The crackling of the flames demand
Another log for its survival,
And like the fire sways I stand,
At ease, but never idle.
As smokey plumes of winds are fanned
To rise like dancing dragon spirals,
Between the heavens and Earthly lands,
A moral grey expanse goes viral,
To look down upon the vast and grand,
On a world that teeth's with foe and rival.
Gazing into the fires relentless motion,
I soon find myself displaced,
In a trance immune to the commotion
Of universal haste,
And heated bursts of sparked emotion,
Sent streaming tears down my face.

People gathered in the courtyard
In their usual bouts of revelry.
Unaware of the one they all discard,
Shooting glances trite with brevity…
And out of this planted seed it grew,
A tendency to do as shadows do….

Hidden from the obtuse eye
In the dark to all of his peers.
Latent, in muse, off to the side,
They don’t feel the stinging tears…
And like a balloon inflates it grew,
A tendency to do as shadows do…

His words tethering in the wind
Like cotton spores in seasons bloom.
Reclusive by all, his natures pinned,
Cast aside left only to loom…
And like dark clouds in a storm it grew,
A tendency to do as shadows do…

He shouldn't have to go it alone,
But there’s no one to whom he can turn.
Time and again, for innately he’s prone,
The bereft ashes of a forgotten urn…
And like a plume of smoke it grew,
A tendency to do as shadows do…

The growth of this malevolent blight
Left him bitter but not in spite.
Abandoned, like a shadow—lost to the night,
He hadn’t a choice but to sit and to write…
And as darkness after sunset it grew,
A tendency to do as shadows do…

As I sit 'neath the blackened sky,
inhale a faith with spirits high,
But doubts innate I can't deny,
Exhale a longing to defy.

The veil of nights extended sigh,
Impedes the minds of passerby.
To what is it I should rely
When but a stranger to them am I?

I look to God for reasons why,
Yet silence returned without reply.
Will divinity ever hear my cry
As troubling thoughts to mend I try?

No use to wipe my eyes, they're dry,
The depths of my abyss, I lie,
Tonight, I'm lost... Left to die
In the shadows where no truths apply.

I guess I’m okay… What more can I say?
Forget it—never mind,
You wouldn’t understand anyway,
Would you even know what it's like?
Inside a scattered disconnected mind,
Employed to go on strike?
Where indirect misdirect
The sincerity at play,
When sinusoidal chaos spikes
And past meets the future present day?
As paranoid points outlandishly connect
At intervals of broken lines,
Memory lost in recollect,
An array of misshaped bells
Internally infect the eternal confines
Of infinite distributional decay,
Parallels with no intersect,
Streetwise cells with empty signs,
Burned out lights, potholes, and landmines,
Littered all the way.
How am I to convey that all those times
You let your mind wander away
That I was reading, thinking, dreaming,
Teeming, never idle, never strayed,
Seeing, being, so far and away,
Even the brightest intellect beaming,
Could not grasp the feeling
In the slightest of highest orders reeling,
Wound unbound, or as it would be seeming,
Imperfect, even to the disarray
Of the tamest prefect, whose verdict
Could not predict the reflect,
For in this world, seeing is deceiving,
As the lamest reject, defect,
Increasingly decreasing,
In simplistic bliss obey
Crowned unsound fallacies
That contradict all meaning,
Hiding behind reality, the actualities
Lest, protect the thoughtlessness perceiving,
Let me stop you if I may...
I must interject for I digress,
What nonsense was I weaving?
Forget it—I've lost my mind,
I best be leaving,
What more can I say?
It's periodic I must confess,
You probably don't care anyway,
Yeah, yeah, I'll be okay,
Until next time I guess,
I wouldn't want to be misleading.

Once more a storm had quelled my sight,
As the ocean waves stirred violently,
Shouting into the fray, "Is tonight the night...
Or will they again drift back to me?"
And as darkness dimmed desirous light,
I cast my wishes out to sea.

Swelling waves ravage all in their wake,
As I hold on tight with spirits worn,
My withering sails, bound to break,
For merciless winds have left them torn.
Assured my faith would not forsake,
I treated the ails of any scorn,
And awaited shores these waters take,
To lift me from a life forlorn.

Through the fading storm light broke free,
And where it shone beyond the stern,
I saw it floating aimlessly
Amidst the settled waters churn.
I whispered to myself, "How could it be?"
With cause for real concern,
For drifting right on back to me,
Was all I'd hoped to not return.

I began to pray a prayer of plea,
"Be gone my wishes!" Unwilling to learn,
That this captive wish just could not flee,
Longer—must I sail to yearn.
I scooped it up out of the sea,
And sealed it tightly within an urn,
To let them fade to eternity,
As my weary soul was left to burn.

Without a second thought
She casts a shadow—
To reign down upon his lot,
Still waters; cold and shallow.
Struggling in her web he’s caught,
Left hanging in the gallows.
His heart—all but left to rot,
Her perception of him, fallow.

He tilled the fields of thought
With acre upon acre of roses.
Untying even the toughest knots
So loves door never closes.
He didn’t care if it were for naught,
An intrigue that never dozes,
But broke when he missed his shot,
A lonely bard in a field of roses.

She did not see him in such grace
To look past his imperfection,
Nor climbed the wall to see his place
Of fervent—lasting affection.
In a world of chatter he sat—
In eerie prolonged silence,
To love but not be loved back,
She drowned him in diffidence.

Day after day they ask of me,
To categorize, describe, or define.
I say nay! For I cannot be,
Any shape with an outline.

I may be ragged, I may be clean;
Some say jagged; others say keen.
I can be nice, I can be mean,
I am of vice with virtues unseen.

I'm liquid moving, meandering,
Once I stop, I'm a solid thing.
At times I sit, anticipating,
Being gas, or vapor, dissipating.

At times I’m bold and all-pervading;
Others cold, to cower in fright.
At times I feel content in waiting;
Or see my patience flee from sight.

Who or what am I?
Why don’t you tell me!
I know I’m human to live and to die;
To be honest, that’s about all I can be.