"emerson" poems
Rolling down St. John's Heritage Highway
after Sean, my grandson's birthday party
I belt out my pioneer song with vigor
echoing across the vast beauty,
wide open, sacred spaces
pristine vistas
Norman Rockwell cows grazing
in bygone pastures happily
moo along
Driving past the yellow deer crossing sign
Florida woodlands giddyap near the edge of the road
long brown antlers prancing to
a timeless rhythm
I hope and pray that I can somehow
kindle a spark of appreciation
in my niece and grandsons
so that they may behold
the baffling greatness
and mystery that is our universe
These young'uns are mighty attached to the
virtual reality, world and landscape
of computer technology
A sprinkling of cowboy stars flash
an omnipresent wink
Sunset bonfire explodes across
the frontier horizon
Turning the corner onto Emerson Drive
smoldering scarlet orange embers
reflecting lights
shoot fireworks, launch rockets
through an ever expanding field of vision
Sep 2, 2018
Sep 2, 2018 at 1:21 PM UTC
it seems came her
adrift on mellow breezes
faintly scent o' strawberries
red dawn golden lashes in rhythms
upon a meadow painted by
Emerson words and Van Gogh splashes
so lightly afoot
so not to spoil any of nature
listening
relaying
being
her.
Mar 18, 2015
Mar 18, 2015 at 6:47 AM UTC
A thought sometimes forms
I live too much
yet I do too little.
Woken at strange hours,
never asleep.
Rapt in raps
or wrapped in riddles
Chained to links
or hammered to handle
stubbed to bone
Mens et
Manus
There is time yet, I swear
To flourish
To dream
To make
To be
To do
To create
Will I?
We'll see
There's time yet to tell
Be yourself, they say
The best you you can be
But once more— Will I have time
To edit
I live less
I do less
Portfolio: empty
or at least, locked away.
Excitement too.
Blank slate
Blank palette
Is there any paint?
Can I truly make
excitement saturate?
Will I be able to place
value as I see fit?
Can the world be hewn slimmer, slicker
Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
Tis daft I think, to amuse such a notion
But not necessarily so daft to be wrong
Emerson called it misunderstood,
Shaw found it unreasonable
But ay, theres the rub
That bed once made, must be lain in and
all dreams which might be had are alone not enough
Bloom effects don't work outside the movies.
Ideas are trash, these are recession times
Deflations made them a farthing a dozen
Started 10.03.11
Unfinished
D.B. Guy
Nov 3, 2012
Nov 3, 2012 at 2:57 AM UTC
My nickname for you was "broccoli".
I called you that because
Your hair is so curly
That one of our classmates
Tried to describe it and could only
Come up with "broccoli"
And somehow that name stuck in my heart.
To this day, I can't eat broccoli
Without thinking of you,
Picturing your curly brown hair
And kind green eyes
And strong yet tender fingers
And brilliant ear-to-ear smile
And smirk just for me.
I miss you. A lot.
I never told you I was in love with you,
And I regret that.
So I want to write a book of poems
And promote it far and wide
Just so I'll have the chance
To maybe catch your attention
And see you again.
Then, maybe I can tell you
"Thanks for the collection of Emerson
You so thoughtfully bought me...
That's what made me fall
Head over heels for you."
Jun 27, 2014
Jun 27, 2014 at 12:35 AM UTC
Head start on a frozen night
we'll trickle slow down blighted
street ways
and mix our crunching footsteps
with our ever-rougher laughs.
Grab a drink
too tired for sleeping.
Work weeks pile up, getting deep and
I don't think apartment walls
can contain us one more night.
So save a drink for me,
and meet me out on Longstaff Street
I've got all night and an axe to grind
You've got a case of cold friends
and a troubled mind
so let's pace
this neighborhood.
Pull up my roots, we'll untangle yours
from Knowles Street, right on Marshall
walk and drink for hours
'til we sink
that slant street moon
Transplants grafted to this town
we'll spread roots in these downer
regrets
and spill our gravel laughter
on the sidewalks with these beers.
