Scav, Interrupted

Hours hours
Nothing left
No more powers
All bereft
Weary, drooping
Feeling slow
Mind self-looping
Letting go
Every feeling
Seeping out
Senses reeling
In a rout
And in sum
Halfway numb.

Slowdance

One step forward, two steps back
Is a formal kind of dance
Fit for fitful, shy romance,
Burdened by a certain lack;
Dances ought to be more slack,
Open to the sudden chance
When emotions quickly lance
Through the heart and make it crack.
This pavan is far too stately
Love should swing and syncopate;
I adore such dancing greatly
Bent and swaying, not held straight.
So I turn and turn and swirl
Ever forward in my whirl.

Bandersnatch

So many poems in a little brain
Explode with violence sometimes. I find
I overwhelm the corners of my mind
With syllables and beats. The constant stain
Of words within is a delightful strain
But still a strain on where it is confined.
No matter how I try to hold or bind
The thoughts will flow. As easy stop the main
Or bid the sun depart as urge me to
Cease writing - or cease thinking what I write.
It is a source of pleasure and delight,
Of course, but even so what can I do?
Forced pleasure is still pleasure, but not just;
I write for joy - but also since I must.

Wait Times

Should I, like classic lovers, subdivide
My minutes into hours, and those long,
And claim that in those hours there could hide
As many minutes more, I would be wrong.
Likewise, if I pretended there could be,
Within a day of missing you, a year,
Or stretch that year into infinity
The truth and I would never then be near.
That's not to say poetical excess
Has no place left within the lover's heart,
But that I have no need to thus digress
From simple truth to read my lover's part:
The days I miss you are but days - but still
Too long a time for love to lack its will.

Coffee

Ideas can come in flashes
And go again as quickly
They tear up massive gashes
Within a brain that's sickly
But in a mind that's wise
And ready for the truth
They come as no surprise
As symptoms of their youth
No matter what their age
In calendars may be
Their mind can still engage
Thus intuitively
And so I sit and drink
In hope that I will think.

Extra

I have within a quantity of joy
That overflows the bounds that it contains;
Therefore, lest uncontrolled it spill and cloy,
I jar it up in sonnets, which explains
Why such a flux of flowing, liquid bliss
Should find itself encased in antique lines;
It would have spoiled in advance of this
Were it not laid within these harsh confines.
By placing it herein I find it grows
And takes new life from being out of me;
So with each poem more and more it flows,
Until it overwhelms the poetry
And that's left is me, joyfully light
Screaming ecstatic lines into the night.

Stormy Weather

You can tell a lot of things about a person
By whether they were ready for the rain
And then, when that rainfall begins to worsen
How they react to that peculiar strain.
Were they prepared already with their coat
Triply-forged proof against the drizzly threat?
Or was their dressing done by simple rote
And everything about them hangs all wet?
Or were they in the mediocre range
Between the two extremes, umbrella-clad
Or rain-resistant, uttering new strange
Curses when the thunderstorm gets bad?
Each of these is a type: but these types hide
The wisest sort, that watch it from inside.

Weightiness

Since time before the time I can recall
I've always just assumed the best would come
While simultaneously doing all
I could to beat a pessimistic drum.
Now some of you believe this to be dumb,
And think my inward and my outward should
Be unified: and I'll admit there's some
Apparent truth in that, and it seems good,
But I know me, and therefore know I would
Be too complacent (see above: my trust
In best results is great) if I e'er should
Allow myself to say I think it must
All come out in the wash. Saying the worst
Wakes up the wish that was complacent first.

Things

There are so many things I'd like to do
And yet it feels like I've said that before
And will again, perhaps forevermore,
Since it's the point I always come back to:
I like to do things, 'specially with you,
So even though I'm saying it once more
In terms that can't be new, please don't ignore
The fact that when I say it, it's still true.
Banality is sinful only when
It's used in substitution for real thought;
And I can say that isn't what I sought
In saying so: I thought it through again
And mean it, too: I'd like to do so much
With you, and we could start with just a touch.

Ancient Prayer

Dost thou see?
Dost thou hear?
If, to me,
Thou giv'st ear,
Listen here
To my cries
And the tear
In my eyes;
Hear the lies
That whirl 'round
And despise
Their harsh sound.
Let them cease;
Give me peace.