Whimsical Wanderings

The chapter of the poetry book that contains poems that have to do with expression, freedom, and nature.

 

Pointless

 

Wooden pencils are tree trunks scraping across papery entrails

and pens are even worse, poisoning the freshness with black rivers.

These instruments pierce the paper with meaningless words

Row after row,

Line after line,

Minute after minute, chasing the little leg of time around the circle

Until sixteen years later you wonder what it all meant.

Will you have a chance to use it now?

The information stuffed into your brain for decades like Styrofoam pieces

Or maybe it was water draining through a sieve, dripping down into nothingness.

Now is the time to write until your fingers turn raw and weary with carpal tunnel

To write on paper only to receive paper back validating the days spent forcing your soul onto single sheets

Because the mind can be encompassed into the end of a ballpoint pen.

The trees attempt to reach into the genius sky, but are hampered down by the constraints of a one-dimensional square

Waiting for the day that they won’t have to be imprisoned anymore by bars on paper.

Chalk is an epidemic spreading over boards, smearing them with anthrax whiteness

while the backpacks laden with thousands of pounds cause premature hernias in fragile bodies, bending under their weight

and desks causing early arthritis in world weary, ordinary people.

Rooms full of windows are empty eyes devoid of promise, escape or life

And some rooms have no eyes, only ears deadened to lamentations or please for clarification

But when your sentence is over and your feet sink into the gray pavement for the last time

Your life flashes by in sound bits

And there is still no explanation for the incarceration.

You were innocent.

 

 

 

 

  

 Free

 

I finally got it out of the way

I can finally decide to drop the charade

The putting off, the endless stalling

In hopes that you’d come calling

 

The year has gone by so fast,

Swallowed up in a world so vast

But you were still in the back of my mind

Blocking the peace I tried to find

 

So I finally did it; I talked to you

Now I can make my big debut

I can relax, enjoy, and have fun

And dance under the rays of the sun

 

I’m glad I found a friend in you

And overlook the crazy things you made me do

Now I look at you and laugh and smile

Because that hasn’t been for quite a while

 

 

 

  

 

Silence of the Sky

 

The white snow dirtied the trees and trapped porcelain angels in its embrace.
It rose and fell in arcs of ice, burning the ground as it landed
while whistling wind whooshed, galloping into the sun and whipped its rays into a fan, shielding me.
I cut its brilliancy into facets and watched it bleed dry,
I searched high and in the frozen summits and low in the vacant depths for the day before
frozen here, in timeless limbo,
brought here to this expanse, for only breathless moments.
The bark sheathed soldiers stood, making ribbon patterns against the blue sky
their deadened limbs sinking to the ground in a collage of tangled colors.
I don't know what I was expecting in this white world
the stillness a photograph, with every feature defined,
Struggling through snow banks, the highest point between earth and space where everything was still,
quiet in the gathering dark
while I launched myself off the edge
unbeknownst what I was jumping for
into the white abyss of wet flurries.

 

 

 

 

 Acquaintance with Song

 

I’ve known songs

Melodious, harmonious songs

Beautifully crafted through the ages

 

Our national anthem on the Fourth of July

The old Negro’s mournful cry

Beethoven’s Ode to Joy

And the possibilities and songs we prophesy

 

I have known notes floating above me

Around me, and being within

I am one loved by the song

It lives on in me

 

I now know the songs and have become acquainted

The mournful passing shall not enter here

When music has long left great halls

Mine will not become faded

 

I’ve known songs

Melodious, harmonious songs

But they will know me all the more

 

 

 

 

 

  

 Creation

 

The blank page mocks me

It wants to prove with its ominous white space that it has won.

I know better.

With my pen poised above the paper, I prepare to scribble in every nick and cranny, ravish it with my rhythmic dirges, and sing music to melt hallelujahs from countless souls.

But hesitation halts my hands, and the page knows why.

It reminds me with its wintry emptiness

The vacuous space reverberates in my head, screaming at me to give it life

I am not God.

If I were, life wouldn’t be a sea of emotionless faces forcing me to gasp throat-fulls of tepid water.

The impossible could be possible, like calling all angels from their heavenly posts into the searing sunlight until they burned,   

And beauty wouldn’t just be a memory, waiting for a chance to rise and prove its worth again

Erasing the past without ever writing the future allows me to lock away everything

This prolongs my hesitation.

