What Is Poetry?

Poetry happens when an emotion finds its thought, and that thought finds words.
- Robert Frost

All the words that I utter,
And all the words that I write,
Must spread their wings untiring,
And never rest in their flight,
Till they come to where your sad, sad heart is,
And sing to you in the night,
Beyond where the waters are moving,
Storm-darkened or starry bright.

Yet Another Silly Poem

You walked lightly into my life
Captivating and lovely to my mind,
At first, I did not know who you were.
Now I don’t know who I am without you.
You kissed me
I felt my world change,
You held me
I heard my heart awaken,
You loved me
And my soul was born anew

You walked lightly into my life
Now my heart knows who you are
And with every breath
And every step
I take down lonely roads,
Your hand is my staff
Your voice is my guide
Your strength my shelter
Your passion my awakening.

You walked lightly into my life,
And all my pain
You took as your own,
And all my fears
You cast into the sea,
All my doubt
Lost in your eyes,

You walked lightly into my life
And no matter if you choose to stay or go,
My life is forever changed,
Just because you loved me
For a moment in time.
And because I choose
To love you
For the rest of mine.

I Fool Myself

Love! you dealt a bitter blow,
To lay me cross the mortal plains,
Bedewed, bedimmed amongst a cloud
To weep at my enduring foe
Of harsh reality - the searing pains of
Destiny: dependable propensity
To fool myself repeatedly,
That I can ever triumph over love!

In My Life

In a wilderness of mirrors,
truths concealed behind reflections,
of reflections, of reflections,
I must be who I am
or be rendered insensate
by repeated assaults on core beliefs.

Enlightenment comes slowly,
questions with increasing rapidity,
but the search for answers
always brings a finding -
great mysteries shrouded
in complete simplicity.

A line of birds silhouetted
by a descending, golden sun
dance across the waves,
and I summon distant memories
of those times, that life we shared,
when we walked hand in hand
through the surf's break.

I could die a little each day,
the waiting killing me,
but I've lived in that cage,
too long marking days
by the passing of damaging emotions;
the loss of compassion
putting a hard edge on a life
now softened by eyes
that reignite a zeal,
brought forth in a single being,
a solitary caress.

The Coffee Blonde

Blonde and breathless,
And a flurry of curls;
A whirlwind of activity
Flowing from hither to fro -
Yet simple, uncomplicated,
Elegant, beautiful.

The window casts a light
On the delicate white
Curve of her neck,
Setting tresses ablaze
And there falling lights strong hands
Caught in simple service.

What innumerable follies
Lay waste my thoughts;
This everyday image
Calling me through soul silence,
Catching me as I read
And pen these lines.

Cycles

She rose above her surroundings,
As if by nature,
hair of burnished bronze
Seemingly hand rubbed to a fine luster.

Eyes blue and bright
As the skies overhead -
Sparkling eyes
That mirror the meadows dew.

She was large-hearted,
And merry, and frank
Because of her fearlessness,
of her consciousness of power.

Yet change set in,
With prosperity and adversity,
New faces coming,
Old ones departing.

And the next cycle,
On which none can impact,
Creates a new colony,
Fortunes repeated from the last.

Freeze This Moment

We were sitting on a hillside
Staring at the skies
The sun was dipping lower
I looked into your eyes
You saw what I was feeling
I know you felt it too
We wanted time to just stand still
Then forever there'd be me and you
Why can't we freeze this moment?
Return to it in time?
Stay together through the years
Proclaim I'm yours and you are mine?
So let us freeze this moment
Store it safely away
Even if we leave this place
We'll return to it someday

A First Kiss

Got a kiss from a pretty girl!
It lingers on my lips.
It caught me off guard
But not by surprise,
It came as much from her mouth
As from her eyes.

A Meager Life

Rain on my roof
Drowns the ocean,
And obfuscates the vision
Of my dreams.

Oatmeal and tea,
Poetry and prose,
Grace and love
My comforts.

It is enough,
You know;
A meager and
Beleaguered life.

Untitled Memory #1

The hasty kiss of youth impatient,
Like the cold north winds' blow,
Leaves want of summers' breeze,
Of lingering warmth in soul.

Natural Forces

I have felt the pull of the moon
Bearing against my body
As it draws the ocean
With a force irresistible.

I know the weight of water in a stream
Pressing relentlessly in its course,
Carving through rock and reducing
Stone to pebble to sand to silt.

I have dreamt dreams of falling,
Fearlessly, from heights unknown,
Rushing to some eternal abyss
With the speed of light.

Such forces as define physics
And nature and dreams
Are all eclipsed by this -
That power called love.

Untitled Memory #2

Your whole body holds a goblet
Of gentle sweetness destined for me.
When I let my hands climb
In each place I find a dove
That was looking for me, as if
My love, He had made you of clay
For my very own potters hands.

Your knees, your breasts, your waist
Are missing in me, like in the hollow
Of a thirsting earth,
Where they relinquish a form,
And together we are complete
Like one single river,
Like a single grain of sand.

In Third Person

He was that carpenter,
the one who walked behind the coffin
dry-eyed;
He never had made a name for himself.
And then his feet no longer moved,
because, poor and tired, he had died.

Already, other feet walked in his footsteps,
those other feet still him,
those other hands his as well.
But yet, he persisted
when it seemed he must be spent.
He was the same man again,
he was once again different and the same.

Only when that broken man was able
did he come back to life,
remaining unnoticed.
He was that man allright,
and he no longer stood out
from the others,
others who were himself.

He gave away his existence,
that was all.
He had never been contained
in a song,
or by his mortal form.
He went somewhere else to work,
and ultimately he went toward death
until he existed only
in what he left behind;
tree-lined boulevards
he would not be aware of,
wooden homes he would not inhabit again.

And I come back to see him,
and every day I wait.
I still see him,
in his coffin and resurrected.
I pick him out from all the others
who are no less his equals.

And it seems to me
that this cannot be,
that this way leads us somewhere,
that to continue is recovery.
I believe that heaven
must emcompass this man
living happy, joyous and free.