cup your hands and receive the worlds blossoms:
wealth, warmth, and wisdom
i pray you will hold them

I want to write frankly and without pretense,
I'm young and sort of inexperienced,
But I'll tell you since you've asked:
I have thirty-nine hidden poems about rivers.
Crying poetry distracts me from tinnitus,
Frissonic song evokes inner wants in me;
Ants in my shoe, bites on my knee,
Bends in my spine, quavers in my soul
Remind me of how imperfect I am.
        I've seen a glimpse of stoic vision
        And I'm appalled, to tell the truth.
        I want to give you words of wisdom,
        But all I can muster is my own dumb youth.

There was none universally adored by men;
Though some are loved by all the world,
Even so there are things abhorred of them.

Pick you a jolly good chappie, but dig
To his depths, and you shall find a rotten den,
And all the ugly things abhorred of him.

Good souls live, but never exceed their ken,
Nor let another grasp their heart again,
Though they be loved by all the world.

Still today they abhor Him;
Though He is love and all the world,
He could not be adored by every man.

When ancients in our eyes waged war in green Gaul,
He fought for new wealth and nobleman's glory,
He rose from mud where slave-spears lay shattered,
And raised the good name of his house from disgrace.
Binding giants in a favorable pact,
The consulship could well be attained,
But men of the day could not perceive greatness,
And barred him from beloved Rome.
So he rode out and vanquished the untamed Gauls,
Who once had brought Rome to its fearful knees,
Winning victory after victory in forests of the north,
Splitting oaks in the east, where his sword marred its sheen.
When fleets by Britain's cliffs hemmed the horizon,
When the seat of the Sphinx was polished marble-gold,
There were ten thousand Greeks could tell of his exploits,
And ten hundred Egyptians who claimed to know him.
With rude steel, he mastered the Mediterranean,
And over the Earth he brandished civilization.
In later years, his heirs spread like a stain upon the land;
The seas too were dyed with Roman sails,
And every coin minted bore the face of Caesar.
Even now, though the empire is hardened like iron,
And purple luxury replaces the crimson of war,
There are still a few among us who remember
Our young and mighty red-feathered conqueror.

I dreamt that they would take you.
You may think me a fool,
But of this I am not wrong.
My dream was real in every way:
The dull, the dim, the black and grey,
In certainty, I saw you fall,
And I will suffer most of all,
If you will not my warning heed,
If you’ll succumb to lust and greed,
And let them take you and make you bleed,
As I dreamt that they would do.

When you are gone, what will I do?
Shall I go home, alone and blue?
What will your father think of you,
Who let herself be taken?

Your sister will cease to play the harp,
Your brother will sit alone in the dark,
Poor mother will own a broken heart,
Her weeping spirit shaken.

Oh, you might think me a fool,
But this time I'm not wrong.
If you’ll ignite that inner spark,
And tell the flame to pierce the dark,
Then you may know the morning lark,
And nothing on Earth can break you.

Still, you ignore my pleas,
As I sink unto my knees,
And nothing I say—
No warning imploring—
Can stifle your hum and wake you.
Alas! I’ll cry, I’ll sigh, I’ll die!
For I dreamt that they will take you.

The deep somber toll of a brass bell,
a black wagon carrying me to the grave:
these are the sighs of a missed Friday.

Then disappear,
fly far away,
bound over cloud,
hide in blue solace.

But never forever,
dear dove, I pray,
for light and love
are with you always.