Poetry

  

 

1. Genesis, a Beginning 

Genesis, a beginning:

“Let there be light”

And there was light

And the light he called Day

And the darkness he called Night

And there was evening and there was morning

The first day

 

Genesis, a beginning—

We begin to begin again—

But how many false starts lay

Between the hand and the pen,

Between the pen and the paper,

Between the paper and the words,

Between the words and the silences?

 

So many dimly remembered worlds

Forgotten before they were born

 

Genesis, a beginning

At the start of each new day

Sunrise in a lovely, broken world

So bright and so brittle

Too much and too little

We begin and end with the sun

We breathe in to remember

We breathe out to forget

We breathe in to remember

We breathe out to forget

We breathe in to remember

An echo in the rise and fall:

 

“Let there be light”

And there was light.

 

 

2. To the Muses 

Strike up a melody, O Muses

Tune your lyres, celestial chorus

Descend from the heights, immortal Nine

For your presence has been too long gone

Erato, give us words to cage ideas

Before our notions fly away like birds

Calliope, string our words into an epic

An anthem for the song of our rebirth

Euterpe, bring to mind celestial music

And play for us the music of the spheres

Polyhymnia, hallow our devotion

With hymns to the gods that will outlast the years

Thalia, fill us with your laughter

For laughter is the music of the soul

And Melpomene, temper our joy with sadness

For wisdom, not revelry, is our goal

And Terpsichore, move us to dancing

Urania and Clio, fill our minds

And help us to begin a brighter future

To start anew and leave the past behind

 

 

3. Here Be Dragons

I am a mapmaker

A bookbinder

A scribe

An explorer

A surveyor

I sketch the outlines of my shorelines

As I walk them day by day

 

I am a mapmaker

And I am weary

For I have wandered far today

And yesterday

And every day

The horizon never comes closer

 

Every night I pitch my tent

As the sun goes down I write

Here Be Dragons

On the border of the world

Here Be Dragons

Beyond the reach of any mapmaker

Here Be Dragons

Vast and fire-breathing

Here Be Dragons

But in my tent I am safe tonight

I am a mapmaker

A traveler

A sojourner

A wanderer

A teller of tales

A singer of ballads

A knight-errant

Questing closer to the border of the world

With each passing day

Sword drawn, hand trembling

 

Here Be Dragons

I write on the border of the world

Here Be Dragons

 

 

4. Home

 

What would we do without stories of dragons and kings?

Why would we go out to battle the nightmarish things?

We press burning coals to the palms of our hands

And bury them deep in our hearts

 

For the mind has its fancies, the heart has its hopes

And we wrap the ephemeral in leather-bound tropes

So the hero is noble, the princess is fair—

How could it be otherwise?

 

And the gods gave us water and fire and wind

And they scattered us ever to roam in our sin

So we wander the earth for our threescore and ten

Seeking a place to call home

 

And we keep spinning stories as age follows youth

The lies that we tell to uncover the truth

The world that we live in, the one we create:

Beautiful, honest, and good

 

So a word to the brave, to the foolish, the wise

To the young and the old who still stare at the skies

Every bright star in heaven shines only to say:

Home is here and now

 

 

5. Some Things Stay

 

Against a velvet background men call Night

The brilliance of the stars shines brighter still

Reminding mortal man that some things stay

Untarnished by the dark

 

The darkness of the night is but a veil

That shall be torn when morning slashes it

The darkness of the heart is not a veil

Instead a leaden weight

 

That sinks down to the chasm in each man

And cannot be destroyed, but must be lifted

No man can cast away the weight himself

Nor can he shift the pain

 

Light comes to dwell within the hearts of men

And bids each man to lift his brother’s weight

And let his brother reach to do the same

For darkness that he holds

 

And morning starts to dawn as hearts grow light

Yet stars still glimmer as the sunrise dims them

Reminding mortal man that some things stay

When seemingly they fade

 

 

6. Voyage of Night

 

I travel through the endless maze

Of galaxies and realms of night

And restless wander, voyaging

To ports unknown and lands unseen

 

