Thunder

You don't fear lightning.
The uproar
of the sky
is nothing
compared
to the storm
inside you.

Lone

Just because I'm alone doesn't mean I'm lonely.
My mind, the thoughts nonstop, keep me in good comp'ny.
The seraphim singing praise in Babel never understand.
The demons of the blood stained-glass beg me let them in.
I train my brain to take the pain, trust faithful reason only.

Just because I'm alone doesn't mean I'm lonely.

Just because I'm lonely doesn't mean I'm alone.
In a room of chattering peers, still I'm on my own.
If you want to be unique, you have to be different as well.
Surrounded by worldly angels, I reside in abyss ethereal.
I'm never cast more into the past than when I'm fin'lly known.

Just because I'm lonely doesn't mean I'm alone.

The World's Voice

Humans tell you who you are,

Set an ever-higher bar

Make you work for props and praise,

Make you chase love all your days,

Tell you who you're supposed to be,

Tell you you're special, creative, free,

But by the way, you're ugly as heck

And everything you do comes off as dreck.

They play their angles, say sly words,

Meant to goad or promote or hurt,

They'll laugh or smile, mutter or moan,

Circle around or make you feel alone.

It's all about what you can give to them,

All about who's your bestest friend,

So they ostracize you or lure you in,

Silence you or raise a din,

But you don't have to listen or play their game,

If everyone did, we'd all be the same,

So when they pull or push you, flirt or flatter,

Remember it's the ones who love YOU who really matter.

Fantasy

Come dream with me
Of the width of what we know
Come sail the depths
Of what we cannot fathom
Look beyond the glass
Dream beyond your waking hours
Think beyond your sleep.
There's something more out there
Hidden in the clouds
Fly with me and we'll catch it
In our golden net
Woven from the threads of
Fairytales unremembered
Gilded with so many
Memories we forgot
We might be changed for the better
Who knows?
But let us discover
Together
What it means.

The Necessity of Invention

Paper people and pencil kingdoms
Fruitfully multiply on the page-
A thousand years of good and evil,
Life and death, love and rage.
A thousand tears, a thousand bloodstains,
A hundred thousand bungled words,
As in my world of joy and sorrow,
Faint echoes of some song are heard:
For every battle there is a reason-
No fire for its own sake burns,
For everything there is a season-
Not for their own sake the tables turn.
If a heart breaks, it will be mended
Or mend another through its tale,
When a door closes, another opens
If I don't enter, another will.
There's a reason for writing stories
-For paper lives and pencil worlds-
The meaning of a story shows us
There's meaning in our own life's whirl.
The motive of a character
May set a suffering reader free,
The reason for a battle
Can show us all who we could be.
The purpose of a story is
The show us the purpose in our lives-
To show us good, to show us evil,
And let choose where our path lies. 

NotQuiteHome

Halfway here, halfway there
Wondering when I'll see you again
Knowing I'll never see them again

Racing towards the future

And hating every step

Where's home?

I don't know.

Not quite here, not quite there

The echoes of life are everywhere

Enjoying the freedom God has blessed

While the rest of the world's a crazy mess

But I'm a crazy mess

Where's home? 

I don't know.

I haven't found it yet.

The Beginning of the Text

In the fertile earth of the page​
I sow words – "trees," "adamant," and seeds more common​
And from these beginnings​
Sentences grow​
Their vines intertwine​
And they wind​
Knitting together a fabulous net​
Weaving the cloth of Story.

A Rare Cold Day

October

Cut grass stings the scent of air,
Shovels ring from far away-
Just another Autumn day;
The cold lays flowering branches bare.
Live oaks drop leaves on the shadowy lawn,
The crickets still have something left to say-
Just another Autumn day;
A dog barks out a lonely song.
The weather welcomes Elf and Fay-
Just another Autumn day.

View From the Front Porch

The lawn is green and yellow

Striped with golden sun

And shadow.

Arching trees drop

Bronze leaves

While green ones still cling on.

Cold air chills my face

Not one breeze stirs,

Not one cloud darkens

The light blue sky.

A pale moon wanes

Passing the zenith by.

Pinky-purple garlic flowers

Rise tall, as dropping combs of

Bee-flowers fall.

Under the Century Oak

 Autumn

She's a daughter of the breeze to day,

A wild, directionless thing-

She gambols through the trees, at play,

And makes the branches sing.

Subcreator

The world unchanged by one unseen face,

The world unmoved by one unheard voice;

Yet creators continue anyway, meant to make

A reflection of Creation in their fake.

Autumn's Arrival

 Starry Night

When I gaze upon the sidereal hosts

Each patrolling the vault at appointed post

Twilight gems of frost and air,

Object of awe for the nocturnal surveyor.

Pinholes in a crepuscular curtain

As if a mischievous cherub-child

Thought to let the light of Heaven through-

He took his scissors and ran wild.

After the Storm

Looking at life through a rain-speckled window

The sky is gray and the trees weep with damp.

Inside this house there is warmth and color;

Inside this house there is food and laughter.

Life looks at us through a rain-speckled window;

We smile back. Is it raining after all?

Trees

 Trees bridge the gap between Heaven and Earth
Growing tall, branching to see the stars
Never forgetting the ground that gave them birth
Rooting deep, touching the world's hidden heart.

View From a Bench

Live Oak 

Misty spider's-web

On dying branch

On living tree

Dark forking, reaching branches

With gray-green leaves

On curving tree

Wild Garden

Scarlet Turk's cap

Say hello to

Mountain laurel

American Poem #5

 This poem is about your average American joe, and also about the government. It's distinctly sarcastic. You decide if the poem is for the government or against it.

