Poems

3.

Shadow

I think it's gone, but then behold–
It comes around again,
Curling to my footsteps,
No matter where they end.

I like the dark, because within,
It seems at least to fade...
Until I pass a lighting lamp
To cast me into shade.

The poltergeist of reason
Decides to take a rest;
Gives ambience to treason
With whom it shares its nest,

"Why not?" the question entertained,
"Why not," the answer roused
From its grave, where it had lain,
It called so clearly out.

What sorcery this is,
Potent to be sure.
Intoxicate, beleaguer on,
And sense the dark no more.

I have madness but no magic,
Yet I have cast a spell
Of chagrin and delusion
No luminary can quell;

To sigh upon a tempest,
To weep into a sea,
Mistaken whim for meaning,
And ire for apogee.

How can one catch a shadow,
And reckon with its shade?
Cast by its own maker,
How can it be unmade?

I take solace in the know
It's not my own reflection:
A part of me, but not the whole, 
An act of insurrection.

Exist it must, long as do I, 
But this is no reprimand,
For the shape it takes along my path
Is defined by where I stand.

 

2.

The Dead Can Tell No Tales

Unseasoned gaze I feel ascent, 
Like a lifted veil.
Palette of a world unspent
Your absence did not pale.
With zeal to dreams unspoke, unkempt,
Where trepid waters sail;
You–onto else; I foundered, spent,
Yet live to tell the tale.

Bridled first, then freely went
To annihilate the ail,
Yet found in place of grounded sense,
The illusion must prevail.
You take but what I relent,
And your words to no avail
Made wiser my own reticence,
And I live to tell the tale.

Laugh where mighty woes were meant,
Relate with pomp and hail!
And live with braver merriment,
For the dead, they tell no tales.

Lunar Hearing

Do not tell your secrets to the moon this night–
Her heart is heavy with sorrow, says her fading light.
She has too many ails to attend it seems,
Too many tempests to soothe with tiding dreams...
Do not whisper your wishes to her ready ear;
She has not time to listen, though she may hear.
The shadows that she harbours are disquieted
From all the despair that on earth has rioted.
She must amend what she may while people sleep,
Find within their minds what to away and what to keep.
She has but till dawn to tend their blunders
Then, to the other half of earth as they slumber.

So, if your secrets can keep without your fearing,
Then sleep another night without a lunar hearing
And simply tell the moon you know her distress,
That you wish that one day she too will tell and rest.