The words are a prisoner of the pen, allowing time to be the victim and avenge the spilled blood

And then there was nothing but the world in my hands

That convoluted innocence of the blankness and solitude enveloped the world within the darkness and the depths of the morn which opened the light of the world and refused to acknowledge the bane. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Certain Place in Time

 

There is a certain place in time

At the end of flowers’ bloom

When the roses decide in their prime

To fold in wind’s chilly afternoon

 

I wander here emotionless

Through the timeless ages

When everything has common sense

And the dawn breaks in stages

 

When the shadows call my name

And the breeze whispers my destiny

I will not be put to shame

For the enjoyment of the fool’s assembly

 

There are bridges to burn

There’s no light at the end of the tunnel

But we do have lessons to learn

And civility to shock and pummel

 

The burning, restless agony

Haunts me everyday

Has me wandering aimlessly

And causes me to say

 

That here time stands still

And hope never fades

I will watching, waiting

Till the end of time’s chill

 

 

 

 

Change

 

If I could change your life

If I could erase one event

To get rid of those dirge-like wedding bells

And escape the notion that my decision was hell-bent

 

If I ever thought that what I rashly did

Would make the world seem like a stranger

And could bring the angst I’d bought, I’d sell it for the highest bid

And try to find another way to understand

 

There is a difference between falling and being in love

One never reaches the breaking point, the other lasts

There is no room for error or to act like the pain

Of morbid death and broken arms in casts

 

If all the love you’ve ever known

Could put you in an airtight grave

But only after you changed into a drone entity

And escaped all the teardrops you could save

 

A kiss is just a kiss until you’ve been kissed

A word is simply a word, until the act of saying

That a stone is simply stone until you put it on a band

And curse it one day by calling it a ring

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tainted Lily

 

My life is a soiled lily among thorns

That scratch and tear at the delicate leaves

O that a perfect flower would be so abused!

But I find peace whenever I’m confused among the wreckage

The seeds fly away in the harsh, frigid breeze

While the lily lies in the gloom, the leaves wilted and dead

Afraid of all the hurts and words not said

While being planted in a crossroads, an unwanted choice

Broken, soiled, and alone, it lies there, crumpled against time

Angry and hateful at love not shown

The burden is one that humanity stoically bears

When they hide behind all the masks they wear

But then the sunrise shines and purges the lily once more

So that the morning light reflects off white petals and fresh green leaves

And the seeds came back in a warm, loving breeze

For I have realized that all that I have searched for, wanted, said, and thought are meaningless illusions

Which would account for my obvious confusion

Because meaning means truth will still shine through the facades that inherently scar

And give us all a well-deserved shock

It shines inside and out, reflecting into a rainbow of individuality

And peace will come to all that aren’t afraid of personality

The proud lily will rise among the thorns

Tearing and splitting while it struggles to overcome

Growing everlastingly in a lush, green spot

Standing at a crossroads unbroken and fair

Willing to sacrifice and accept the unmet challenge

Having made the choice that people run from

Its broken stone heart will soon learn how to care

By learning the meaning of life and how to live

How to say goodbye and to really forgive

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beauty

 

A person is never more beautiful

Than in their prime, in the world’s eyes

Flowers burst with color and make life seem full

But I have seen them wilt and die

 

I’d hoped to have it encompassed in me

Eternally growing more lovely

The fountain of youth sprung from the sea

Always alive through the tempestuous breeze

 

Following the yellow brick is easy

Now that it glitters as the sun

After time, when people become sleazy

That road should be the only one

 

A cacophony of swans

Shrieked and woke me up to you

But they dipped where my dreams hang

And inhabit all that I do

 

Rain is falling in transparent drops

Even thought there are no dark clouds

But every moment a heart could stop

And the body covered by dark shrouds

 

But when the day breaks

Sunshine falls in golden rays

Just like the rain makes mud cakes

And summertime should stay

 

But even through transparent drops

Sunlight glistens and makes them shine

Until they evaporate and stop

As if their calling were somehow divine

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Author's Note

Please honestly tell me your opinion, and if you would pay around $4 for a book with similar material. I'm planning to self publish this by the end of the year. Thank you!