I tipped the half-moon on its side

To be for me a stalwart ship

And wove for it a creamy sail

From cloudy tails of comets spun

Then set its course to weave across

The rivers of the Milky Way,

A maiden voyage guided by

The North Star’s constant, beaming glow

 

And standing in the shadow of

Great Mars, the fearsome lord of war

Orion I have challenged, and

The Hunter I cast out into

The starry band where now he dwells

 

The horned Ram of the southern sky

I tethered, then went forth to chase

The Great and Little Bears across

The starlit heavens’ vast unknown

 

And as Endymion dreamt on,

As moonbeams kissed his slumb’ring eyes,

A watchman for his flock was I

A shepherd as he sleeping lay

A faint smile playing on his lips

 

The Great and Little Dippers filled

With moonlight I have drained, but not

Before I poured libation out

To Nyx, embodiment of Night;

Selene, fair lady of the moon;

The silver huntress Artemis;

And to the grey-eyed one, Athene

 

To Bacchus, lord of revelry,

I raised a toast at last and drank

While all around the music of

The spheres rang out and bid me dance

With each of seven Pleiades:

Their beauty far beyond compare

The midnight formed their long, dark hair

Their eyes of starlight glistened like

The rarest diamonds of the earth

 

And long the North Star guided me

Through all the rivers, through the sea

Until I reached the House of Night

The sacred Necromanteion

Whose bone-and jewel floors I paced,

Upon whose moonlit rooms I gazed

Their splendor so beguiled my mind

I sought the Lady of the Night

To pay her homage, tribute bring,

And feast my eyes upon her realm

Of Night and Light and faint half-light

Of midnight, darker than the dark

Of raven’s feathers, dipped in ink

And stained with soot and burned to ash

 

And I her favor did receive

To me she held out in her hands

Her dusky mantle full of stars

To drape me, thus to claim me as

Her own, her vassal, she my liege—

And I a shadow in her realm

But prince of air and darkness in

The crumbling courts of mortal men

 

The midnight sky my birthright is

The Lady of the Night, my queen

Encased within a cloak of night

I leave to sing her praise to kings

Unseen by them, unknown yet feared

A darkness on the edge of time

A whisper carried by the winds

That shall remain for all of time

As long as Dark and Light endure

 

 

7. Requiem

 

He rests where lost Atlantis sleeps

With kings and counselors of earth

Himself not least of those that lie

Beneath the crumbling, waning world

And were its rulers while they lived

But now rest as its cornerstone

While warriors rise and fall above

And as the dove of peace is sold

And bought, and sold, and bought again

And traded in the hands of men

Tormented by the dance of death

Until the nations lie in piles

Of ashes, and the rivers run

With blood that has drowned innocence

Beneath its glowing scarlet depths

 

The ships have sailed to farthest shores

Where mist and myth are left behind

And where things are not as they seem

But as they are revealed to be

 

The earth has lost one of her sons

And we in turn have lost a friend

And as the sky mourns, so do we

The rain pours on our shivering feet

Anointing them with heaven’s tears

And blessed are they on whom it falls

 

He stands alone upon the prow

All wreathed with light of endless days

And does not give a glance behind

To endless toil or murky haze

 

No map could chart the route he takes

No mariner could tell the tale

Of where the water meets the sky

Or where he lands beyond the veil

In palaces of dreams, and in

The courts where mercy reigns as judge

And justice shines forth like the sun

And there, the only fire that burns

Is Mt. Olympus’ sacred flame

That purifies the stench of earth

Replacing it with heaven’s light

No lantern needs be lighted there

 

We cannot follow where he goes

We stand upon the frigid banks

And sing. We keen his parting song

In hollow voices, soft and long

And gather round to send him on

Our hands clasped tightly, each to each

To make a circle, without end--

Just as we wish his life had been

 

And yet we wish in ignorance

Because we cannot see the light

He sees ahead upon the sea

Reflection on the water’s edge

Of glowing empires further on

Far brighter than the world he leaves

 

