence it went,
It is my legend and my endless story.
In the evening, it fades and drops
From earth its mysteries
Are rent,
And nothing comes again to
Break its heart,
Or burn a symbol in its chest;
So--so---it is mine,
Always and ever,
The star in the ether of the
Twilight sky
The turning crucifix of wonder
And desire.

Friday, June 7, 2013

Sea Loss

I have set sail across the sea.
'Tis only myself, and I, and me.
The gulls that fly in clouds above
Only have rights to all my love.
Far in the distance, horizons away
The soft slim fins of dolphins play;
The diamond waves caress the breeze.
'Tis only myself, and I, and me.

Sunday, June 2, 2013

Shift

The wind on the summer moor is bright with the breath
Of a thousand white gulls as they soar through the heath,
And a still ivory flag on a cottage by the stones
Stands, uncared for and alone.
The sea roars on: there is foam on the heels
Of the brassy, lichen covered ship rusted over steel
And a girl in brown stockings stands on the cliff
Where the gulls fly by and the summer winds shift.

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Old World River: Before the Cities

My heart was in the budding of the blossom on the lea,
It held me like the winds could hold their triumph of the sea.
The petals that fell through the air were scented with the spring;
I wrapped the vines around my hand like several emerald rings.
It was a novel of my life, a picture of my dreams
It filled me with the purpose of the sunlight's fallen beams,
It took me to a palace of the moss and climbing rose
And left me in a haven that the angels only know.
If I could be so thoughtless as I had been that day
When all the world had bent its head and turned its face away;
The solitary road I tread was easiest to find
Amongst the poppies on the cliff that overlooked the Seine. 

Friday, May 17, 2013

Lines

Before this blog, I wrote a "book length" novel of some of my favorite handwritten poems, typed and compiled into a 167 page document. Since clapbooks (small books, usually containing only 20 poems or less) are the popular way of publishing poems, I never had the incentive to take my hefty volume to a publishing house to be decimated and torn to bits by an editor. Only the hundreds of remnants and scraps of poems I have written remain in school notebooks, next to math equations, between English verbs and amongst scrollwork of flowers and bright-eyed cartoons of owls. They never did make it to the desk of a "real" publisher, and they probably never will.

Here is one of the typed poems I wrote as a teenager.

Lines

What wondrous symmetry that made
The open lawn and the sunlit glade
The pool bathed in the silver lance
The touch of starbeam's falling glance
And frosted leaves, cloaked by the cold
That shiver in their snowy world
Or summer laced by autumn's breath
And budding daisies passing kiss
Or lanes in winding, falling rain
That sad and soft, empire refrain!
A melody of wondrous grace
That some good Lord above hath made.

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Innocence

I was young, the earth was young.
It spoke to me with a golden tongue.
The blossoms edged the fallen vine,
All the breezes seemed sublime.
If only the world was always this:
The springtime sun, the windblown kiss.

Friday, April 5, 2013

Come Away, Cold

Oh, the wind is blowing so slow,
So slow across the barren field
Where once the summer flew by:
Corn sheaves, green leaves, shimmering ever on
In the bright brassy sunlight
And the pale blue sky;
Now the short jagged stumps are left.
March turned her cheek
And let spring pass her.
Flowers are iced with snow,
And in the gravel there is an aster
Like a final shooting star
Within the coldness of comets' tears.
Oh winter wind, run away.
Come back again in another year.

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Lilacs

Bright swathes of lilac strike the hill,
Blue lights from the stars glitter into the stream
And carry it far, far away from the swill
The swill of lavender and green.
A cold wind blows on the eventide;
Winter remains, in silent speech
But there is lilac, April's bride
And spring comes in with flowered feet.

Saturday, March 16, 2013

In Winter

It was the winter,
Cold and dark and slight
Bent over by the stars that climbed the mountain;
Only those small points were soft and bright.
But what is snow, or ice, or thunder?
The heart is warm, the spirit light.
All flowers in the world are drenched in wonder,
My very self throws off the night,
It was the sunray that your summer brought me,
Like flocks and feathers left to flight.
So many dreams the clouds plowed under,
As I wandered through the means of life;
But I have found a spot forever:
The heavens with their soaring kite.
It is still the winter,
Like other winters and their sting,
But now you are my kindest mentor,
Now it is the spring.

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Attitude

I laid down in my bed, and then I thought,
"Why must others be blissful, and I am not?"
So I woke in the morning, with unknown joy
Determined not to aggravate, irk, or annoy.
I swept up my house from the floor to the rafter
I made all my friends stitch their sides with their laughter
I did every duty my list said I must
And then went to bed without frowning or fuss.
The morning that followed I woke with a cry,
"Why must others be happy when I'd like to die?"
So I rose from my bed dragging dirt in my wake
With an attitude angels could not even shake.
I sat on my couch, watching operas and men
And yelled at my dog when she growled again
I told every friend I'd come down with the flu
And did every task I was not meant to do.
When I crawled into bed I felt worse then the start,
So with better intentions inside of my heart
I fell asleep dwelling on a thought deep within,
"My attitude shapes every day I begin."

Friday, February 22, 2013

Creation Came

Oh, Your soul is made of beauty
As my soul is made of sin;
It is my only duty
To look on You again.
There I shall see Your wonder
In the ocean's amber waves,
The rolling roar of thunder
Taking the stardust slaves.
Students we are of glory,
Pupils of passion's games;
You wrote Creation's story
In the fire and the flame.

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

What is a Dream?