South, back home,
a handful got it:
rotten nights pave paths to coffins
I don't know how many steps
it'll take to cool our heels.
So grab a drink for me
and we'll go walking Longstaff Street
We've got these drinks, we can disappear
into a slant street night
where no one'll hear
how ****** up
these days become.
I still think back on Emerson Park
that Summer night we fled from
the cops through the dark
when the Russell
Street traffic hums...
Dec 22, 2014
Dec 22, 2014 at 2:08 AM UTC
So I've been thinking lately
What if
he's on a journey out to find himself
reading Hemingway and Emerson (his namesake) and roughing it at Walden Pond
smoking foreign cigars
and staring deep into coffee
to decipher the meaning of the swirls of smoke
that rise from it in the morning?
What if
he's asking ChaCha! the meaning of life
or trying out a new brand of shampoo
or attempting to set a high score on Tetris
or out burning down bridges just to see them ablaze
or doing volunteer work,
reading to disabled children at the local library?
What if
he's decided that this is all too much,
that he'd prefer to live in anonymity
trading his celebrity for secretarial work or carrot-harvesting
or breeding exotic fish
or renting out those inflatable jumping-castles?
What if
he's tired of all those books in Technicolor
all the paparazzi out to get him
and commercialize his favorite beanie
just because he's on vacation because he pulled some strings at the office
thus catapulting him into some movie set halfway across the world?
What if he's sick and tired of them hunting down his girlfriend
his dog
that random wizard mentor guy that's a deadringer for Dumbledore?
What if he would rather sit at home and watch the Game Show Network
and change his name to something boring like John instead of living up to a thinker's expectations?
Or maybe just the opposite, he's just watching Family Feud to pass the time because he WANTS to be a thinker
but doesn't know how?
Or maybe Family Feud just makes him lonely because he doesn't have a real family,
just that evil guy with funny glasses and ****** hair and an awful Hamburglar taste in clothes?
What if he's decided he's on the wrong path
and needs to turn his life around?
What if Waldo doesn't want to be found?
Dec 22, 2009
Dec 22, 2009 at 6:05 PM UTC
On a long journey across the night of an America
I drove into the desert landscape and beheld
Elvis and Morrison, Hendrix and Dylan
In a ditch to the side of the road, with trash bags in their hands.
They seemed to whistle while they worked,
But the notes just wafted into the night, not nearly fast enough to catch my speeding
Cadillac.
In the morning, I stopped into a diner
With my breakfast and coffee,
I saw a newspaper that was guaranteed by the Andy Warhol himself
to be one hundred percent truthful.
I didn't read it. Had to get back on the road
The desert went on forever, and in the oil fields
I saw Jackson Pollack, standing by a gusher,
Wearing a cheshire grin.
I smiled back at him, secure in the knowledge that I would have enough gas to get
where I was going.
The announcer's voice blasted through my car's radio.
He said Poe had solved overpopulation,
and that Emerson, Thoreau, Uncle Walt and Miss Em
had got their hands ***** and fed the entire continent of Africa.
I shut him off and bore my eyes down on the asphalt ahead.
I passed a drive in theater on the left side of the road
and caught a glimpse of Scorsese accepting the Nobel Prize for Peace.
Someone told me later that he and DeNiro had stopped genocide.
I politely nodded and got back in my car.
Out there was America and I was going to find it.
Out there was industry and capital.
Out there was ingenuity and hard work.
Out there were my own bootstraps waiting for me to pull them up.
Out there was
America,
and I was going to find it fast.
Sep 11, 2012
Sep 11, 2012 at 3:49 AM UTC
And the trees about me,
Let them be dry and leafless; let the rocks
Groan with continual surges; and behind me
Make all a desolation. Look, look, wenches!
Paint me a cavernous waste shore
Cast in the unstilled Cyclades,
Paint me the bold anfractuous rocks
Faced by the snarled and yelping seas.
Display me ****** above
Reviewing the insurgent gales
Which tangle Ariadne’s hair
And swell with haste the perjured sails.
Morning stirs the feet and hands
(Nausicaa and Polypheme).
Gesture of orang-outang
Rises from the sheets in steam.
