Author: lbstowe

 We all are subjected to good & bad weather.
Some bear it alone & some weather together.

Some strive to be solo while some need a tether.
Some risk all & find themselves covered in feather.

Some cling to sound earth; making homes among heather.
The paths are to stay or to go, you choose whether.

A few take to power; their heart & hides leather.
Their lives mostly spent punching down at what’s nether.

But space is created by matter’s endeavor.
The constant is change & nothing is forever.

I care not for the bustling crowd, it’s driven greedy scheme.
Of lonely peace I’ve learned desire, I need not be supreme.

I lust not after worlds renowned, or fame’s phosphoric gleam.
Give me space to wander & roam, inside halcyon dreams.

No seething places people packed, nor froth at life’s extreme.
Ambition’s bane is wanting all, o’er-minding how you seem.

Living beyond the means you have, consumption’s doomed regime.
I’ve lived that way, I’ve felt the press & did not like it’s theme.

I know the love of few & true, I have what I esteem.
I n’er belong among the throng. There’ll be no I in teem.

Here, what kind of poet am I? I thought you already knew.
I feel a word & I find it’s mate & chart their pas de deux.

Backwards they waltz & forwards they spin dancing their synced soft shoe.
Rhythm evolves with meanings just so; each phrase the next one’s clue.

Enter the May Queen, her maids in tow around the theme they screw.
Then witches writhe around their cauldron tossing rhymes in the roux.

My imagination flits & jumps making so much ado.
My thoughts now spit & sputter their steam while falling into queue.

A dance of ideas & a dance of rhymes born from just the two.
Created, counted & metered out; this poet’s piece is through.

“Mind how you go“, said the crone to the world; as all the good deeds of her long life unfurled.

Death had come knocking so often before. But, this was last call & she’d stall him no more.

Leaving the world better than she found it…she quit with Death & her exit resounded.

What would they do now that she was not here? Who’d they now look to; she’d lived long without peer?

She’d  mentored her heir; prepared her a pitch. Now all would come down to a tough maiden witch.

The lines in your hand & the tears on your cheek, speak to your future & this unhappy week.

I call on you now & I’ll be back around to offer my service to which I am bound.

The language I speak is the tongue of concern. I do for you now without want of return.

I’ll offer my best while you are not at yours. I’ll hold you and feed you; replenish your stores.
 
Because one day you may lose me, I’ll smooth the road ahead for thee.

I figure that living may outweigh dying… But letting death go was a few years trying.
Relearning life was indeed petrifying…Although needs must when the devil is driving.

Being born in summer & living in spring…Sudden chills in the eves are a frightful thing.
In frost scented air as the long nights take wing…I sit by my hearth & of color I sing.

Life flows like birth & death’s cycles on repeat…We trod o’er the starts & the ends under feet. 
Ignorant of nuance in seasons so fleet…The rush of life intoxicating & sweet.

Towards death hewn horizons we all do rush…Mistaking the future as golden & lush.
Collecting burdens that are destined to crush…Thinking they’ll make our destination more plush.

I once saw clearly my future in vision…Halting my progress in wrecking collision.
Long I sat licking my wounds of abscission…But now bloom in snow by warmth of decision.

Beige is a color I’ve often studied.
Beige is just a white that once was bloodied.
Beige now suggests it was erstwhile muddied.
Beige is purity that knows it’s sullied.

Gray is a coloring I often choose.
Gray holds the answers while hiding the clues.
Gray always blends in when chaos ensues.
Gray’s unconcerned with a win or a lose.

Red is the color I’m scared by the most.
Red is the color of blood & of boast.
Red’s the color of heaven & hell’s host.
Red is the color of loving love’s ghost.

Blue is a color that longs to be free.
Blue is the color of souls on a spree.
Blue hues the vastness of sky & of sea.
Blue is the color I wish I could be.

Through all the lines of mortal men in fleshly conjugation.
All are born to learn the self within & without their Nation.

Through pale traditions & burned routine sentience is benighted.
Fenced in by habit & stoic lines men are made befrighted.

In static grooves of fretful worry they scheme & machinate.
They stare past the mirror’s pane & on difference ruminate.

Held in sway by sad regard that unlike means inferior.
Conquering horizons far to add to their interior.

Still, men fail to snuff the flames of individuality.
Bind your truth to your true north & lean into equality.

There is life in the deadliest places.
There is death in the liveliest scenes. 
Examples are so anywhere you go, 
living & dying comes free.

There is shade in the brightness of noontime. 
There are stars in the blackest midnight. Lucency knows it’s allegiance is owed 
to coming or going light.

There is poverty in the rich classes.
There is wealth in the humblest abode.
On family or friends your life you spend,
your profit’s not saved it’s sowed.

The complicated devices by which our lives we live.
Devoid of personality-all take & little give.

None look past the watch’s face to see its complications.
Only seeing hands of time-not gears in their rotations.

We’ve traded dials, debate & books in aid of convenience.
Need’s no more invention’s womb, it’s labor wanting lenience.

Useful gadgets are quite the boon, if we retain our skill.
If we’re ignorant of the plow, we’ve nothing for the mill.

We love progress & so we should; it piques the pace of course.
But moves us closer to the end & further from our source.