He will not age as others do

The sunlit fields are always his

And though now he is far removed

We promise to remember him

Lest we forget all that he was

From rising to the setting sun

While earth and heaven remain, we will

Relive his days in song and tale

Recount the good, recount the bad

To tell our daughters and our sons

Of one who was a prince of earth

And strove with the almighty gods

And held the lightning in his palm

And wandered, restless, searching for

Unknown celestial realms on earth

Yet did not lose the common touch

And counted with all men his lot

He did not give in to despair

When all seemed lost, beyond repair

 

He will not slip beyond our reach

As long as we have breath to speak

And eyes to see, and ears to hear

And words to tell his tale anew

 

But even after we are gone

The reeds will rustle with his song

The moon will shine down where he lies

Until the final end of days

 

For if we cannot stir a flower

Without the troubling of a star

Then surely now that he is gone

The very stones cry out for him

The chilling rain falls down for him

The earth will not forget his loss

As mortal man is wont to do

 

And so we dry our stubborn tears

We look beyond our doubts and fears

All is not lost, just buried yet

And so awaits its proper time

When all shall be revealed at last

And for that end we are alive

We promise now to persevere

The boulders we shall crumble here

To raise into a fortress strong

We will the barren earth to grow

We rise, the salted fields to sow

That from these ashes, hope will live

And Eden from this rubble rise

 

Yes, hope, that messenger of gods,

Shall be for us a sentinel

A watchman for the end of days

To dwell with us upon the heights

And guide us to the worlds unseen

Where dead and living meet at last

And all is well and so remains

Forever and forever more.

 

 

8. If

 

If the hand of the knight had faltered

Perhaps the dragon would have lived

Perhaps it would have spewed forth fire

Perhaps the knight one can forgive

For slashing with a blade of steel

At a monster that seemed to cause him harm

And quenching once for all the flame of life

That burned within its fiery eye

 

All the same, what would have happened

If the dragon lived to tell the tale

Of the shiny, silver-clad cockroach it saw

So small, and yet a ruthless killer

Bent on destruction of the dragon-kind

Stopped by a mishap, some slight stumbling

Chastised by dragon-fire just enough

To make it turn and run and not look back?

 

If the hand of the knight had faltered

If the flame of the dragon been small

If the minstrels would sing of what happened

Then the story would change for us all

 

 

9. World Keeps Turning

 

We tell the story as we heard it long ago

They gathered stones and threw her at his feet

He stooped in silence while they watched and let her go

Their quaking footsteps sounding out defeat

 

But we end the telling there, we forget the final lines

When he told her go, and sin no more, and looked her in the eyes

 

It’s a twisted sort of mercy

It’s a clouded shade of grace

Makes us wonder how the world keeps turning

Time and time again

The knife goes in, we twist it

We wring out our bleeding hearts

We wonder where we go from here, and how we’ve come so far

 

It’s a twisted sort of justice

It’s a silent stab of pain

And we wonder how the world keeps turning

Time and time again

We’ve poured out the horn of plenty

In a dry and desert land

Tossing dice with the devil

Playing hide-and-seek with the Reaper Man

 

 

10. Possibility

 

Possibility

Is not bottled up in dark, murky glass

To be carefully unstoppered and measured out

In little drips and dots called possibilities

One by one

One after another

One at a time

To be drained dry

In some mischievous hour

To the sounds of keening

And lament

No

It is not so

Not like that will the possible turn impossible

Never

 

Possibility

is the tide of a boundless ocean

whose shores none living have seen

Ebbing and flowing

Chasing and fleeing

Crashing, retreating

Never close enough to grasp

And never truly gone for good

Endless and ever-changing

Never to grow dull

Never to run dry

Never to vanish for good

Or for ill

And it bows to the impossible

Never

 

 

11. Castle in the Air

 

Where the shouting of waves fades into a whisper

At pale forgotten shores that rim the sea

Shall we strike and chip away a cavern as foundation

To ground our castle in the air

 

From the mountains shall we quarry marble

Dove-white and silver-veined and strong

To raise into her towers and her ramparts

To build our castle in the air

 

From moonlight shall we weave her drapes and tapestries

From diamond shall we cut her window-glass

From starlight and from pearls we fashion lanterns

To light our castle in the air

 

