"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

Mosaics scrawled in oak,
Charters to a new dimension,
Candles bring forth grey smoke,
Filling a stygian room with tension.

A hallowed oversoul awaits a sacrament,
Crimson stanzas chanted, a return anticipated,
The King still needs a benighted advocate,
Atonement was made, with a blade of onyx, serrated.

Throughout the hall, a sensation,
First came the scent of velvet nectar,
Then, the impact of consternation,
And all among the walls, dark and unearthly spectres.

An observance had concluded,
As the veil was torn by madness,
And the microcasm, polluted,
A world overthrown, by the abyss.

Eternally yours but for a moment
How could I be anything but?
The sands of time have shifted you
So incredibly far away
And I can do nothing
Eternally yours forever and a day
Living each second hoping you’ll stay
How could I cope without my second half?
A fruitless endeavor
Staining my Oversoul
Eternally yours, never, no way
Making, taking, parasites ages-old
Vestibules for love to fill with gold
Leaving room for nothing else inside
Stating the obvious, once again...

Will the bard once told us:
"Music hath charms
to soothe the savage breast".

But who will sing the verse and chorus
to spell a world in disarray?

In this twisted season of idiot's tales,
our aching oversoul cries out
for sane and cooling anthems
to still the throb of molten *******
fevered with fratricidal pride.

Author of the cosmos, soothe us now!
Whisper dulcet songs of peace in our ears
that none can deny or misconstrue.

*July, 2015

died of an enlarged heart
rode in on the wings of a Seraphim
to tell you it was actually broken
that it just grew a few too many sizes that day
and honey,
it burst into a quasar
a bouquet of sound like a tin balloon that
explodes inside a tunnel full of quiet winds.
but now here comes the rain
a holy baptism half past a broken heart.
we’ll sew it up together
with a quicksilver spindle of celestial threads.
golden yarn spun from the Oversoul inside my head
the seeds of my holy heart-mind
sewn beneath my lotus feet.
ceramic shards of a broken heart
woven whole again
showing only golden cracks and seams
below the clouds the sun is brighter than it seems.
inside this fire we laugh so loud
the tunnel full of silent raging winds
are giving birth to embers
and steaming into clouds.

hard hearts will expand with a smile
as we float along the wake
of the Prince of Wands -
bathing in the fire.

by jordan

A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds. -- Percy Bysshe Shelley

The nightingale sings to itself.
But its melodious message flies
far from the bird's tiny tongue.
The song soars beyond her beak;
catches fire in another's nest.
Like listens to like; that is the mystic
chord of the forest, in which singer
and listener unite, trading nuance
and beauty for nuance and beauty.

The nightingale sings to itself.
But only one self grasps her poetry:
the Oversoul of nature; the universal
spirit of art. There is no bird
ululating in isolation; its voice
penetrates the darkness, the thickness
of the forest; it echoes in the twigs
of empty nests. Music always flees to
another's ears, forever reverberating within.

Island telegrams randomly shuffling in the sun
Reading between the lines of tides and stones
Time and tide wait for no one unless you're a bone
Ill or hope, you're in desperate need of a bridge
Lest you end up without a savior, Samaritan who reads your island telegrams
That I can see, or at least grab onto the ropes
Carry your clothes on your camping trip, shuffling through the zenith
Wordsmith where is your inspiration, if I taking everyone for what they're looking for
Random shuffling in the sun
Rest in peace, and ****** make-believe will all be written in a message in a bottle
Dry as the dead, and floating like the oversoul; this is my last chance at ending strong
Contained by the empty vessels that navigate the seas without captains or winds
Contending the eye in the sky, projecting some prior survival
Deceased by being stranded, so it seems that I've landed
Truncheon things and turn-tables and blunt knives are in
When will sharpies come out, to write these word down
I suppose those are written in a crimson tide, tired of recognition and fertility
I love these fertile feelings, I suppose you could curb your streets for another home
I'm leaving this humble abode too soon, you might ride on the storm
Hitchhike the galaxy, sail the seas, and explore oceans; go-ahead big life
You seem to be kind enough, to help those lost and stranded
That's what you said when you read my eyes, and read my mind
You could see me beg for better ways to express the truth through island telegrams
Like the deserted island on the sky, that knows no peak
How do I come down, from this pedestal of accepting my own destiny?
When will make me the eye in your sky?
God, when will stop leaving chances to precarious bottles talking of pernicious palpitations that tell me I'm a vagrant
In someone else's stories, the island with the nicest view
Bruised and broken, starting again with a better beginning
How is that possible, that I come back from my infantile tendencies
The trepidation stays like themes and deniers, who deny my expressions and honesty