This withered root of knots of hair
Slitted below and gashed with eyes,
This oval O cropped out with teeth:
The sickle motion from the thighs
Jackknifes upward at the knees
Then straightens out from heel to hip
Pushing the framework of the bed
And clawing at the pillow slip.
Sweeney addressed full length to shave
Broadbottomed, pink from nape to base,
Knows the female temperament
And wipes the suds around his face.
(The lengthened shadow of a man
Is history, said Emerson
Who had not seen the silhouette
Of Sweeney straddled in the sun.)
Tests the razor on his leg
Waiting until the shriek subsides.
The epileptic on the bed
Curves backward, clutching at her sides.
The ladies of the corridor
Find themselves involved, disgraced,
Call witness to their principles
And deprecate the lack of taste
Observing that hysteria
Might easily be misunderstood;
Mrs. Turner intimates
It does the house no sort of good.
But Doris, towelled from the bath,
Enters padding on broad feet,
Bringing sal volatile
And a glass of brandy neat.
3.3k
I have a special interest in telling about my colonoscopy.
The doc cheerful, secure in his specialty, colon cancer being
the second leading cause of cancer death after lung tumors.
They can snip the precancerous polyps right out of you during the test.
At first the doc gave me the statistics but having paid 25 bucks for this
interview
I decided to make him explain the science. He was most comfortable
describing the physical architecture of adenomatous v. hyperplastic
polyps
but what about cell structure I said. He was vague about genes and
hormones,
I could have been chatting with an Electrolux salesman.
I wasn’t worried although my *** was burning.
Everybody dies, everybody, even Whitman and Emerson, so I browse
models for dying—
mine are middlebrow, saddlebow—John Wayne in The Shootist, Paul
Newman in Hombre—or hagiography
Plath her head stuck in an oven, Hemingway who ate his shotgun.
Anyway I was upbeat flirting with the nurse, a muse who has seen it all
before,
acting tough, which isn’t actually an act
you do your prep and say your prayers.
I thought I’d be in and out **** as you probably already know
the prep for this procedure is worthy of Gandhi. A day of fasting,
clear fluids only, and constant voiding.
You arrive at the hospital one spiritual chicken.
I reflected it can’t hurt, lose a little weight, remember who you are
without so much **** and flesh between you and the natural world.
Snipping polyps is like taking electrons to a lower quantum energy level,
nearer the nucleus, with fasting and ****** abstinence.
The art of total presence and abstinence, dependence on the Other for
future existence.
May 15, 2024
May 15, 2024 at 7:09 AM UTC
each of life's moments
are formed by shadow
and light..
rare moments of light connect
lingering shadows of habit..
a claimed experience of
light draws
objection and challenge..
challenger not aware
light is linked
with secluded shadow..
there keys are found
unexpectedly
opening doors to
experienced light..
humanity streams from
a hidden source..
experienced only with
keys connecting darkly..
awakening to
the unmentioned
..innuendo..
