Familial Debate

Father…

Why is it I should wait?

Wait too long and it will be too late–

there is a world in front of me,

perhaps you’re just too old still to see

there’s nothing I can do as but a boy,

I’m nothing more than the world’s toy

it takes a man to travel

and in unfettered heights to revel;

why do you hate me so?

Why do you treat me as a babe so low?

I want to learn, I want to help

I want to be more than a fleeting yelp.

Child…

What would you call a yelp?

Why are you so eager to join the kelp?

Swim, swim away from time;

oh, what I wouldn’t give to know again the easy rhyme

you name stagnation

in your howl for the abdication

of the innocence of love and play,

oh child, no, if only you could hear me pray–

I pray for you and for your soul,

a soul from me the world so stole–

perhaps it’s curse you never could

know there’s no return to bartered childhood.

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The Iron Mask

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Absent light

We stood before the mirror

To laugh away the night—

To watch the ebon shearer

Carve away all trace of color,

No escape within the muddled dance

Like finest wine tread through the muller

Far and away from time’s own chance.

 

Some men would brawl

To preserve that childhood lie,

Yet all must face the wall—

The iron mask—or die.

One more night

Jacob's Dream, by Adam Elsheimer. Image care of Wikimedia Commons.

Child wakes

the deep dark drink

Eternity

lost somewhere between

the closet and the sheets,

mother’s cries no assurance

to the ones that can still see.

Only bears might be knights

to ward reality another night;

only dolls might soothe the tears

of time’s inevitable drum.

One more night, they cry,

and the pillow does oblige.

* After the theme of imagination I laid out yesterday, I thought it only appropriate to offer up a poem to it too. It is a precious gift, mankind was given. A tragic fact that it is too often lost as the child drifts into adulthood…

Sundress Summers

Barefoot,

Sundress summers

Bloomed in yellow visions

With the milky drink of your lips—

Child love.

My latest submission for the gathering that is One Shot Wednesday. Returning this week to a style that’s been an old favorite of mine – the cinquain – for the purposes of capturing that summer swell. Lord knows we’ve had the weather for it here.

Undercover

Breathe light.

The moment the

candle flickers to dark

no covers keep the monsters back–

life holds.

* My latest contribution to the wonderful One Shot Poetry Wednesdays! The style used here is known as Cinquain, a five-line stanza form containing twenty-two syllables, in the sequence: 2, 4, 6, 8, 2. Notice I’ve been on a bit of a Cinquain trip lately? So have I. It happens. I’ve been form-napped.

Father’s Song

I watch them ride

memories of my failures–

wonder if I tried

or all were vaunted blunders.

–

Too long I’ve been afield,

at war with thought, the world–

from this madness I have tried to shield

and so into the madness, they’ve unfurled.

Decaying in Orbit

We are drifting

You and I

I can see it in your eye

This sifting

Chasm lengthens

And the shadowed fens

Are growing.

That smile you once held for me

My smile

Is now a vacant stare

We look to one another

But there’s nothing there

Just silence

In the space

That once beheld our laughter.

Older, wiser

Colder

The child slithers from us

And so do we

These shadows lengthen

As we pull apart.

Still we look

Captive to memory

Unable to let go

But unable to remain

We are gripped and we are broken

And I am decaying in orbit

Around the very stars

That made my

Universe.

Set Me Free

Set me off into the Black

far beyond the stars

set me off into the Wild

far beyond the wilderness.

Set me free of mortal hearts

and weighted thoughts,

so low, so low,

and break these chains that

bind me to this coil—

what life,

what prison

now is this?

Press the suit and

straighten up that tie,

you are a man, it says

but you are just a boy

playing at a world of

mysterium and drama that has

devoided itself of plot.

–

There is a key

to thee and thine and mine,

and nestled just behind that door

is freedom yet incarnate.

In a breath, breathe—

so few have ever tasted

the freshness of the air—

recycled reconfigurations of reality—

that will be your paycheck please—

and this feeling is not falsified,

unbound, unguarded it yearns

for the taking—just breathe—

and feel the air,

feels, felt, feeling

this momentary being—

all I want is to breathe

and to feel, yet to be,

to stretch beyond perception

and feel the days beyond

that calendar—no shifts scheduled here.

–

No vacancy,

sincerest apologies

this mind is mine and yet

one waits beyond, yet yours—

this mirror of a soul you grasp

what a reflection is it not?

There is the dawning,

the rain is falling down

and through the swirl of purple haze,

these diamonds dribble through the

emerald leaves, like tiny lovers—

in your caress, this breath unbidden

slithers through my chest

and down into my roots—

I am born again, stretching

for the clouds.

Air, give me air,

Prayer and dream and reverie

are forever in the field—

give me space to work.

My latest contribution to the wonderful One Shot Poetry Wednesdays! Once you’ve had a look, check out some of the other One Shot Poets as well– they’re a skilled bunch of poets, looking to form a community and support one another.  Enjoy!