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High stakes!
They did naught but
pin me to the sky!
I did more than weather
the storm
I weathered all weather.
She loved me still
with your skin cooked black, she said
she tended to my boils
what a marvel, she said, you're still alive!
my smile bleached white, shone true
all I want... is to be... with you

Lady there's no hell greater than loss
but you've promised me eternity
laud all your passion and virtue
for there is no end to your grace!
You're the marvel, she said, you've been cooked
black
but you still
shine
... inside where emptiness rings I cringe...

Tell me, how white were you
when you
were ****** into the sky
like a kite caught in clouds
tell me! She demands
I smile my sunlit smile
Only the purest color, my dear
the irony of my white lie so clear

She enjoys my moonless tint!
Her tongue swims over my skin
scouting for cacao, or some savor rich
her passion so devouring cools me
for all pain is pleasure
after the fires of perdition
yet, why is there still a nagging
a clawing
a stabbing
a seeping, consuming unease
within my heart?

I must tell her the truth...

My love, she says, how white-
I've been night before there was darkness
I say
I was soot before there was flame
I say
I was the skin of emptiness before you became my soul
woman, I've always been black even before the cooking,
but
my heart is a pool of light, within which
you may bathe...

She stared at me,
finally seeing the filth
her heart knew to deny.
I should have been
a fountain of tears
but the flames of hell have robbed me
of any admission of sorrow.

All I wish in days gone by
is
I wish she had a heart of gold
and
if color be the weight of any being
may sight be struck from purpose!
I don't have much to say after this.
Enjoy...

DEW
He stood on the grassland of Ledi Geraru.

The sky was a vast expanse of melancholic gray
and the crimson blue light made the night imminent.

Each twilight his feet felt the kiss of the dewy shrub
as he waited for the first star to come out
that in a hushed sweep descended as peace.

He would raise his finger to the sky
and upon the river of his eyes
the star broke into fragments of tears.

He was slowly dying
but a greater him was to tread the grassland.

His eyes weren't found.

Only his jaws still stuck with the beauty
were dug up from the stardust.
A fossil jaw plucked from the badlands of Ethiopia—points to East Africa as the birthplace of our evolutionary lineage.
The site where the jaw was found, called Ledi-Geraru, was a mix of grasslands and a few shrubs 2.8 million years ago.
This write draws inspiration from the above.
Jeff Stier Aug 2016
Druid is Derwydd
in our tongue
the Welsh of my fathers

Our land is called Cymru
and we have thrived here
since ancient times

We live by our cattle
first
our hearts and families
second
and our crops a poor third

We are taught that
a mist descended on our land
in the before times
and cleansed the earth of life

And that a new people came
our people
and brought with them
cattle
all of the trades
and a gift for song

We were called Celts
but now we are proudly
Welsh
the dragon is our badge
and red war our way of life

The Derwydd
are our guides
they follow the stars
know the mystic tides
teach our young
and ease our old
into the afterworld

Never cross a Druid
they say
or feel your tongue
curl into burnt leather
in your mouth

Please a Druid
and luck will
lay by your side

I am called Caedmon
wise warrior
son of Lhur
born in the shade
of a great oak

I was taught all of the high arts
poetry
music
and war

If ever you travel
through our fortress-locked land
you will be welcome
at my hearth

Come
bring your sweet pipes
and play
bare your sword arm
and raid with us

When we return
cattle rich
then the feast will begin
then the bards will sing
and poetry will open your mind
to the harmonies of heaven.
For my Welsh forbears.
  Aug 2016 Jeff Stier
Akira Chinen
I often think of love and death
For they often seem the same
One cannot exist without the other
It is the end of suffering
That we find in the kindness
In the lips of their kiss
There is both the thrill and fear of the unknown
When we feel the approach of either one
Too often fear has the stronger pull
For even the excitement of the thrill can terrify us
We run from love we could embrace
For fears of its validity its vitality its inevitable end
The pain and suffering we see in its wake
We use our past failures and misconceptions of love
To judge and misdirect our current and future interactions with love
It is hard to belive that love is immortal
When we belive ourselves to be not
To live in fear of death
Only robs us of moments
We could better spend in the pursuit and hands of love
We cannot escape death
We cannot out run its grasp
We cannot avoid its breath
We cannot hide behind locked doors from it
Yet we often fear it as if fear will shield us from its inevitable kiss
And once again in spending time with fear
We are only losing moments we could better enjoy in the pursuit of life
It is in this pursuit of life we should find freedom from fear
That death is not a thief of immortality
And that we find ourselves immortal when we embrace love
Jeff Stier Aug 2016
We turned the sun
into a scourge

Burned two cities in Japan.
It was not antiseptic.
It was not friendly.

It was ****** on a scale
that the world
has come to know too well
but by a means
that upset the balance
of nature

The magnetic forces
of the atom unhinged
set off on lunatic paths
to arrive at something
like the sun

Flesh was peeled from bone
that day
faces peeled from skulls

This is not a pretty thing
not a bedtime story
for your kids

Yet our taxes pave a path
to the next generation
of hell-found missiles
aimed deliberately
and directly
at the hopes
the domestic fears
the quiet anxieties
the moments of wonder
of love
the kiss in the morning
goodbye
the welcome home in the evening
of every person alive today.

Is there a way
to say
No?
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