Predecessor of the morning hour
Bleeding through the gilded fringes that hang aloft in the wood
Breeze withheld its embraced dower
Humid casements held where I stood
The singeing lash did not come
Caged o’er the ridge
Melancholia, and the sky did shun
Ebon armada sent all the cavalry
Halberdiers and lancers, to contend a bitter rivalry
The brooding cataract washed
And I could only run
Towards pale shades and curtain rods
Towards uncertain suns
On the backs of Titans, the shoulder of Atlas my flight took rest
Before I, the ashen dome expands.
As though at my behest
And through the slaughter, the fray(!)
A presence of the light of day
Through the flush pillars
And fell beasts of rain
The bones of its enemies
Could be seen
Naked, exposed by eye so tiny and wan
Dispersed, did they
Frightened by valor of dawn

I’ve been watching for some time
From afar the deep and low valley
Watching the leaves fall
Of what hope they can rally
For not ray nor beam
Nor excitement I seek
Only the bejeweled recluse with the golden hair
The blue eyes and tongue abounding, yet meek
A beauty not to sever
From the mountains of my youth
Against all attempt
My failed past endeavor
To bring those impartial arms closer to my own
But, alas, she proved far too clever
And escaped, perpetually I bemoan
And where you took leave
Still spurns the suture
Dark blood freshly drawn
I bleed for another, though soul turned to pewter
And I stumble weakly like invalid fawn
The gauze did atone
Anesthetized my brooding
Until the reclaimed throne
Did sanctify its queen
Too little, too late
A penance not paid
Impatience could at surface readily sate
And showed me in acetic recollection
My folly not to wait
But, escaped your grace, my grubby hands though groped
And words did not flow forth as I had hoped
Simple gesture; a wave or two
And the separation broadened again, same as the first time I left you
But, I’ve been watching for some time
The creeks and the crags
Knowing the leaves will always return
And the fawn thus wanes to mighty stag
In hopes for a band of our own from the pitch of time discerned
I fashioned this life for you
And encircled you in my mind
That what persona I do beget
I was just hoping for you to find
A poor choice for but one of many
An ill-conceived and hasty plan
All done for you, my beauty
Planning for a future
Before it even began
And now, after I’ve waited for what feels like millennia
These clipped wings refuse to span
And this valley wracks me with mania
Spirits sink with the sun
Ink drips from the vein
Turn to verse written in vain,
Smears through the valleys
Like eloquent stains
An escape from memory, dazzling and dun
But the valley vast, maw is wide
Too far, too unwilling to outrun
The Beautiful, the flitting
Inescapable Morgan.

So this is what they call anomie?
A grayness,
A blank,
All things devoid of beauty?
When the eternal arms,
Have left me to my own devices,
To toil in deaden land
To paint futile pictures?
I’m wading through waves, through fires
Surely to send a man to delirium,
And as though it never came to pass
I sip unsweetened tea.
What rips men apart,
What fetters pull him in twain,
Simply move me with sway
And don’t move me at all.
Tears rush like the flume
Admonishments thrown
And I can only sigh in frustration
At all this petty emotion.
For man fills his stage with characters,
And bleeds ink all within his works
Aspiring to his own audience, the god he is,
I simply abuse this alchemy
To bide my time till death.
Call meaning what you will,
Fill your life with love,
Fill your life with gold,
with God,
with spite,
with studies,
with yourself.
I cannot,
I do not,
I know not these simple pleasures
Perpetually I am not full,
For there exists where faith should be
A deep impartial hole
If I could be normal,
If I could be normal,
If I could love,
If I could believe,
I’d turn away from it,
And choose to stare uselessly into my faithless hole,
All things beat on, as they be,
And this conviction, be it ever so keen,
That existence and living are useless things,
I’d still see what believers still see
That being the world as beauty,
I’d only see it with a more grayish hue
(Without the pretension to know what is true!)
And see the sense it lacks to see
And commit myself to this anomie.

There is an old adage
About the silver lining of clouds
As though compassion, camaraderie
Bless me
Like seraphic light and sound
But the light of day
Is destined to perish
A boyish heart, naïveté
Adjudged to inurn a body I can’t save
There, at the crest of a mount
There, at the foot of a grave
Mouth, icy
Screams, like vapor
We stood on the mount
The light beginning to taper
Such eminence we began to doubt
The skies wept for what bond withered
Empty sentiments
We lay thither
And wrote the epitaph aloud
On our own masonry
And there the clouds came
Light refused to shine
Hope refused to grow
We sang a song to commemorate
We sang the empty refrain
I laid your body in the hole
And then you did the same
We sought the sun, like fools
In abandoned, loveless houses
Behind the mortar of schools
In the gap which separates
We ran
Towards the wan and sallow horizon
To escape the clouds
Which swallow the dawn.
Yet, it runs on ahead
Buried beneath oily coffins
In which I’m just a nail
A body and a whisper.
Mother Sky weeps
As I rest, eternally conscious
Condemned to witness a cyclical end
And let my blood, precious
Its exeunt, you contend
We are impervious
And towards the dawn, herald our song
Of triumph, love, camaraderie
We’ll galvanize the heavens, our victory so loud
But all that is before me
Is abject, loathsome clouds.