What is a dream made of?
It is made of open fields, sleeping does,
Soft-eyed bluebirds in the spring;
Hands that touch you, arms caress
Sweet flowers that children bring.
Dreams are made of honeydew dawns,
Waves that flow towards an open sea,
Streams in the twilight, Christmas in winter
Deep blue crocuses when the snow is over.
Dreams fold themselves in the heart of the sun
Flattering sidewalks, brightening wings...
What is a dream? Tell me, what is a dream?
A dream is anything that blooms or sings.

Saturday, February 9, 2013

Thoughts of Adam

There will be a day when the rainbow will not represent
The proof of God's promise, but the proof of man's sin
Man and man, woman and woman.
That day will come.
There will be a day when a clinic will be a silent place
Where secrets and unknowns are told,
When children are thought of as no one.
That day will come.
There will be a day when the tears and blood of soldiers
Will be wet with women's blood on fields of combat
Those protected, now the desecrated.
That day will come.
There will be a day when from the hardworking hands
The thousands that were rightfully received
Will be given to another, unconsecrated.
That day will come.
There will be a day when the dreams of a nation
For freedom, and for rightful praise to be cried
Will be put aside for worshiping a governmental god.
That day will come.
There will be a day when the vastness and beauty of the world
Will be but fodder for a mocking book
Speaking creatures out of muddied sod.
That day will come.
There will be a day when the sea will be more precious than a life
The regions which were always thick with ice
Will be considered melting down.
That day will come.
But now the earth is sacred and sublime,
Loveliness, goodness, purity, joy
Follow us with the footsteps of our Lord:
That day has not come, Eve.
That day has not come.

Friday, February 8, 2013

What is Immortality

We grant ourselves the best of things,
The sweetest pleasures, foods of kings
Our very immorality
Our downfall and our shame.
We have not seen the fallen leaf,
The pool red with fallen stars
And objects in the hidden shade
That are the deepest forest's fame.
Things we never knew while waking
Are the seeds of heaven's making.

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Blown Asters

When the dynasty of my future comes,
Fair with its beauty, fresh with its time,
I will look back, bedecked, knowing I chose
What was the right, and never chose the wrong.
But deep in my soul I will feel the pull,
Of a thing half sacred and sublime,
Slumbering like the bloom of asters
When the snow is gone, and the spring is young.
I picked the freshest fruit on the bending bough,
The thorns I could not pass, I left,
Only because I was vulnerable to loss,
Because I never knew, nor even know now.
The world around me said, “You never shall be,
But always must come to our regular path,
Ruined gardens are the deaths of many a girl
But not what your innocent feet should allow.”
The paths of my life are not in disarray,
They range themselves in harmony and joy;
I almost feel a sense of pride at times
For my glittering sunlight, like fair alloy.
Yet sometimes when the dawn on golden cobbles wakes,
There is a shimmer of the days when it was near;
A peasant in a coat of tatters was my king,
Years by years that never were my years.

Thursday, January 31, 2013

Withered Things

Through a barren field, where frost coats the ground
Cold footsteps lie imprinted in the dirt,
Silence---if it was a sound
Is ignored and thought inert.
Against the shadow of a scarecrow in the air
The winds of promise and the thoughts of sun
Gather there, while ravens unaware
Perch upon his shoulder, dark to dun.
Away through amber clouds, away through honest skies
The passage of a heron traces wings
Calligraphy of light before it died
The novel of a life past withered things.

Monday, January 21, 2013

Anonymous

Somewhere a light burns through mist gray waves,
The stars are lost like forgotten graves,
And a single ship, past the silver shore
Bobs and banks, and is no more.
I shielded my eyes there a summer by,
When the foam was brown like a drunkard's dye;
The heaving of breath in the heart of the sea
Seemed like the lungs that were lifting in me.
Somewhere the clouds crack the broken moon;
There is silence---the silence before a monsoon---
But the gulls drift on, and the soft wind sweeps
Waking the winter before she sleeps.

Friday, January 18, 2013

Windowsill Winter Plant

How do you live inside the spring?
When the ice is thick on a sparrow's wing,
When the wind is harsh with the breath of God,
And a beggar mutters on frozen sod.
How do you live inside the spring?
By taking a jar of dying things,
The seeds of kings and the buds of queens,
And watching them sprout to a tender green.

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Crooked

Every day that the white snows blow,
Bright against the tarnished rust red of the sun,
Specks on the plate of the moon at dusk,
A tree bends against a sky of dun.
How many fingers felt moisture in the air
Holding the earth, still wet from the rains?
How many hearts beat softy as one
When seeds still specked the burnished grains?
Every season that October cries,
Though the years draw by and the grasses die,
Pieces of life seem to come undone,
From the crooked tree in its browning sky.

An Irish Slumber

Sleep, sleep, when the sun is burning on the western sky,
Gold, scarlet, gray, blue, dipping the world in silver dye;
Dark crosses silhouetted in the fading light
Churchyard spires fires made eyes within the night.
Slumber sweetly in the heart's forgetting,
When the last soft swipe is dimly setting;
Dream, dream, of soldiers who went before,
Sleeping in the heath, then dying on the moor.

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

When the Summer Was Young

A little bluebird spoke to me
Long ago, in a sycamore tree
When the wind was soft,
And the summers sweet
And the children played in the shining creek.
"Winter is old," he sang to the sky,
While the breeze blew the clouds and the sunlight by
And a meadowlark swayed in the heart of the rye,
"Winter is old, and summer is nigh."
A little bluebird in a crooked limb
Sang a song that made sense to him
But now all the trees are dark and dim
And the silence of creeks seems somehow a sin.