Poetic leavings: Ancient scribbles
Feb. 20th, 2008 09:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sickle_storiesThese are samples of stuff I wrote back in 2001. I'm skipping most of the emo stuff. (Well, most of it.) I'm not necessarily proud of all I'm posting, and I'm often not even posting the whole thing. (Good lord, did I write crap sometimes.)
Each number is a separate poem thing.
1. In life, some people are pawns, others knights, a few kings and queens.
Yet they all have their patterns on the same chessboard.
2. I was promised that I would be loved,
That I would be found,
That I would spend my life by your side.
You swore over it, cried over it, and even bled over it.
Can tears wash away your blood-pledge?
Did they wash away your love?
I have prayed
And
I have searched.
I have waited.
But no more.
You want me,
Come find me.
3. We say we’re searching for answers,
But we’re looking for lies.
4. What slight stumbles choose our paths?
5. I am tired of asking questions that will not be answered.
Perhaps they have no answer.
But even that lack of reason is better than this
Empty void of silence.
I don’t ask that you answer the questions.
Give questions of your own.
Or answers to unasked questions.
But give something.
6. Mind the 'If'
I don’t mind the wound if you don’t spill the blood.
I don’t mind the spill if there’s a reason.
I don’t mind the reason if you love me still.
7. I declare a song - 17/10/01
‘I have decided to write poetry.’
I declare.
Yet nothing I write is what it is.
Of that I am aware.
‘Aha!’ says the reader, noting the rhyme.
Yet what of the tone?
That damn tone that poetry must pass on to others.
All that I call poetry is just words,
strung together,
one after another,
like strings on a harp.
If you or I pluck them in the right way, we’ll get a tune.
A song.
But if we pluck them at our leisure,
we’ll discover a new tune,
to our pleasure.
It will be our own.
8. You can taste dreams, they say.
But nothing else in them is real.
7. Can death die?
Death is that which ceases to be.
That which ceases to be is dead.
If death ceases to be, death dies.
If death dies, death ceases to be.
If death dies, death becomes itself.
Death ceases to exist and becomes death.
If death becomes death, death exists.
That which exists is not dead.
So death cannot die.
8. Double Edged or Never Thought - 3/12/01
He hurt you
Like you never thought you could be.
But he pleased you
Like you never thought you could be.
So you loved him
Like he never thought he could be.
[...]
We made a deal:
I would love you
And
You would stay.
[...]
You broke your word.
I kept mine.
But
It’s impossible to love you now.
9. For all I know
You could be right here.
And I’m just too blind to see you.
Or maybe I’m looking too hard.
10. You’re afraid you’ll be lost.
Loose myself?
You are my anchor.
Iron rusts.
11. A path – 23/7/03
Everything is going to fall tonight.
It will all crumble to the ground.
The dust will rise up like a cloud,
Blow us all over
Head over heels.
We will tumble and stumble among the ruins
Looking into crannies and under the stairs
Holding up door frames with the calloused palms of our hands
Walking over the door.
We will look out over the garden walls,
Our heads poking from the window frames
That hand, naked, with the curtains gone,
The glass cracked like spider webs;
Our faces pale ghosts from the old days.
We will light a lantern come sunset
And walk out through a hole in the wall.
We will set our steps towards the horizon
And walk up to the edge that seemed so far,
Down the steps and onto the dirt road,
Hop over and under the strewn rubble,
Our faces now grimy from the chaos,
Our hands raw from clearing a way.
We will leave our broken home behind us
And search by star and moonlight
For the right way, the clear way, or any which way,
Our lantern now long-extinguished by the desperate wind
Rushing past to fill the darkness
Trickling through the gaps in the front gate
That leans crookedly at the entrance
Of what has become a void
Too large to fill.
Even by the cold magnificent wind.
Each number is a separate poem thing.
1. In life, some people are pawns, others knights, a few kings and queens.
Yet they all have their patterns on the same chessboard.
2. I was promised that I would be loved,
That I would be found,
That I would spend my life by your side.
You swore over it, cried over it, and even bled over it.
Can tears wash away your blood-pledge?
Did they wash away your love?
I have prayed
And
I have searched.
I have waited.
But no more.
You want me,
Come find me.
3. We say we’re searching for answers,
But we’re looking for lies.
4. What slight stumbles choose our paths?
5. I am tired of asking questions that will not be answered.
Perhaps they have no answer.
But even that lack of reason is better than this
Empty void of silence.
I don’t ask that you answer the questions.
Give questions of your own.
Or answers to unasked questions.
But give something.
6. Mind the 'If'
I don’t mind the wound if you don’t spill the blood.
I don’t mind the spill if there’s a reason.
I don’t mind the reason if you love me still.
7. I declare a song - 17/10/01
‘I have decided to write poetry.’
I declare.
Yet nothing I write is what it is.
Of that I am aware.
‘Aha!’ says the reader, noting the rhyme.
Yet what of the tone?
That damn tone that poetry must pass on to others.
All that I call poetry is just words,
strung together,
one after another,
like strings on a harp.
If you or I pluck them in the right way, we’ll get a tune.
A song.
But if we pluck them at our leisure,
we’ll discover a new tune,
to our pleasure.
It will be our own.
8. You can taste dreams, they say.
But nothing else in them is real.
7. Can death die?
Death is that which ceases to be.
That which ceases to be is dead.
If death ceases to be, death dies.
If death dies, death ceases to be.
If death dies, death becomes itself.
Death ceases to exist and becomes death.
If death becomes death, death exists.
That which exists is not dead.
So death cannot die.
8. Double Edged or Never Thought - 3/12/01
He hurt you
Like you never thought you could be.
But he pleased you
Like you never thought you could be.
So you loved him
Like he never thought he could be.
[...]
We made a deal:
I would love you
And
You would stay.
[...]
You broke your word.
I kept mine.
But
It’s impossible to love you now.
9. For all I know
You could be right here.
And I’m just too blind to see you.
Or maybe I’m looking too hard.
10. You’re afraid you’ll be lost.
Loose myself?
You are my anchor.
Iron rusts.
11. A path – 23/7/03
Everything is going to fall tonight.
It will all crumble to the ground.
The dust will rise up like a cloud,
Blow us all over
Head over heels.
We will tumble and stumble among the ruins
Looking into crannies and under the stairs
Holding up door frames with the calloused palms of our hands
Walking over the door.
We will look out over the garden walls,
Our heads poking from the window frames
That hand, naked, with the curtains gone,
The glass cracked like spider webs;
Our faces pale ghosts from the old days.
We will light a lantern come sunset
And walk out through a hole in the wall.
We will set our steps towards the horizon
And walk up to the edge that seemed so far,
Down the steps and onto the dirt road,
Hop over and under the strewn rubble,
Our faces now grimy from the chaos,
Our hands raw from clearing a way.
We will leave our broken home behind us
And search by star and moonlight
For the right way, the clear way, or any which way,
Our lantern now long-extinguished by the desperate wind
Rushing past to fill the darkness
Trickling through the gaps in the front gate
That leans crookedly at the entrance
Of what has become a void
Too large to fill.
Even by the cold magnificent wind.