The Unknown Citizen

(To JS/07/M/378 This Marble Monument Is Erected by the State)

by W.H. Auden

He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be

One against whom there was no official complaint,

And all the reports on his conduct agree

That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint,

For in everything he served the Greater Community.

Except for the War till the day he retired

He worked in a factory and never got fired

But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.

Yet he wasn't a scab or odd in his views,

For his Union reports that he paid his dues,

(Our report on the Union shows it was sound)

And our Social Psychology workers found

That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.

The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day

And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way.

Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,

And his Health-card shows he was once in hospital but left it cured.

Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare

He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Installment Plan

And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,

A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.

Our researchers into Public Opinion are content

That he held the proper opinions for the time of the year;

When there was peace, he was for peace; when there was war, he went.

He was married and added five children to the population,

Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his generation.

And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education.

Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:

Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.

And that concludes the American Poem Series.

American Poem #4

 This poem is slightly sad. The poet provides evidence for his conclusion. You decide for yourself whether or not it's true.

Nothing Gold Can Stay

by Robert Frost

Nature's first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf's a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

Other Poems by Robert Frost: "Acquainted with the Night," "Mending Wall," "The Road Not Taken," "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"

American Poem #3

 This poem is not depressing, but stirring. It makes you think. Is it a lament, or a threat? Or both?

I Am the People, the Mob

by Carl Sandburg

I am the people - the mob - the crowd - the mass.

Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me?

I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the world's food and clothes.

I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napoleons come from me and the Lincolns. They die. And     then I send forth more Napoleons and Lincolns.

I am the seed ground. I am a prairie that will stand for much plowing. Terrible storms pass over me. I     forget. The best of me is sucked out and wasted. I forget. Everything but Death comes to me and makes     me work and give up what I have. And I forget.

Sometimes I growl, shake myself and spatter a few red drops for history to remember. Then - I forget.

When I, the People, learn to remember, when I, the People, use the lessons of yesterday and no longer        forget who robbed me last year, who played me for a fool - then there will be no speaker in all the world     say the name: "The People," with any fleck of sneer in his voice or any far-off smile of derision.

The mob - the crowd - the mass - will arrive then.

Other Poems by Carl Sandburg: "Fog," "Chicago"

American Poem #2

 Our national anthem is the first stanza of a poem, written by Francis Scott Key during the bombardment of Fort McHenry during the War of 1812. Key was watching the fight and could not tell if our flag was still flying or if we had lost. Here is the full poem.

The Star Spangled Banner

by Francis Scott Key

O say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming;
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?

On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, now conceals, now discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines on the stream;
'Tis the star-spangled banner; O long may it wave
O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave,
From the terror of flight and the gloom of the grave;
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave!

O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land,
Praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, for our cause it is just.
And this be our motto— "In God is our trust; "
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.

American Poem #1

 This is perhaps my favorite poem. Read literally, it is rather depressing. Maybe it's not meant to be read literally. That has more to do with the reader than the poet.

Gubbinal

by Wallace Stevens

That strange flower, the sun,

Is just what you say.

Have it your way.

The world is ugly,

And the people are sad.

That tuft of jungle feathers,

That animal eye,

Is just what you say.

That savage of fire,

That seed,

Have it your way.

The world is ugly,

And the people are sad.

Other Poems by Wallace Stevens: "The Emperor of Ice Cream," "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird," and "The Reader."

Poetry Month Again!

July is poetry month on this blog. What's more poetic than a sultry summer night under the stars? (FYI, National Poetry Month in the US is actually April - well, why not celebrate twice?) You may think poetry is boring, time-wasting, and/or rather snooty. Or, like me, you may think it expresses pain, joy, and beauty in a way no other art form (except perhaps music) can. 

Regardless of your personal feelings, poetry is an important part of American literature. July is the month of America's founding, so I thought we'd focus on American poetry this year. Each Monday this month (counting this day in late June, since most of this week is part of July), I'll post an American poem by a famous American poet. Some you may know. Some you may not. If you are interested in American poetry, I suggest you read 101 Great American Poems, an anthology published by Dover Thrift Editions, which includes poems by such authors as Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost.

Storm

White lightning arcs from cloud to cloud

The cat purrs beside me, safe and sound.

A thousand cannons bombard the night

Pour out their thunder and their light.

Small Town

 River Song

The creek is music

And the wavelets dance

Tie up your skirt

Or roll up your pants

And wade in the river

With the current singing-

Among the rocks

The brook is ringing

Leap on limestone

Twirl in eddies

One with stream

As the day is ending.

Skipping Stones

Stone skipping across the water

Don't know where you'll land

How many times you'll bounce

Before you get there

The hand that threw you knows

It's skilled at its job

Knows you're going to a better part

Of the river

Them ore you bounce, the farther you'll go.

Don't fret over the landing.

I've bounced a few times myself

And where I've landed is good.

Sunday Rains

It always rains on Sunday

A blinding, driving force

Sweeps dirt out of the planters

And people through church doors.

It always rains on Sunday

Pounds down upon the car

Slows the drivers on the highway

Arriving as the service starts.

It always rains on Sunday

Makes muddy rivers flow

And if you forgot your umbrella

It soaks your Sunday clothes.

It always rains on Sunday

Erodes away the dirt

You have to hide your Bible

Underneath your shirt.

It always rains on Sunday

And let me tell you why-

These are the joyful tears

Of our LORD as he cries.

No one's happier to see us

Go to church than He,

So blast the wind, forget the rain-

Our Savior we go to see!