Floating Spaceman

Apr 2016

Robert C Howard

"The pity of war, the pity war distills". - Wilfred Owen"

Just as a feral war begs for armistice,
    a season of peace engenders
a violence vacuum that begs to be filled
    as surely as a hollow begs for a pond.

It seems a cosmic battle rages
      between the oversouls of people
who would chisel a sculpture to grace
     and those who would hack off its arms.

History’s fools fire up their bully horns
     shouting proud oratory to ignorance -
and lemmings goose-step to the precipice -
      doomed to plunge into a sea of misery.

Then there is quiet - guilty and reflective.
     How could we let this happen
with so much gain and loss in the balance?

and the sculptors of civilization
      find fresh marble to once again
carve reason, beauty, purpose
      from the acrid ashes of pride.

But the oversoul of hate will brood and re-fester
     as long as it's thought noble to **** for a cause.

© 2016 by Robert Charles Howard

This poem was written in response to a poem by Vicki called Brooding. http://hellopoetry.com/poem/1560931/brooding/

#war #pride #recovery #civilization

Mar 2016

Rapunzoll

Embers of a Forgotten Past

The sun forgave itself
long ago, for burning too bright,
it scorched our touching palms,
cheek to cheek, it burnt.*

That night we whispered
A song to the reeds,
Let it drift down that
Wayward line of memories,
Let it settle in the graves
Of each bed we slept in.

We let fate colour our
Hearts recklessly, like a
Child who can't stay
Within the confined lines
Of their drawing book.

Until the dawn began,
And we let our skin simmer,
Melting on each other's lips.
Until we are only skeletons
Embracing through a
World set in flames.

"This is the way the world ends.
Not with a bang but a whimper.' —T.S. Eliot

© copyright

#love #heartbreak #poem #sad #depression #life #pain #death #hurt #thoughts

Floating Spaceman Mar 2016

Guilt

Guilt is a burden we all carry,
In our hearts and mind,
Slowly it erodes the conscious,
Contouring reality as we know it,

There is a link to all this madness,
A string which none of us could ever see,
Perhaps a man in black is pulling the strings or perhaps it is by the will of the Almighty,
But it is not to be entertained,

It is to be fought,
With every breath and every beat of the heart,
Valiantly, relentlessly, to the very end of our being,
Until the night turns to day,

Because life as we know it,
Is filled with wondrous and dreadful things,
But to dread on the dread is to end ourselves,
A death sentence to what could've been beautiful,

We owe it to ourselves to fight,
To never give in to self destruction,
Not all things are meant to last,
Some are meant to be kept in a box, locked away.

Just something i wrote to ease myself of the guilt i carry over the years

#life #hope #guilt

Mar 2016

Traveler

TRY TO UNDERSTAND

I dreamed about love
so deep I cried

So beautiful and unattainable
Yet still I tried

I tried to hold on
As long as I could

Yet my dreams are so often
Misunderstood...

Mar 2016

Daniel Ospina

The Man of Sycamore Keep

Fountain of youth runs in his veins,
The man who lives in Sycamore Keep.
His circadian clock had come to a halt,
Rather than rejoice, he sullenly weeps.
You would think that immortality is
The pinnacle of human existence,
All the time in the world and not a
Single malady to be of any resistance.
Yet there he sulks, the ageless man,
Cauterized by the turn of each century,
As loved ones breathe their last and
Become a parcel of his fractured memory.
But that is just the shell of his woes,
For even with all knowledge amassed,
He’s utterly aghast with the state of the
World unwilling to learn from the past.
Every crook and cranny explored,
Every experience well savored,
Now monotony for millennia to come,
His longing to live has ebbed and wavered.
I was told by the man of Sycamore Keep
That immortality is a curse so alluring.
Indeed, a hundred cultivated years is
Much better than hollow eons securing.
But sir, think of all the riches you’ve accrued
And mastery of all science and philosophies.
Who wouldn’t want to have the time to mark
The world and purge it from all its atrocities.
Say no more, interrupted the ageless man,
I applaud your idealism and optimistic delusion,
But you’re missing one essential element --
Even as immortals, we’d still be only human.
And to be human, is to be fallible. Let’s just say
That immortal fallibility will engender no good.
It'd be best to truncate our lifespan for the
Sake of our survival, yes truncate we should.
And that’s all I heard from the man of Sycamore Keep,
Who went on his way to his millennial weep.

Mar 2016

david mungoshi

on saying goodbye

this is where it was always leading
this parting of the ways, this fleeing
from the sore shots of life's arrows
it was always coming, this pulling
asunder in the glow of a last twilight
so fare thee well my friend and foe
you who slew my hopes and dreams
and made sure there were no streams
to cool my burning soul and quench
this horrible thirst that still persists
i hunger for the warmth you exuded
and thirst for that temperate streak in you,
a virtue now so rare and dear in this world
most are well-schooled in shameless artifice
so here now i sit in this elevated oblivion
watching you melt into the unkind distance
fare thee well, my spring and my nemesis
i shall in time learn to want nothing gone

I have fine-tuned this poem and I feel that it's now tighter and much closer to what I want. There is a sense in which in all true art we always fall short of the target, the more to strive, therefore.

#partingasundertwilightobliviondistance