A fortress strong and certain shall this wonder be

But there shall stand no grim and heavy gate

To guard against the murmur of the seashore

Outside our castle in the air

 

The warm and blue-green waters shall caress the crags

And shall through many years smooth rocky shores

Till they both night and day reflect the gleam

Cast by our castle in the air

 

 

12. It Looked Like Rain

 

To the boy in the blue raincoat

Straight and tall against a greying sky

 

I saw you through the window of the bus

And stopped to let the thought pass by

That when you’re that tall

You don’t walk, you stride

With nothing to hide

 

You kept straight ahead, not looking back

And I—

Just for a moment—

Jolted by a stabbing pain

I stayed in my seat on the bus

It looked like rain

 

But in that split-second—

Fleeting, going, gone—

I would have given anything at all

To know that you would stop for me

If I called out your name

To be walking next to you

Wherever you were going

I’d be struggling to keep up

But you might have slowed down

You didn’t turn your head to look

Not even once

Till the bus turned the corner

Then you were out of sight

And pretty soon out of mind

There’s a metaphor in there somewhere

For someone else to find

 

I didn’t dwell on it

It was three seconds, maybe four

And I was late for work already

 

But I’ve been staring straight ahead

For half an hour now

Not hearing the voices on the phones—

“How may I direct your call”—

I blink

Why are the walls still standing?

 

A modern-day Eurydice

I dare you to glance back at me

And sink me in the depths where I belong

Consign me to the hell that I deserve

To castles built of sticks and stones

Where I can bind my broken bones

Where I can wonder why I cared

If you looked back for a moment

One throwaway day in February—

 

When the sky was cloudy

And it looked like rain

 

 

13. Like Glass Breaking

I spoke without thinking
Accusation ringing out
Harsh, hanging in the air
Making distance between us
There is a silence after harsh words
The opposite of the silence after storm
Like an unresolved chord resounding
Long after the song is ended
And the pianist wishes he could sink
Through the floor into the abyss
Away from the flinching audience

If I could see my words they would look
Like glass breaking
Shattering across a brittle tile floor
Bright shards, bright shards
Brought about by a trembling hand

They say we can eat our words
But we can only ever taste them
On their way out into the air
Never can we swallow them down again
I would eat them, I would chew
The broken glass
I would swallow down the bright shards
To stop them from piercing you

Ah, your glass-window eyes
I have shattered the window-panes with a word
Ah, your butterfly-soul
I have crushed your iridescent wings
Ah, your heart of gold
Worthy of words like apples of gold in hangings of silver 

I broke a part of you today
I cannot take back the jangling discord, the ugly sound
Like glass breaking
So I gather the broken pieces in my hands
And lay them before you
A glittering heap of destruction
In all its transparent shame
See through the shards to me, I beg of you

Forgive me
Forgive me

 

  

14. Night-Kingdom

 

There was a time I held the strings

And moved the puppets from the wings

There was a time I set the tinfoil crowns

On painted puppet kings

 

Once upon a time I ruled the world.

 

I built my kingdom late at night

Hammer and chisel, saw and knife

Working all night long

By the light of the moon and the stars

Working till the morning light

 

There was a time my kingdom stood

Made of cardboard, paper, wood

Every turret a cereal box

And every flag a white handkerchief

Ironwork of paperclips and staples

Underneath the dining table

A blanket pulled low over the side

Whenever I wanted to hide

 

And I wondered what I’d built before all night

With the moonlight through the window

Turning kingdoms dark and bright

 

Once upon a time my kingdom stood.

