Footed

I really hate the way time ticks along
Without a care, as if it didn't matter.
I wish that I could stop it - it feels wrong
To knuckle to its constant pitter-patter
And let it own me. Why should every day
Follow the old and make it all anew?
Why must we moult our skin and throw away
The day in which we did what we must do
Again tomorrow? Most of all, oh why
Must we pass on from what and where we were,
Leaving behind the paradise gone by
For what will come? I would so much prefer
To find a niche beyond time's hand and wait
Forever in that blissful, happy state.

Leaving

I am sad because I'm leaving. Still
I know it's better than to not be here
At all. If someone had possessed my will
And made it so I had kept fully clear
Of such a sadness, that would have required
My never coming here at all, and that
Is worse than sadness. All that I desired
Required coming here, and that is pat;
Leaving is just a side-effect, which takes
Some of the joy away, but still somehow
Leaves me still full of it. The joy that makes
Itself still whole despite the absence now
Is truest joy - and that is what is mine.
I will be happy, though I will still pine.

Nightingale

My head is heavy but my heart is light
For as I head into the end of day
And moonlight dwindles out of dusky grey
Into the true deep cobalt of the night,
As I keep feeling while I lose my sight,
And hear the unseen footsteps of the fey
Dark creatures that, almost unnoticed, stray
Into our world before we shutter quite,
I know she will be with me, I with her,
No matter where our bodies may remain;
And should I fail to sleep, and turn, and stir
With writhing from my dark-oppressed hot brain
I know she will be there to comfort me
As I would be as much for her, should she.

Cooling

The heat recedes, and life begins again

Out of the scorching pain the sun had brought.

The sun, life-giving, was destructive then,

But now smiles down. Of course it's very hot,

But not as much as when the day was dead.

Some warmth is needed - we live on the edge

Between a boil and a freeze. It's said

We teeter ever closer on the ledge

To falling over - but we have not yet,

And so I joy to see the heat recede

Again into this state where we are set

Just in our niche. Now let us feed

Upon the cool hot air as best we can

Before the heat returns us to the ban.

Women

Time and tide wait for no man.
Women, however, they wait for.
They may not realize they can,
But women often can do more.
The world will alter at their whim,
The skies obey their very word,
A nod from her (but not from him)
Will charm a predatory bird,
Raise a tempest, or dispel
A coming storm that threatens rain;
Their thoughts the very seas can quell,
Or bring in healing after pain.
Or maybe I just think it's true
Because of what I'd do for you.

Lightnings

The storm above me cannot touch me now
For I have found an anchor far below
The noisy surface of the world. 'Twill cow
The many, make them quake and grow
Fearful of the world they face outside,
But I am calm and happy in my heart,
Stationary, watching them all ride
The giddy whirl, but never taking part
In how they worry. I am safe and sure,
For I have love, and love is everything.
It can make fast the mind, it can secure
The heart. Mankind may be a giddy thing,
But this is my conclusion: I will turn
Only for her, and only then I burn.

Glimpse

Her smile is a strange and wondrous thing.

It makes my heart beat rhythmically and strong,

My nerves all tingle and my sinews sing

Like the reverberations of a gong

After the note is struck. It makes me yearn

And melt at once. I cannot then resist 

The pull of her, and so I always turn

Towards her, and pull her to me to be kissed.

When she is sad or concentrating, I

Am always looking for a way to make

Her smile again, and so I'm apt to try

A million ways, 'til one of them will take

And bring me back into that blissful state

And I can watch her sit and radiate.

Queasy

Denial isn't healthy, but it's easy:

The easiest, indeed, of all the ways

To deal with things that make you kind of queasy, 

And muddle on in an unreasoned haze.

But being easy doesn't make it right;

It's safer to be fully self-aware.

For in your heart of hearts your second sight

Will tell you what, perhaps, you do not dare

Admit self-consciously - what you deny

Is still out there, still looming, still to come.

And if you choose to give yourself the lie,

It may be easy, but it sure is dumb.

So I'll admit I'm leaving, and be sad

Rather than pretend - and then go mad.

