A desolate desire, a rambunctious hope.
To see the burning fire within this zealous stroke,
With inflamed vessels of red to be seared,
The beat of a heart with a sound quite fickle.

Undecided fate, lack of concentration.
  In a mind of dissipation, despise the renunciations.
Piece together the puzzle of the human mind and rip apart to be in the mad man's confines.
  
Fortitude to bear, uninterrupted disaster.
  Tutor the wreck less with ambition, explain your own maddening rendition.
  Take back the flames of a stolen heart, hope it lasts before it starts.

This moment is hushed by ecstasy.
The moment's breathe is held~
and you can see the dusty particles
floating through the pillars of light.
This is the exhale,
and is also the silence.
The observation tower of consciousness..
It all just orbits-
Minute molecules gyrate
in vast space.
The waves oscillate
in numberless meditation.
This is where thought
originates from.

It is the nature
of the mountain air.
It is the emptiness
in between speech.
It is the moment of possibility
when a loved one is leaving.
It is the moment experienced
when holding a baby first breathing.
It is the stem of
importance and meaning.

I am starting to remember
where we have been
and where we are going.

In one day,
she discovered herself.
In the next,
she restarted her life.
She put books, movies, and mementos on a shelf,
and in the bottom desk drawer, she secured away her knife.

In one month,
she was smiling again.
In the next,
she could see, for herself, a future.
All of her sadness had suddenly disappeared, like bathwater through an open drain.
A new approach to living, she felt mature.

In one span of time,
she made a mistake.
In the next,
she had plugged the tub and uncorked a bottle.
A tidal wave of rolling destruction left in the wake.
From bad to worse as more pressure added to the throttle.

And one day,
she hopefully will figure out,
whether she wants the lights on,
or to take a different route.

What is a poet?

A poet is able to capture a feeling with words.
To adeptly potray one. single. instance.
with words.
With scribbled, illegible
Or cleansingly, typed
clear, crystal, words.

I,
am not a poet.

I am a monkey,
deftly punching on a typewriter,
finger smashing keys,
expecting Shakespeare
to appear on a backlit screen
or a pure white notepad.

I am,
not a poet.

I am the grouch,
in a trash can.
Yellow moss on a rock,
pointing south. South.

I am not,
a poet.

I thought I dripped words
like blood out of my veins.
I thought my muse,
was darkness.
Then the sun came out.

So,
I am not a,
poet.

I am a high school English paper.
I am the run-ons,
too many ands,
too many commas.
Not even a proper sentence.
I am the red-marked essay.


I am not a poet.

And I have nothing else to say.

The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.

To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears:

Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.

So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.

And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl's.

When I was one-and-twenty
    I heard a wise man say,
"Give crowns and pounds and guineas
    But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
    But keep your fancy free."
But I was one-and-twenty,
    No use to talk to me.

When I was one-and-twenty
    I heard him say again,
"The heart out of the *****
    Was never given in vain;
'Tis paid with sighs a plenty
    And sold for endless rue."
And I am two-and-twenty,
    And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.

Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.

No Nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travellers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands:
A voice so thrilling ne’er was heard
In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.

Will no one tell me what she sings?—
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again?

Whate’er the theme, the Maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o’er the sickle bending;—
I listened, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling leaves in glee;
A poet could not be but gay,
In such a jocund company!
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.