|
|  |
The Killer
Do the sands of time stop,
Reverse their flow at your unspoken command?
Can this moment, the prison of this heinous deed
Be unlocked and be reprieved,
Or are you forever left with the stain of life
On leather shoes and steady hands?
The Killer, standing mute beneath the midnight rain,
Watched in rapt fascination as water and blood mingled,
Coalesced into stinking scarlet pools.
This was not his friend, his love in that moment,
But an inconvenience,
A guilty secret to be silenced by the sound of metal scraping bone.
Like nails on the blackboard, that.
Does the flavor of a forbidden kiss
Still linger on the corner of your mouth and of your heart?
Does love enfold you in its embrace,
Caress your hair and the side of your face,
Or does the thrill of death, dealt out in spades
Erase the memory of that tender time?
The Killer stole the last breath of life in a stifling kiss.
His friend, now victim, never had a chance to make a sound
Before the last beat of his divided heart.
He spat him out,
Along with the bile rising at the back of his throat.
Bitter, like sweet wine gone bad
Does the voice crowding your mind,
Wail or whisper of this betrayal in your dreams?
Do you confess this sin to deaf gods
Who left you stripped, abandoned and at odds?
Will this guilt follow you to your own grave,
Or is there no guilt to be had?
The Killer, skirting back from the crimson pool,
He bends close to examine the remains of this day.
His eyes, burning with quiet rage Linger on the spent life sputtering, churning in the gutter.
Dipping his fingers in the river red
He draws them slowly to tounge and trembling lips
Tastes like
Murder?
|
|
|
|
|
|
A Play in Two Acts
Beneath a vast and bending sky I stood in awe
As the sun, in brilliant flourish and display
Did set the endless sky ablaze
In orange and scarlet fire, that, at last,
Did fade to deepened damson-violet haze.
Its days work done, the setting sun with courtly bow,
Exits westward from this bleak and earthly stage.
As the play does close, so do gates to paths untread, Opened with the dawn of each newly reborn day.
Each opportunity denied,
Each choice we did choose not to make
And each new trial lost or left untried,
Is deaf to cheering curtain calls for their return,
And unmoved by the audience's ovation.
Though day departs we are not stranded in the aisle, For another player steps to take the role
Left vacant in this never-ending play.
The moon, in her shadow-costume takes the stage
And, born from night and faded day
Is dream, the backdrop for the second act's commencement,
Where each unwalked path is opened once again.
Withered
I speak here of the withered,
Of that which, like roses wilted or soured wine
Has outlived its useful self.
And, in it's avarice unbound,
Has wrought from this world more than its share of time.
Love, once a flower full in bloom,
Grown greedy and sustained long past passion's end.
Like the canker in the rose's core,
Consumes its careful-nurtured bud,
In spite of itself and of the rose on which it's life depends.
Victory, and the glory in its wake,
Rendered hollow with all its counted costs.
The battlefield, once lush and green,
Now a scorched and barren grave;
A haven for the memories and ghosts of soldiers lost.
Grief, the comfort of the aching soul,
Now like both armour worn and weapon wielded.
Within the visor's narrow scope
Foe and friend are seemed alike;
The enemy setting you to your guard and in your armour shielded
I speak here of the withered,
And all things that when abused do hasten to decay.
I speak here of a wizened soul,
Of a spirit's atrophy
And of the prison built to house it in each passing day
Te -
or Virtue of the Small
A moment gone, it's silent passing lacking any mention.
It's arrival met with indifference, if noted at all.
It's worth unknown, as each is blinked away without retention.
Consider in this moment the moment lost,
And what moments did with that moment go:
The last of dying souls departing,
The first of life that's born anew.
The final words at lover's parting
When love itself has left the moment's view.
In every moment thoughts are wished unspoke or said,
And deeds are done that never should have been
That which lived is now left lying dead
And what was hidden cast out to be seen.
The moment is conveyance of possibilities unnumbered.
And with the burden of all that was and yet will be, the moment is encumbered.
This moment, well considered, has gone to those before it.
Not unlike it's kind it flees, without regard or recompense.
But this moment's past between us we still may visit hence.
Though with it's fellow moments it has become the stream of time.
This moment lives forever in the boundaries of this rhyme.
The Gift of Darkness
Inside the bounds of doleful verse
Often did I lament the dark within,
Remarking that this vile curse
Not only robbed me of the light,
But took from me all desire to look upon it's like again.
With scathing words and violent phrase,
Did I implore the gods of both below and above
To lift from me this shadowed haze
Of sorrow. To free me of this pain
And turn me once from thoughts of hate to those of love.
From darkness mournful passion poured,
An endless fount of spite and heated rage.
Given life through written word,
My withered soul laid bare and wounded
Scrawled by my hand onto page after countless page.