Thoughts

Sometimes I wish that I could just stop thinking.
Some people do that, or I hear they do,
By meditation, brainlessness, or drinking,
Rest and relaxation, or the new
Video game system that they bought.
I cannot do it. Even when it seems
That I should be, at long last, without thought,
Quiet and at peace, somehow daydreams
Sneak in, and turn my brain from empty waste
Into a dreamland, full of shapes and sounds
And echoes of my day, that have the taste
Of thought. My mind appears to have no bounds
Except for this: it will continue on
Thinking no matter where my thoughts have gone.

Relatives

I find it very likely that my life
Will be a good one - it has been so far.
It lacks the greater part of woe and strife,
And all the perils that so often mar
Otherwise fruitful lives. I find it so,
And yet I still complain and natter on
About the problems that I've come to know
No matter how minute. I used to yawn
And say that's how a life will always be:
Compared on its own terms, not absolute,
And therefore troubled when the boundary
Of what is usual is crossed...but screw't.
I'd rather keep my mouth more closed hereafter
And think of present joy and future laughter.

Excess

Some words are deeper than the voice can say,
Than tongue or lips can ever hope to speak.
This does not keep the tongue or voice away:
They say them every day, but are too weak
To plumb the depths in which the heart can feel.
Among these words count honor, faith, and trust,
Care for the good, and for the commonweal,
The hope to be - and act - faithfully just,
And then for mercy when that hope falls short,
Coupled with forgiveness for all wrong:
The wish to, at the furthest, last resort
Hold by our principles, firm, fast, and strong.
But chief among them count the virtue of
A constant, common, and comingled love.

Caffeine High

Caffeine is beneficial to the mind

Taken in doses of a human size.

When you increase your intake, though, you find

There is a twitching lodged behind your eyes,

A little tap that runs down from your thighs

Into your feet - a rhythm you can't lose - 

A tremor by your heart that seems to rise,

And everything's a little stranger. Choose

To drop the caffeine then, though, and refuse

Your body what it wants, and there's a price.

The fool who first indulges, then eschews,

Will feel the absence of what once was nice

In headaches, joint pain, and the worst mind lag

It's sometimes better to keep on the jag.

Good Life

A little sigh can hold a universe
And make a world out of a simple phrase.
But often such a world is purely worse
Than what is real in very subtle ways
The sigher does not know - for worries sigh
And take the worrier into his fears,
Giving the comforting real world the lie,
Implying bloodshed, absence, hate, and tears.
A safer sigh, from longing or desire,
Is still no likelier to touch the truth:
It looks and sees the dying of the fire,
The dwindling of handsomeness or youth,
Forgetting charcoal burns hotter than wood.
Ah friend, it is the life unsighed that's good.

Steam Sale

I hate to think there's only so much time
In which I could be playing all these games.
The clock still strikes, the phone alarm will chime,
And time itself inordinately lames
Such purchases, since all of them, well-played,
Considered, analyzed, and rightly done,
Would take such hours as, I am afraid,
I have not spent since I was first begun.
Why then continue to invest my cash,
My interest, my bandwidth, and my mind?
Is not that choice a little bit too rash,
Too unconsidered? Somehow I don't find
It works that way. The options are immense,
But somehow buying them still all makes sense.

A C

The air is cold
Because you left
It's stale and old
And all bereft
Of any sense
Despite its chill
That it could fence
Off any ill
Even the heat
Which ought to be
Its role to beat
And comfort me
Instead, 'twill freeze
My inner ease.

Backs

When you are gone, the best part of me frays
And wilts a little on the underside.
I fall into a general malaise
Hidden by the arms that I stretch wide
To try to seek to find a certain spark
In company, or in the Internet.
But nothing that I do can void the stark
Simplicity of what I can't forget:
I'm lazy, bored, unfruitful without you.
Forever wandering an inner sea,
Mapless and wild, unsure what to do
Or how to make my inner parts agree.
I am so glad whenever you come back
For you supply direction that I lack.

Absence Work

I really dislike missing you. Of course
It's better than the other kind of missing
That utters from a slightly different source
And has no memories of hugs or kissing.
But still it's hard to think of you and know
I will not see you saunter through that door;
To feel the time between us only grow
Knowing it will not dwindle anymore.
I cannot say but in some future place
(And if I'm fortunate, a recent time)
I will look up and see your smiling face
And then look back and laugh at this poor rhyme.
But for the moment, in my sadness, I
Wish you were with me now, and breathe, and sigh.