Dear...
This haphazard poem was written solely for you
Matterless, what you came garbed in
Fever elicited, passion anew
You’ve graced me, the repetition of ‘could-have-been’
I loved the way you speak
Of knowledge and triumph
And I, bumbling and meek
Tirelessly I sought and now still seek
Your council, your court
For my amusement, for my sport
Conversing over a poisoned well
I listen in genuine
Raise my voice
Sing with my friends amongst the din
Higher on the pillar, you I hoist
Pure skin my well intentioned hands mar
Clumsily, I lean into a similar heart
To discuss life and literature, fantasies these hands take too far
How eloquent the silk you weave, which you impart
Which inveigles and entices, cajole us into the city
On pale page, the street lamps and dim moon, art
Palpitations and liquor test the pity
Of light and fire
I cannot help but explore your shapely form
And yet, without bar
Across miasma, my guide is a cute little hand
Solitude, the pulsations do doggedly solicit
I just want to be close, you grant this
Bewitched by the creamy satin of pale skin
Distantly, warmly, I gaze in those God-given sculptures
Of the richest green and azure hues, bespeak feminine
Engaged in the other’s stare, two drunken apers
The night, black as sin,
The mould of outcome of we are the shapers
And I shape regret that rises with the sun
You come back vividly and lucidly
Distant and opposite, worlds across, you from me
A nondescript ghost in the corner
Who speaks so placidly
I remember with regret
I remember with exultation
I’ve ruined our relationship
Our relationship topical felicitation
I haven’t had time to apologize
I haven’t had enough time with you
If I ever see you again
I’d mend everything
I’d discover the girl behind the name
And cleanse the projection askew.
Love, Me
Dear...                 .

What of exactly is a friendship lost?
Over minute trifles so easily tossed?
Or one that disbands in the cataract of Time?
Something worth pain and blood? Which is absolute and wonderful?
And so, too, can it be asked,
To which man is authority given,
Of such astute austerity endowed,
The man to pass such judgment in good faith and conscience,
Is none other than the crowd.
But, irrelevancies, I totter!
The worst is to be discussed,
For far beyond the scope of reason,
Have these travesties been concussed.
For here, I give to you the corpse of this bond,
This once turgid child of innocence
So, perhaps, its unadulterated substance may quickly manifest
Yet, I pray, I hope, I wonder, its marred and tattered mien profess
The noxious tonic it did consume,
Of ancient spleen and venomous ardor,
To rend its former pulchritude, to hands of untouched fury placed,
It suffered the most insufferable fate to befall upon any beast:
To reanimate, to thrive, to live once more,
In the hands of a tyrant and aimlessly exist
Necrotic at its very core.
This beast, this creature of hated stock,
Was my burden, my cross, to bear,
One, I weep to recollect, of part and parcel of my own flock.
But, I did this, I bore this, along with many others,
In spite of righted timbers,
In spite of rationale,
In spite of my fiber and moral code, that kept us forcibly constrained
For the sake of you, authority
For the sake of tranquil minds
I stood obstinate at the lineaments, between those contrasting foes,
In the self-imposed, childish Purgatory,
Completely indisposed.
Between the shining, gleaming face of holiness, and precipice of spite
For manner of serenity and cowardice perpetual,
Confronted this creature, I did not,
For the sake of you, dear authority, for the sake of stable place.
Children we were, yes, but no less severe the gravity,
For the winnowing of unity, at the yoke of caprice, is to blame.
A real friendship will endure, endure through the boreal,
Endure through the malice, the vitriol,
Will breathe new and longing appetite for breadth, for universality,
Of which all parts must maintain accountability.
It must stand resolute no matter how formidable the ballast,
It must be calm, objective, and outlast the harrowing feelings change may accompany,
Will sacrifice and encourage wellbeing,
It must imbue recollection, a past so beautiful,
Be a comfort in the presence of shame and humility,
Its essence, a friend itself.
But I can no longer pay, at the cost of sanity,
I can no longer give what little remnant humanity to forge another bond,
One made of dead and long-forgotten parts,
I can not, I will not,
I am sick, I am weary for all of the injustices I have done
To watch as the seed of hatred continues to bloom,
The veil of falsehood walk without shame,
To see her stride of perverting intent, tainting the world with touch,
Is a miserable folly to me,
A crime which I let permit,
A coward I was to not stop this, to not lay this matter to rest,
No,
My beleaguered hands put this evil in the ground, and left it to the tides of fate,
It grew, beyond my capture, beyond my strength to control,
Into this horrid ****, this miserable plant,
Which, still!, it grows sans disannul
To take responsibility to this, on me, I cannot err
But, naturally, none to the plant, it seems,
And this is only fair.