Sunday, February 1, 2009

These Are the Bruised Relics of My Past

So here's some poetry I finally dug up. It's strange, when I go through things like old diarys or LiveJournals or DeviantArts... I feel like some new-age archaeologist sifting through a red-light district. Anyhow, these are some poems written about two years ago, rough and virtually unedited. I might be better at poetry now, but then again, I haven't tried since then. Who knows.

-----

Icarus, Indeed

The wind invades my lungs
I breathe of its accord, not mine
The very breath that beats
Beneath birds wings is now my breath
I might fly with them this once

To taste and hear the sun
It chides me for my folly
I follow the foolish wingbeats
Of the doomed dreamer Icarus
Forgetting he was just Man

And with my grand wax wings
I know the wind and sun will take
And on this edge of fools
I return to my homely perch
To sleep, to dream, of another flight


Not Quite

Our love is not quite anything-
Neither simile nor metaphor
Can make it something else
Nor acronym nor mnemonic
Can render it easily explained
Nor can it be framed by adjectives
Lovely and elegant they may be
Nor even levered by adverbs
Floating lightly and softly about
I suppose a few verbs may come close
After all, they swoop and sway
But I maintain we cannot be captured
By any grammatical structure
Save the platform I construct
That we may boast our linguistic victory


3:20 AM

It's strange when thoughts don't come in words
And everything to say
Trips lightly not off my tongue
But instead falls out my brain
The dance of speech eludes me
(But I did always want for grace)

And silly faeries steal the letters
Floating freely from my pen
And make them into changeling fiends
Then back to thoughts again
(But at least I'm free of penance
If good writing is a sin)

Perhaps it is the dreadful hour
That steals these words from me
For at any other time but this
They come quite easily
But the moon has set and the sun not risen
So I think my words shall sleep.


This Is Not A Love Poem

There was a harvest moon tonight
It was low and bright
And it reminded me of you
After a fashion
And it reminded me
That you had never heard me sing
But that's alright
There's a song I know
That reminds me of you, too
After a fashion
It's low and intense
Says forgive, not forget
Never forget
That everything will be alright
Because it always ends up that way
And I sing to myself at night
After the moon rises
So I don't forget
Could I forget?
We danced once (under the stars)
And you sang for me once
And it was love...ly
And I won't forget


Ode to Fire

O Fire! This gift I both loathe and adore!
Your flippant beauty is deceptive
Can't your enamoured lovers see
You burn and sear them on a whim
And beneath that is a suprising chill
Such an unexpected property
Many, so many are dazzled by you
Yet you shun them as you please
They they may try, I know
You cannot be tamed
But still it remains
That fact of your superior beauty
Of which even the gods seem jealous
They kept you from Man, but to no avail
With you we were so bitterly rewarded
You giver of light, of warmth
You destroyer of all
How many have been humbled by you?
I, myself, among them certainly
How fickle to those who may love you!
Alas, you care not for them
You dance along your way
Heedless of their adoration of curses
All fades next to you
For fortune of folly you burn on
And singe all who might try for your warmth
Keep your flickering, overwhelming beauty--
I cannot bear it.


Keepers of the Dark

Why must all the keepers of dark be ugly?
They should dance among the gaily miserable of the light
-- But that is why they keep the dark-- to stay hidden
Their selfish lonliness keeps them ironically safe

Think of the fair maid of the night and her polished gentleman
Through lovely frozen courts and icy parties he moves mechanically
Then at night the fire of her love in the gutter
Of them, which is the happier?

And what of the poet who writes by the candle?
Night by night, her beauty drains from her pen?
As she writes of love she never knew and a sun she'll never see
She has everything she's ever wanted, all only for herself

Dark surrounds the keepers, the secrets to hide them
His cape a bitter and mocking protection
But those who withdraw there will not be found
Their wish is granted, their hope only hung on themselves.

------

Well, channel teenage angst into freeverse, and I guess this is what you get. I'll update with some more current stuff, probably in prose form, fairly soon.

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