Greeting, friends!
I've always loved writing poetry, and as part of my weekly time out, I've taken up composing verse again for the good of my soul. And it has been good for me. The main difference between my poetry now versus what I wrote in middle and high school is the breadth of content - where my old work consisted mainly of maudlin love poetry, my new work embraces the freedom of topic that is necessarily a part of writing. I'll post the last four weeks of poems here for your consumption, and try to update my blog with the weekly verse from here on out.
Also - Whoever can figure out what "Two-Faced Am I" is about wins a gold star and a smiley face.
Enjoy!
Distance
Odes to beauty are reserved for lovers.
And why must this be? For a beautiful heart
Is most bright to behold. And for beauty, I die.
The heart of my friend ‘cross a grey expanse.
Words I grasp for with eyes, but misty they are
Sans breath and sans form. And for beauty, I die.
What things life paints on the endless canvas.
Colors infinite! But the shades of my soul
Are too far to dip my brush in. And for beauty, for beauty,
I die.
Two-Faced Am I
Two-faced am I, wherefore I know well -
My true heart estranged, I shiver sickly inside
And exhale with ugly rattle, a pebble in a shell
Composing words while understanding I elide.
Devious I am - I, deviant, divisive, devise
Ways to exalt myselfishness, selflessness mime
Mud-blind with my defectiveness, let ailments arise
And call them harmless, as if ’twill buy me time.
Penitent am I, cowering ‘neath black cowl of sin -
Loving, brightening (trying) the corners of a little heart
My failing heart you can’t hear dully thumping here within,
Thereby mirroring hope I cherish, end to start.
The Writing Excuse
The curse of fatigue
Is the atrophy of art
Says wife and mother
Sonnet of Ink
Upon meandering, brimful brooks of light
And rampant tempests breaking at the seams
And hov’ring over mellow shades of night -
The mediocre, sick for morning’s beams -
Scrolls outward, line of black for beauty’s birth
And inward, gentle curve for linguist’s life
And skyward, transcendental in its worth
Into the depths of hell for dormant strife
Some souls it scratches out with patient nod
And some it outlines, present but unknown
And some it grabs with passion of a bawd
To claim the lusty fare for it alone
The latter one am I, ne’er to be free
Perhaps you saw ink-colored blood in me?
I enjoy it. I really like The Writing Excuse, because haikus are hard but they a nice device for a stylistic direct message. This makes me want to go read a book of poetry. 'Two Faced Am I" reminds me of the only C.S. Lewis poem I know, "As the Ruin Falls"
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