Twains

The mind and heart do not communicate.
The mind is well aware that it must go,
And sure that she who's left must surely know
The reason for its altered future state.
The heart, which does the tyrant mind berate,
Screams out an incandescent tortured no,
And pleads that such a fate will bring it woe
To no avail against its potentate
The mind, which blithely bids the place goodbye
And knows full well that it will soon return;
The heart begins to rock itself and cry:
The folly of its course it will soon learn
When mind (still unsurprised and wisely stern)
Leads back the heart again - but by and by.

Lich

Liches are reconstituted flesh
Made living by unnecessary power.
The undead ligaments obscurely mesh
And move, and creak, but no emotions flower
Within the cold, dead heart. It's ever so,
Except for hate: hate of the living hearts
That flow with blood and beat with love - and grow.
They feel the touch of their partly-knit parts
And wonder why they cannot be that way.
It's envy, purely, that excites this pain
And brings them to their evil, and to slay
All around them - they are half insane
With wishing to be human, and alive.
Only from unlife does hate derive.

Gone

Some long long days become a single hum
Of constant repetition and refrain
So when what should be done is finally come,
There's nothing left to go against the grain.
Some days seem endless as they wear away
The boundaries that help keep track of time.
They wander out and in, or sometimes stay
As if they had been stuck on wet birdlime.
I cannot say which way the day passed by
Except to say it did, and all a blur;
I do, perhaps, believe I could say why,
But even that I cannot quite be sure.
Either way I find the day is gone
And I have lost another newfound dawn.

&

I'm always just so proud to see my friends
Marry my friends. It brings me mounds of joy.
For when a friend into another blends,
The gladness that that causes cannot cloy.
They are forever linked, and making one
I find in within that one a double friend;
As such I think 'twas excellently done
For such efficiency will always tend
To bring in more than it could ever lose.
Why would it lose at all? Rather it must
By making one of two (it cannot choose)
Make of that one a fuller, double trust.
Congratulations and all joy are due
To those that being one have once been two.

66

The open road is not seductive now.
It's merely tedious and in the way.
There have been times (I'm no longer sure how)
I loved to watch the scene, but now I stay
Focused on the drive. I do not mean
I hate the road, but merely that I find
The colors and the grandeur of the scene
Have almost imperceptibly declined
Until I glance, enjoy, and so am through:
I have no need for more of it than that.
Indeed, too much can simply be too too
And make the place in retrospect seem flat.
A little road time goes a long way toward
Filling my interest - and then I'm bored.

Silent

Silence is a danger to the heart
That misses what it loves, and therefore broods.
I didn't say that worrying was smart,
But worry in itself often eludes
The wisest soul - and wiggles into it,
Despite all measures of avoidance. When
The air is quiet and its edges sit
Empty of the hum of busy men
The mind turns inward and the worry creeps;
The ears are gateways to the heart's distress,
Which moves by intuition, in great leaps,
Making of what was once so clean a mess.
The only cure is memory: to know
She will come back and lay the worry low.

Good and Ill

Some things are better than they seem to be
And some are worse; that much we all should know.
But nobody is ever worry-free,
Nor are our souls forever pushed as low
As they could be, did we allow despair.
In every cloud there is a silver lining
(Although the ratio of what is there
May be uneven) and our best designing
Still, ever, runs astray from what we plan.
My heart is never empty of the thought
That I will try to do the best I can,
But that whatever I and time have wrought
May be undone. I hold this in my mind
But emphasize the good in all I find.

Owz

Misfortune is a beast to overcome
But nothing more - it must and will be beat.
Even when it's difficult there's some
Fundamental thing easy to treat
About a known misfortune. Unknown though
It's terribly distressing and obscene;
It's also difficult to know you know,
Or once you know, to know what it might mean:
What is the problem? How can it be faced?
What is the miracle to undo it?
But even then it still can be erased
And to do so is proper, right, and fit.
What's wrong is wrong, but meant to be made right
Especially when chance has caused the spite.

Mantra

Holding close
And breathing in
Is just a dose
Of skin to skin
And comforting
What has been sad
Or deporting
What once was bad
Out of the soul
Into the air:
One simple goal
Banish all care
And welcome calm
Ease, breath, and balm.

Opt

Some see the world as holiday
Where every moment is serene
And nothing can have gone astray
For everything is bright and green
And growing higher every day.
Some think that nothing can be mean,
And skies that threaten black and grey
Are mere illusions, or obscene.
I am not one of these; I see
The world around me darker than
The optimistic ever can,
But when the night falls fitfully
And we are snuggled by the fire
I see the world that they desire.