(this poem inspired by
the first paragraph of Emerson's
Over-Soul)
Apr 23, 2012
Apr 23, 2012 at 4:28 PM UTC
remembering
memorial day just days away
now a special celebration
drenched from over-soul pondering
greeting emerson this eve
his 209th year
poor richards
a place for welcoming
many memories disjoined
all gleaned from our
decades of living
a seeming descent
as we spoke and we
listened
antique autos remembered
youthful power and speed
swimwear two-piece and worn
shock and awe
by our nun
a dog shady by name
departure left questions
of lingering life
youthful dark deeds
some expressed some
in silence remained
memories with colors
some of an evil hue
deceased birds and a snake
regret and sorrow
thickening memories
some weighing still
then a reversal
recent memory brought forth
an injured slight bird
poor richards
again our place of recall
a hummingbird wounded
a new life endangered
dim prospects trapped
our darkened concern
clumsy intention then
unexpectedly blessed
a young woman appeared
joining intention with
her joyful acceptance
a bird found home
revival and rest
this memory of rescue
brought spirits ascending
with the bird our recovery
celebration resumed
glasses now lifted
new beginning
emerson 209 soon
("We sink to rise." RWE)
May 26, 2012
May 26, 2012 at 8:46 PM UTC
I signed my life away
A week ago today
I took a pledge to be a warrior
To serve my country with pride
I am proud of this
I need not your approval to be the man I wish to be
For I will be my own
Traveling my own path
Finding my own me
I have finished the part of my life to try to impress you
To try and make you proud
I am done expecting you to be there for me
The cracks are too easy to fall through
I hope one day you will wake up from this slumber
We will talk about our lives while we fish for lost time
The bobbers on our lines dancing on the water like ballerinas
The man I am becoming
Ignoring the child inside
Screaming and pounding
For my daddy
Jan 24, 2013
Jan 24, 2013 at 11:02 PM UTC
It's long drive on this highway
The window creaks its jagged way down
I breathe in the new air
for the first time in months
George Watsky is building
his Cardboard Castles in my stereo
On repeat-
I think of Emerson
On repeat-
Skip-
On repeat-
I think -
I feel like his transparent eyeball
Repeat-
His eyeball-
I begin to understand
what has always seemed
a clumsy metaphor
I begin to feel -
one with everything
Skip-
everyone is love
Repeat
Love
Every-Everyone is me
And you
Skip-
Everyone is all I need.
Repeat
I am all I need
And you -
I don't need anything
Except for -
-more road
-more time
-more gas
the CD starts skip-skip words
Hopping - lines
Reminding me
Of finite fuel
Repeat-
finite time
with work looming just hours away
Repeat-
death, just decades away
Then, as if responding to my overturned thoughts
My ****** speakers belt out:
Hey ******* -
The sun is shining
Apr 1, 2014
Apr 1, 2014 at 10:36 PM UTC
I am closer to believing
than I ever was before
on the crest of this Elation
must I crash upon the shore
And with the Driftwood of acquaintance
light the fire to love once more
I am windblown... I am times.
To be closer to believing
to be just a breath away
On the death of inspiration
I would buy back yesterday
But there's no crueler illusion
There's no sharper coin to pay
as I reach out...it slips away
From the ***** of custom
to the ledges of extremes
don't believe it till you've held it
life is seldom what it seems
But lay your heart upon the table
and in the shuffling of your dreams remember...
who on Earth you are.
I need me
You need you
we want us
But of course you know I love you
for what else am I here for
only you not face to face
but side by side forever more
I need to be here with you
for without you what am I
Just a fool out searching
for some heaven in the sky
Take me to forward lead me on
Through collision and confusion
While there's life beneath the Sun
you are the reason I continue
so near for so long
so close.... yet so far away
I need me
You need you
We want us
to live forever
measure after measure
Of the writing on the wall
that burns so brightly it blinds us all
I need me
you need you
we want us
together on Sundays in the rain
closer than forever
against or with the grain
to ride the storms of Love Again
So be closer to believing though your world is torn apart
For a moment changes all things and to end is but to start
And if your journey is unrewarded may God lift up your heart
You are windblown
but you are mine.
Emerson Lake and Palmer lyrics -
favorite of Cherie Nolan
May 29, 2016
May 29, 2016 at 4:25 PM UTC
maybe
there are earthquakes
in my skin. maybe
they hollow themselves
into the arches of my feet
and maybe i walk on rocks,
crumbling and cracking
under my toes.
maybe
i taste in color,
maybe i hear in
visions, maybe god
built a temple in my mouth
so its roof would fill my tongue
with the perfect words
to say to you.
maybe
heaven is not
shining white, maybe
it is green, i want to see
a forest when i get there,
i could never go an eternity
without a good climbing tree
and the breeze that blows
through my heartache.
maybe
when i tell you
that skeletons are
gorgeous, that
these empty bones
tell stories i can feel,
maybe you'll tell me
that even the corpse
has its own beauty.
maybe
you'll teach me
how to fish for crimson,
how to cast off my years
and be glad to the brink
of fear. maybe you'll teach me
what the Earth felt like
in 1836, maybe it was
a mystery, one not even
you could ever feel
working through your chest.
maybe
this familiar ache
inside my eardrums
is only my spirit
learning how to
listen
to the dawn.
