NIGHT

after the world fell down

it left a weighty weaving darkness

full of fury but no sound

so quiet

we could not hear our own voices

*I wrote this poem on September 11, 2011 to commemorate the 10^th anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy.  OpenLinkNight http://dversepoets.com/

DISPATCH FROM A FUNERAL

Death is an unnatural thing.

It is a soul mate

wrapped in a shroud of

disquiet and tears.

It is a fickle friend

who chastens life with non existence while declaring,

“You are my best and most enduring part.”

-OpenLinkNight http://dversepoets.com/

INTERVENTION

I am an heir to a jagged edged apprehension:

no one and no thing will claim me

and,

by claiming,

teach me to claim myself.

As I race toward the grave

mainlining self-doubt,

snorting regret,

confusing mere stimulation for feeling and

pulse for life;

My repreve comes in

the echo of a soul writ large,

a voice laced with crystal sugar and

dichotomy;

singing of joyful misery without the

oft obligatory shame.

It is a voice that

repeats a vow I had only heard before

in dreams;

a promise

to cry my tears when I can't.

*Written in tribute to Amy Winehouse.  I wanted to express what her music has meant to me. Artists have the power to transform the consciousness of others, but they can pay a heavy price for that power.  I hope that Amy has the peace in death that she could not find in life.

-For OpenLinkNight at http://dversepoets.com/

YOUTH

You are my gift…I am your affliction.

You help me claim the parts of myself that I fear most.

With you, I can endure and build my life anew.

But

My survival constantly compels your destruction.

Yet

You live.

-For “One Shot Wednesday” at http://onestoppoetry.com/

DILEMMA

You made a choice which allowed you to keep

the world you knew.

The world beyond was a child’s fantasy-

to you

even in its very real appeal.

You chose what you valued, but

to your surprise

that fact did not make what you got a treasure.

Once, you only needed your prize for love.

Now, you need it to make up for all

you believe you have lost.

Instead of a victor

you feel like a human sacrifice to ideology

to a wish of the mind that destroyed hope and

faith.

And what of your discarded love?

Like a prodigal

you now see it as the gem it could

never have been before.

But is this impulse Truth, or

is it the desire of an ego to keep itself safe and fed?

Regret makes us bolder, but

it does not always make us wise.

Which option should you have chosen?

What price could you afford to pay?

-For “One Shot Wednesday” at http://onestoppoetry.com/

TOGETHER

“Tag, you’re it,” I said

dramatizing my own feelings

unwilling to see the you that lay

beyond my hopes and intentions.

I double dared you to confirm

what I had come to believe:

you would be just another memory-

possibly-

another regret.

My problem was not confusion

but the weight of my truth.

But

You were the brave one

who said, “If we love, let’s love!”

You gave me

a new beginning

that has the taste

of the purest childhood.

Together

we go to another country where

we can pretend

and

what we pretend to be

we are.

In this place

you are water

and

I am sand.

-For “One Shot Wednesday” at http://onestoppoetry.com/

DEATH

In my yearning for solitude,

I missed The Epiphany of

Sensation.

Alone, I found surety

but discovered that

it admits

no wonder.

What remained for me was

A Thought

and, occasionally…

A Dream.

When we suffer enough, we learn.