poesy.

I have dreamed dreams, and seen scenes,
Of a far off country,
Of a distant land that smells like home,
After the soft refrain of a gentle evening rain.
I recognized finding that winding trail of matted-down grass
Which led up the green hillside, up to the rocky pass;
The lone oak tree,
Ancient and solemn, yet gay and free,
Looked down on the mottled, golden ground
And proudly spread his swaying, shady boughs
Down and across, over and around, to the edge of the lake.
The water was as blue and pure
As the sure and friendly sky that stretched,
Yawning and lazy in the sun, overhead.
It was a view at once foreign and peculiar,
Yet natural, and somehow strikingly familiar;

For I remembered that shady, hidden glade,
Where I ventured down for a time, and stayed,
Watching the water chasing and racing itself,
Listening to the glowing water flowing
Down and down the shiny brown and glistening rocks
In clear and happy cataracts.
I remembered the crossroads, and knew for certain,
Which path led, circuitously, up to my old mountain—
I found I knew somehow
(I know not how!)
Its old greens, and warm golds, and browns,
The evening hum and thrum of summer,
I knew inside its every sigh and sound
And understood its every rustling murmur.
How come these memories to be
Of a place more beautiful
Than any these eyes have yet perceived?
How come these longings so,
For a home that is missed,
Which I have nonetheless never known?

When the day is done and lies like dirty dishes in the sink,
When the cracked pavement in the street
Still warms my ginger barefoot feet;
The wailing of sirens tell
How someone, somewhere, is dying.
But it is not me, thank God.
I tell myself:
It is someone else, and not me, that is dying.
Even on sunny March days, like today,
When the lingering sickness of winter’s waves
Have finally begun to recede;
These sunny days, these sunny days are disastrous inside,
A shipwreck of thought at low tide.
And so much the worse for being incomprehensible
(And impossible to hide!)
For those that haven’t felt It.

Oh, do not ask me, what It is.
I grow old inside, when I think to try and say—
Wrapped in the cords of my own dismay.

The laughing drunk girl
Exclaims in the voice of health:
“I’m so in love with myself;
I think so very much of myself.”
For myself, I could not hear the words that preceded
This unprecedented, but much needed, display of honesty.
The backwash bits of leftover beer
In clear glasses upon the dirty and dishevelled table
Are fabled reminders of an unconscious truth:
Which once spoken and known
Are thrown into the trash,
Emptied out with the cigarette butts and the ash,
And deliberately forgotten.

This desperation that wells inside my chest
Is best described…no, never mind.
I grow old inside, trying to describe.
I grow old and tired inside, trying to choose choices
That only make me die.

And so I simply sigh, or turn my head and smile.
And think of other words, while retreating,
Back-pedalling all the while.
What was that I said? I must apologize—
My vision is bad; it is getting worse with age!
Too many days have I squinted, and stared at the printed word
On the ever-darkening page.

I am growing older, if only by default.
Yet still I throw my hands back and say
“It is not my fault. It is not all my fault.”

But what mere mortal can ever rightly say
The delicate balance of bravery with stupidity?
I have seen my own words slither out to dance and play,
With fingers finely coated with perfidity.
And like the great King, I too have been weighed,
And found decidedly wanting.
And in short: I am afraid.
Afraid of the pulse which throbs in my neck,
Afraid of the plank, of which I see but a speck!
Afraid of the cold, unconscious stare,
Of ivory arms, charming and bare.
I grow old…I grow old,
When I see the glowing embers of the fire growing cold.
And should I return to the sun-warmed lands,
Glancing behind me and wringing my hands?
With tremulous steps, I creep to the edge of that lake
And dying of thirst, find first and foremost
That oceans of water my thirst cannot slake.

I grow old.
A man of constant sorrows, if the truth be plainly told.
Acquainted with grief, familiar with suffering,
But yet I rejoice…for I am in good company.

Arranging the words in such and such a way,
Trying to find what I’m trying to say:
Trying to pour out a precious, perfumed oil—
The toil of days and centuries—
Which, left unattended, will certainly spoil.
For I live on a beach, and write my words in the sand,
I stand, while the sun sets, and watch the works of my hand
Swept away, by the troublesome waves
That come crawling in every night.
It’s a sad, ridiculous sight, to see my scrawlings by the soft morning light.
The tide swallows all, consistently without a warning.
I fear I’ve become a badly told story,
Clichéd and shallow, painfully boring.
Repetitive and tedious, saying over and over
The same silly lines, while looking so sober.
Recited by wrote so there’s nothing to say,
Rearranging the words into every which way.