May 16, 2012
May 16, 2012 at 8:59 PM UTC
I waited too long
to mow my lawn
biopsy my lung
yet lived long enough, anon,
however long is long.
Whatever. It's not wrong
to count along
while busy living. Sing
and stay strong
absorb the sun's photons
and store them in your bones.
Those bones
outlast slights and spurns
are white as lightning and strong
as sticks and stones.
Inside is one's
spirit, soul, the nameless one
the one that's never known.
It has no cell phone
can't communicate or even moan.
Therefore. Why complain?
Have some fun.
Soon
I'll be undone
subterranean
my garden burned down.
So what. John Donne
died and so did Milton.
Emerson too, and Whitman.
Get over it. Vote. Love. When
the train comes in the station
whistle with it, wish on
stars with passion
or careful hesitation.
Anything's fine, within reason.
Season by season
things get done.
Algebra and calculus, Malcolm X, George Washington.
No taxation
without representation.
A gun
in every den.
People will be governed
one way or another, by a sovereign
or trusted friend. Corporation.
Men
are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than
to right themselves by abolishing the Evils to which they are
resigned.
I'm too young
to die! I cry. My generation
cannot outrun the sun
but I want to see what happens
next, a tsunami or tornado, rain
and wind beyond our comprehension
hit in the head by speeding debris, irony
of ironies! plastic contraptions,
rotting computers and yogurt cups, pain
in the baby! Moment's
notice. None,
I notice, live long
enough to see the end. Amen. A million
years hence
human sense
has so modified and mutated among
other moons
we share one mind
and everything's remembered by everyone.
Look it up. There is no death, just perfect rest. A perfect tan
is possible, and work is fun.
I'm going there when I pass on
because souls will travel at warp speeds, using nuclear fission.
About suffering, religion
was right (and wrong) all along.
Jan 6, 2019
Jan 6, 2019 at 9:18 AM UTC
My Life is a Scratched CD (OR Blue Collar Lament- The Little Napper Remix)
Lines taken from poems by JM Romig (Ursa Somniculosa/CD Skipping Down Route 11) and Ryan Kinney (Blue Collar Lament)
It's long drive on this highway
The window creeks
- its jagged way down
I breathe in the new air for the first time in months
the CD starts skip-skip words
Hopping over - lines
Reminding me
Of finite fuel
repeat-
finite time
With work looming just hours away
repeat-
Death, just decades away
I spend most of my week
in the back of the factory
where I sell my free time
on repeat
in a semi-conscience trance
watching multi-million dollar machines work
repeat
in the back of the factory
where I sell my free time
is a constellation of dirt, chipped paint
and cobwebs
forming the shape
of a bear
lounging in a hammock
skip
They are more alive than I am.
Monday at 3 PM I click off my brain,
switch on automatic,
repeat
automatic
skip
- the countdown:-T-minus 40 hours.
Each minute that ticks by
in the dull monotony slowly steals my sanity,
bit by bit
Each minute closer to Friday
slower and slower,
until on Friday they seem to tick
backwards--
skip
I have coworkers
who insist that it's a monkey,
trapped in a net
Each day blurs into the other
making them indistinguishable.
Repeat-
My finite time
Monday,
the entirety of the previous week
on repeat-
T-minus 40 hours.
skip
they are wrong.
It's clearly a bear
In the back of the factory
where I sell my free time
repeat-
Death - just decades away.
The dictator they put in charge of the asylum
barks out commands on cue,
just to remind everyone that they own you.
skip
The desperation for dollars
are the shackles that keep me here.
I often welcome sleepwalking:
I think of Emerson
On repeat-
Skip-
I think I feel like his transparent eyeball
repeat-
His eyeball-
I begin to understand
I begin to feel like I'm one with everything
skip-
everyone is love
repeat
love
every-Everyone is me
and you
skip-skip
-the impending coma
In the few instances the machines malfunction
I curse being awakened.
