Category: Poetry

Eyes wide open my heart leapt to the hope I was awash in.
I bridled all my feelings with the leather of keen caution.

Lady Luck’s a femme fatale I know better than to treat with.
Drunk from ardor’s wishing well she solicited her mean myth.

So here I am, back underground, peeking through my periscope.
Attending all with watchful eyes & nursing my forlorn hope.

It may appear to witnesses I’ve surrendered in defeat.
Though kissing frogs is sweaty work…which is rarely nice & neat.

So I await another chance to put my heart on auction.
Keen for love I may well be although never without caution.

A light so bright it burns, may not be the place to warm your bones.
Diminishing returns, like paying age for your golden tones.

Vanity never thrives, when both gravity & time are known.
Yet graceful age survives, where gratitude for living is grown.

The winner stands alone, ambition breaks the ties that bind us.
Our future lived on loan, ensures that now can never find us.

The loser too well knows, that the present tense can’t be ignored.
The future’s made of foes, when the ills of now remain uncured.

We miss many things pure, if against perfection all is stood.
Of one thing I am sure, tis wise to favor can over could.

Awash with white this blankest page it waited here for me.
Awhile the season shifted round the evergreen fir tree.

Accounted for were my attentions; blown was my routine.
Away was my inspiration; no writing to be seen.

Aswarm with people were my days & many of my nights.
Afire it seemed the homesteads were with blinking singing lights.

Amended was my raison d’être; giving was the thing.
Arrested were my wee creations; dammed was my wellspring.

Awaken now my sleeping page, I’ve tickled you enough.
Abreast I’ve lain the words you’ll wear to cover up your buff.

I wonder should I leap & should I take a chance?
I see my heart askew & look at risk askance.

I trust not Lady Luck when it comes to falling.
History proves she’s treated me so appalling.

I can’t shy away from all just to shun the bad.
Yet I won’t be blind & find that I have been had.

Giving up is not a choice or else what’s the point?
Though, life is not just two straight lines finding their joint.

In the end I’ll draw my path cautious of terrain.
I’ll hope the love I chance is worth its innate pain.

Haunting the kaleidoscopes in visual minds are the poltergeists of trauma.
We feel & revisit these visceral scars; recall them & relive the drama.

The only way out of its gauntlet is thru to the other side bruised & bloody.
But it abides in the wings, while we play at life; our covetous understudy.

Our wounds trip us up again & again; even more if we don’t deign to face them.
Yes indeed, our monsters command our respect if we hope to survive their mayhem.

Injuries eventually knit into scars which remind us what we’ve endured.
We tend & we treat our harm so it heals; forgetting frailty assured we are cured.

A quilt is no less than a sheet for its stitches…in fact, I’d say it is stronger.
Trauma’s a map tattooed on our hide that takes a lifetime to read…maybe longer.

Moths & butterflies, squirrels & rats; different as day & night.
Though, afternoons have their eves & what would the dawn be without light.

We  connote value & appeal by granting names with innate worth.
Taxonomy of the reviled & adored our grasp over Earth.

We label offspring to inspire our love & our esteem for them…
Willfully ignorant both are imperiled by opinion’s whim.

The love we garner & esteem we earn are born of our actions.
One of which has been to name the world & break it into factions.

Across the universe we lord our power while accruing blame.
For in the end outcasts will rule by defying what’s in a name.

Poking fun’s not a victimless crime to subjects of derision.
Where no effort’s spent at being kind there’ll only be division.

You are rude & think it’s cute-that when it’s done by you it’s charming.
You think yourself a faultless fool unaware of who you’re harming.

Laughing with undeserved confidence at the expense of others, 
You’re beating brows & bending vows with an arrogance that smothers.

Your assumption that you’re better than most doesn’t leave room for growth.
With no travails you weaken like veal wallowing about in sloth.

We unappreciated few will bear just as much of the blame.
We’ll be the targets of your cruelty when you are deaf & lame.

So much of me’s filed away safe on a shelf.
Welcome to my apothecary of self.

I collect pieces past & pieces prologue.
All neatly archived in my mind’s catalogue.

My shop is always open, just read the sign.
My life’s curios gather dust in yon shrine.

Curious to see what’s in my library?...
Ribald receipts of the fun & the scary.

I constantly reference my whole collection.
Reflection informs my future direction.

 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.