Hedges

Good hedges make good neighbors on their own
They're green and growing and don't argue much.
Especially when they are fully grown,
Since flowers rarely yell, persuade, or such.
They don't make human neighbors better, though,
That's not their job - their job is just to live,
Be hedgey, keep the peace and fully grow.
That's what they are and what they have to give.
I like my hedges and I like them green,
And stuck between my neighbors' ground and mine;
But that is not because I think they mean
I'll have an easy time by some design,
But simply that I like a hedge around
To be the neighbor to my own green ground.

Augur

Purple showers tell of sun hereafter
Shining bright across the rainswept earth;
Thunderstorms foretell a coming laughter,
While empty skies are signs of future dearth.
The half-moon rises over half-done deeds,
And wind blows cold across an aching heart;
The autumn rain is wonderful for seeds,
Allowing winter wheat to make a start.
All such fallacious signals move above,
But I look inward for a show of love,
And seek for smiles instead of snow or rain,
Sighs and half-glances in the place of sun.
The heart itself will show if it feels pain,
Or beat with hope to see a lovèd one.

Heartsong

There is a heart inside of me
Do not believe it otherwise
It peers discretely out my eyes
And stares into eternity
Wherein that which it wants to see
It claims to view - but I surmise
It's optimistic, or it lies,
To see so much so happily.
It whispers in my brain at night
Fond exhalations of the soul
That tell me everything is right
And all in time will be made whole
I fondly hope, although I fear
It's wrong, what's right is somewhere near.

Judge

What I have done need not reflect on me.
Of course I should be judged by what I do,
But every single action should not be
Taken for a microcosm; to
Have erred is bad, of course, but all in all
Should be considered. Single is but one.
And unlike Eden's great, eternal fall,
A single error, no matter how done
Is but a single point, and not a line.
Should there be others, all colinear,
And indicating purpose or design,
Then judge them as your judgment may prefer;
But if they're separate, see them so and stay
Your judgment from a rash, uneven way.

Blach

Oppressive heat is violently bad
And frustrating too. What can I do
But linger in the warmth and still be sad?
A/C is something, and I like it too,
But then I get stir-crazy and I flee
Into the heat, which really is a shame.
I want to just be lazy but can't be
Because inaction often is to blame
For pain and heatstroke. If I move, however,
I'm struck with different aches, and cannot stir
And there we go again. I wish I never
Had to go outside, but I prefer
That to being cooped within my home.
Oh heat, I wish you'd cool and let me roam.

Us

Just let me be

As I have been

Which is happy

So I win.

There's nothing I

Can do or say

To explain why

Or in what way

I am so glad

But saying this:

That I have had

A special bliss.

With her I know

Our love with grow.

Sloppy

Time and time again I find myself
Writing one thought in a thousand ways;
Reaching back up onto some mental shelf
To seek the same sort of ecstatic praise
I've said before. Yet every time they are
Seemingly unique within my soul.
I must acknowledge they are never far
From each other; make a common whole
(My life and love); all touch my single heart.
Yet even with this commonality
I see the difference between each part
And mourn my unoriginality.
But every time I say it strangely, know
The heart of me is properly aglow.

Wakeful Mornings

A youthful Cupid found himself alone:
His mother, dallying with Mars, was gone,
And all his human toys asleep or grown
By ancient age too listless for him. Dawn
Was rising slowly in the east, and he,
Languid and bored, wandered without aim.
Then suddenly his blind eyes lit on me,
Awake perforce and subject to his claim.
But as he bent his bow to shoot me down,
He noticed something lodged within my breast,
And with a piqued but empathetic frown
Witnessed a prior arrow in my chest,
And turned, and flew away, knowing I woke
Only because of his previous stroke.

Of Court

Familiarity does not breed contempt
But rather happiness. Who would not be
(Except for those who are from joy exempt
And wallow in their empty villainy)
Happy to see a face over again
That had brought comfort to them in the past?
Who would not want to spend their time with men
And women whose affections always last?
I know for me these feelings dominate the sense
(On which that proverb likely built its strength)
That fondnesses, no matter how immense,
Attenuate as they extend their length.
There is no limit to my liking; no,
The act of liking causes it to grow.