At least as a zombie, I don't feel
my mind rotting
repeat
the rotting constellation of dirt,
chipped paint and cobwebs:
Ursa Somniculosa
No matter where I am on the floor,
I can see him hanging there in his hammock
on the weekends I love life.
I shed the identity the uniform has forced upon me
and my true self emerges--
repeat
my finite fuel
In the back of the factory
where I sell my free time
repeat
the desperation for dollars
I truly only live two days a week
repeat
my finite time
I'm dying the other five
skip-skip
I think of Ursa Somniculosa -
In the back of the factory
where I sell my free time
enjoying his perpetual vacation
maybe sipping on a nice tall beer
soaking up the sun -
NOT being a trapped monkey
like all of us down here
on repeat
Dec 26, 2015
Dec 26, 2015 at 10:17 PM UTC
[Para kay Emerson David V. Jacinto, February 16, 1962 - May 02, 2011)
Mula paglilihi sa ningas ng ilawang gasera
sa sulok ng angking dunong, kaisipa’y namunga,
hanggang sa pagluwal, kasaliw ang palakpak ng sigla,
ulilang panaghoy at sigaw ng malayong pag-asa
- sa panawaga’t tinig ng Inang Bayan, tumugon ka.
Kusang-loob, inihandog, buhay at panahon
Walang alinlangan, payak na pamumuhay ay tugon
Sa lamig ng gabing kamao’y nagkuyom
Kumot mo’y pusong malasakit ang nilikom
- Unan ay konsyensyang malinis at tapat sa layon.
Mapait na dagta ang sa damdami’y nanalaytay
tila ipinahid ng mahabang paghihintay
sa mayamang dibdib ng ating kinagisnang Inay
- ang Inang Kalikasan. Doon ka humimlay,
- Makabuluhang buhay ang iyong tagumpay
May 2, 2019
May 2, 2019 at 8:18 AM UTC
Remove the mask
Strip to essentials
Remove the ballasts
A crossroads
An intersection divine
Don't rue the darkness on a boulevard of light
Lucifer's here
Will the deal go down?
Or are you hedging on up?
Flying in on the back of truth
As an agent of change
Write your own contract
Be just and align
Oblige yourself with Self
'Be like water my friend' (Bruce Lee)
Fill that vessel up
To overflowing
A soul is pedestrian
An overflowing soul leads to changency
An over~soul (Emerson)
Define your cosmology
Uninitiate is a good initiation
You have to strip your house down
To ensure true pitch
Attuning for those forks
A hollow reed
For a river of truth
Nov 25, 2014
Nov 25, 2014 at 8:41 AM UTC
You saved me in your moms car the other day
holding my hand just in time to stop tears exploding out from my eyes. Because I'm very claustrophobic and I ******* hate small Hondas.
You let me hold you when we watched Steel Magnolias with your mom crying in the back saying Im sorry I walked in on your movie, I'm such a cryer.
We went into your room to listen to vinyl and even though it wasn't what I expected, I love it all.
You answered all my questions about things in your room, and showed me your best fiends angry poetry on your wall.
You answered every question as if every item was a priceless antiquity, even the bottle of Mardi Gras beads and how you watched a documentary about the people in factories who made them, and how you just can't bring yourself to throw them away.
I don't even know if this is a poem but I'll put it up anyway. It may not be poetic but ever word that passes your lips it's Hemingway and Emerson to me.
Dec 25, 2013
Dec 25, 2013 at 10:11 PM UTC
Ai, as it is, in my nature,
my bend in the river, rounding an edge,
drop
off…
question I have ever had, is how's they do it?
Jeffers and Emerson, rich men, to begin with,
eh, what a difference
a childhood makes,
or a pension, I suppose, as good as rich,
growing old and happy, satisfied,
with what the rich man had, had he had
this satisfactory mind,
in my time.
Nov 2, 2022
Nov 2, 2022 at 10:33 PM UTC
when I read Emerson
just the same
as when hearing
Led Zeppelin
or watching
Breakfast at Tiffany's
just a bit of breathlessness,
a spasm of
echoes ringing bells
Cat,
reflecting back,
in my gasps,
about to burst into tears,
touch,
deeply,
I don't understand it.