 

 

 15. Beyond Reach

 

We seek to move the very earth to tears

With music that will melt the stars

And smite the sounding furrows of renown

We die as we grasp our wretched lines

In this trick of mist and fury

That some call life

 

 

16. When the Heavens Fall

 

The leaves of glass will not be shattered

Nor the golden bowl be emptied

Nor the dragon’s fire be quenched

Nor the dreams of Time remembered

Nor the ancient songs be sung

Nor the scarlet cord unraveled

Nor the mountains flattened out

Till the ways of man are ended

And the stars shine forth no more

And the Night begins to slumber

As the heavens fall

 

And now the leaves of glass are shaking

Just dregs remain within the golden bowl

The dragon’s fire is but a spluttering hiss

As nightmares of Time ride upon the earth

As a faint murmur rises from the hills

As the scarlet cord unravels in the maze

As the mountains sink into the sea

And the ways of man are dwindling

Even as the stars grow dim

As Night closes her weary eyelids

For the heavens fall

 

 

17. A Quest is Not a Noble Thing

 

A quest is not a noble thing

A journey just a game

To trade men’s souls for plunder

To keep appearances the same

 

In the courts of fools and laughter

Where a hero is a knight

In the riotous sound and fury

Wisdom brings no light

 

 

18. Life-Story

 

The story has not yet ended

And for some, not yet even begun

Do we each get a say in the words?

Some believe so, I for one

Make a bold stroke on the page of life

Let no other write it for you.

E’en a blot or a smudge in the story

Is better than nothing, if true.

For the angels, they bend down in mercy

With quills dipped in marvelous shades

To add to the blots of our error

Scrolls and swirls that never will fade.

 

 

19. Home Within My Heart

 

Tell me a story, not a marvelous tale

Full of romance and tragedy, intrigue and gain

Tell me a story, a humble tale of humble deeds

Of honesty, good humor, an earthy sort of wit

Not a story that inspires

Less yet one meant to teach a lesson

Something simple and familiar

To keep home within my heart.

 

 

20. We Cry for Ourselves

 

We gaze upon the dead

And we know them not

For they dwell in the house of tomorrow

Where we cannot go.

We see ourselves reflected

As we are, with nowhere to hide

We cry for ourselves

We cry for ourselves

 

 

21. On Eternity

 

I saw Eternity the other night

And then I turned and fled.

‘Twas not for lack of wonder did I flee,

But that I saw Eternity saw me

And saw in me all that I hoped to hide

And left me naked as a new-born child

Against the radiance of its pulsing might

A blot of darkness in the endless light

A dissonance amidst the whirling dance

Of laughter, anguish, wisdom, and romance.

I saw eternity—it was no place for me

No home in all the vast expanse to see

A vial, a clear mirror shining bright

A knife-edge that whirls like diamonds in the night

 

 

22. War

 

Thundering, thundering

Over the scorched earth come

Wars and the rumors of wars

And the rumors roar louder

Than the rushing waters

As men flee

Their flimsy hovels

At a sound in the wind

Like the buzzing of flies

And the horsemen of the last days

Plunder the living dead

 

 

23. The Turning of a Phrase

 

The turning of a phrase is a strange and wondrous thing

A strange and wondrous thing is the turning of a phrase

For it can twist and turn and wind its way insidiously

Into the heart and mind of man to stay perpetually

And rest forgotten, dormant, sleeping, waiting, day by day

In dreams and slumber real as life--while waking, hazy gray

A word, a phrase, a snatch of song, a lullaby or rhyme

A worn and ancient riddle taken from the mouth of Time

A wise and pithy saying written out in copy-books

A scrap of scroll or parchment rescued from some shady nook

Or cranny where the pen of man was busy once, now still

And there speaks silence louder than these phrases ever will

 

 

24. Stephanie's Lament

(from Son of Hestia)

 

And now, in the winter I have wrought

I and the grass shall go

The grass that lies hidden in valleys that never see the sun

The sun with his blinding brilliance

The rays are arrows to destroy

Tell the meadowlark to sing my song anew in his flight

Tell the caged bird to sing if she can

Tell them all and let your words ring hollow as your footsteps fade

As I have done

Turning in spirals

Soaring and falling

The empires rise and crumble with the sun

And your footsteps sound on the stones

And I hear them from where I rest below

And then I hear them no more

Turn from here, children of men

For this is the wayside and your journey lies elsewhere

Over the mountains of the moon in a path carved by the stars

And you shall sail the silver sea

In a boat of the half-moon tipped on its side

And you shall see it turned to blood

Wine-dark and impenetrable

An eternal stain

Shed a tear for me

Shed a tear for me