My prayer, at last was heard, it seems
For soon, and to my surprise did I find
That the joy I longed for in my dreams
Had come upon me, and I wept,
For the suffering I long endured was now left far behind.
The darkness left me long ago
And years gone since my paper felt a pen,
For what with darkness came did also go,
And so my raging words had fled,
In its place was silence where once those words had been.
I wish I could lament the light
That stole from me my bleak and sorrowed voice.
I long again to find that shadowed night
For to have those gifted words again,
I would shun this muted joy and make darkness my choice.
Breath
Soft, as a sigh full of longing.
Ragged, feral and rough.
Sharply, as if surprised in it's arrival.
Hot, moist and eager for that of another.
Deeply, with unspoken passion.
Taken without warning,
Given in life.
As all of these are ways that men do breathe,
So are they the ways that men may love.
|
| |
|
Eternal Morpheus
Enfolded in powerful arms, Locked in an embrace not unlike that of a lover,
I wonder how this moment held so much dread
As all my fears are banished with a kiss.
No "little death" is this.
All resistance melting into fading memory.
I respond to what once was an unwelcome touch
As does the virgin in her bridal bed.
I wonder "Am I dead?",
"And is this bliss forever mine to keep?"
My heart, still beating.
Beating,
Beating,
Still.
As, at last, I close my eyes to sleep.
Confessions of a Poet
My Judgment Day has at last arrived.
Called to account for sins most grievous,
I stand before this court and you,
A Jury of my Fears
To answer for the wrongs that I have made.
In this life, I am a liar.
I weave a tapestry of flowered phrase,
Absent of any seeming of substance.
There is no truth in my words writ,
For the eyes that see the visions painted in verse
Are turned ever inward, blind to the world,
Thus, incapable of accurate comment.
I am accused of speaking in dishonest voice,
And to that I answer with silence.
So, too, am I a rogue.
My wealth is pilfered not from purses and coffers,
But from the very soul of man.
There is no treasure more precious,
No gem or jewel whose facets sparkle with more brilliance,
Than thoughts hidden in minds of man.
No greedy thief, I scatter them among the masses
Garbed in the guise of clever verse.
I am brought to task for my larcenous nature.
Bound by my thieves honor, I reply without apology,
Knowing that it is my accusers that I have robbed.
A trickster? This I must admit.
I draw the unsuspecting into my confidence,
Offering promises of the beauty and virtue of the written word,
Turned to cast silver light on the darkest of deeds.
Once in this twisted web entangled,
The trick is turned and they stand exposed,
Caught in the shadow of their own misdoings.
It is before the guilty that I stand,
Arguing not against my own guilt but my innocence.
The last and most grave of charges I dare not deny,
For I am the admitted Assassin,
And it is in this that all my skill,
Here called crimes, are marshaled as one.
In bold and unmatched arrogance I have slain my enemies,
Not at point of dart or dagger, but by ink and pen.
Those who have been victims of my art have died no quick death,
But wither of wounds unseen.
I admit my deeds without regret,
And charge my persecutors to do the same.
And so to you, my jury, I leave my fate.
My crimes, submitted for your refusal.
My confession is tendered without remorse,
For I have done aught that was not within me born.
But, in truth, to punish these sins is to make of me a martyr,
A willing sacrifice upon the alter of my art.
No, for guilt such as mine, there is but one sentence,
One counter to my honest crime,
And that is to Forgive.
Eulogy
I stand upon the rocky crags and look out to the sea,
And taste the salty winter wind that wraps itself about me.
I feel the churning of the surf, the crashing of the waves,
And watch the tide rush in and out of rocky shoreline caves.
Years ago this land was bare, no ocean to be found,
And warm wind whispering to the trees was the only sound.
But summer fled and winter came on that day you died,
And a roaring ocean born from bitter tears I cried.
|
|
|
Finale
In autumn's stunted days and ever chilling nights,
The Trees, robbed of greenery wear a different crown.
Reds and yellows, like fire blazing,
Orange as embers in the hearth.
A brilliant finale of color and hue before their silent fall.
And, quietly and without further ceremony,
They bury the ground and themselves amongst themselves,
A blanket for the Earth in her winters sleep
Likened is this to the delicate flowers of forest and field,
Their sweet fragrance sweeter still as life does fade.
Intoxicating perfumes fill the air,
Even as their petals colors pale.
A last affirmation of the life of beauty they have led.
Then, silently in the embrace of a delicate breeze,
The petals wilt and fall, their scent lingering still above,
Returning once again to the ground from whence they came.
Is this, too, the nature of man, whose body, in his twilight years,
Is frail and withered with age and too much time?
Does his mind, in a final flash of enlightenment,
Embrace all that can be known
And carry with him in his final days a peace in comprehension?
Or does our nature, so much more, we think than that of leaf or bud,
Call us to resist that which is the fate of all that lives, to die,
And keep us from this moments gift of understanding?
|
|
|
|
|
| |