It,
is in me,
just driving, on on, endlessly,
the motif, the Theme,
rhythm.
Apr 16, 2015
Apr 16, 2015 at 1:12 AM UTC
Look closely at your dots and periods.
You'll see this...
. Bob Dylan .
. William Shakespeare .
. Maya Angelou . Emily Dickinson .
. Ralph Waldo Emerson . Robert Frost . Ai .
. Max Eastman . Thomas Hardy . William Blake .
. Edgar Allan Poe . Pablo Neruda . James Joyce . Ovid .
. Carl Sandberg . Anne Sexton . Taigu Ryokan . Sappho .
. Ogden Nash . Dorothy Parker . JD Salinger . Rumi .
. Dame Edith Sitwell . Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly .
. Anna Swir . Sara Teasdale . JRR Tolkien .
. Alfred Lord Tennyson . John Skelton .
. Dante Gabriel Rossetti .
. Dylan Thomas .
Soul Survivor
2014
Mar 11, 2014
Mar 11, 2014 at 7:45 AM UTC
Perched atop,
mighty, serene and calm
glistening midst its suns
with skies the tinge of aqua
At center of creation,
was the glorious kingdom of Minerva
With nervous steps that echoed
under imagined eyes that judged
On my own,
yet pulled and owned
like sunflower midst thousand suns,
the divine palace I entered
Countless royal birds,
sat in quiet melodious trance
Seeking the seeker,
with folded wings,
of colossal rich expanse
Each had a name,
and with each I flew
With Plato to meadows of morality,
With Kant to the river of reason,
With Emerson to emerald waters
With Socrates to rhetoric ethers
With Vivekanada to dunes of duty
With Dostoyevsky to tragic beauty
Each flew me to their heaven,
at different times of the night
Closer to light,
closer to heaven I felt,
closer than I ever might
Neither wine nor its colors
Neither Venus nor her flowers
Shall ever match,
the soaring journey at dusk
tearing across,
skies the tinge of aqua
lost in timeless views,
of the glorious kingdom of Minerva
Nov 10, 2013
Nov 10, 2013 at 4:52 AM UTC
The small girl walked into the small room in her small school full of big words.
She sat at a little desk piled high with books
and flipped through the pages but only for a moment,
for moments passed and brought newer interests.
A woman with unkempt hair and quaint glasses sat behind her podium
preaching words which none seated were grateful to receive,
while one in her desk flipped through the pages.
Day by day the class came and went,
and the unkempt lady spoke the languages of people passed,
but none cared to understand the lyrics,
and one flipped through the pages.
And so the hours passed and the learners left their books
but one slipped it into her pouch
to explore later.
It brought her much joy,
this silent journey,
and she continued along the uncharted path.
She climbed the trees, dug in the ground and absorbed all she could.
It was not a race, though she ran through it,
skidding to a stop when the end crept upon her.
She met many friends along her first journey,
though she could not shake their hands,
but they smiled, and shared with her their thoughts
as she flipped through the pages.
These pages were not like all others though.
Their words were colors,
painted carefully with a brush yielding the power of speech and music.
They read like a song and told stories
or explained thoughts
or breathed admiration.
Each new hue left passion dripping down the page
and emotion danced between every line.
The small girl drank every last drop until her cup was empty
and she sought to refill it.
On a new journey she found wells and streams and rivers from which she drank.
Each passion-filled page quenched her thirst
and she met more friends and heard their voices.
She followed Keats down an old walkway
and barely kept up with Poe.
Robert Frost drew her a map
and Emerson gently led her through his land.
The girl followed them,
and decided to mix colors of her very own.
Her thoughts took hue as she expressed herself,
lining stones to create her own new pathways
and swimming in pools she filled herself,
silently hoping others would drink from them.
But despite her many travels and journeys,
she would always return to that small room
where she would listen to the unkempt woman
with lots to say and no one to listen,
and sit at her desk, weighted with big words
and flip through the pages.
Dec 25, 2013
Dec 25, 2013 at 8:42 PM UTC