Rythm to the Hymn: A Sonnet

Deafened orbs: the sun turns, particles turn.

What comes before defines the new again.

No different are we, in darkness yearn

For orbits’ change, for meaning wound in spin.

 

Beating hearts and beating fists, carved in past,

Carved in hottest love—relief in walls of men.

Still steam rises, still mountains fall to chaff;

Each kiss is kissed anew, each lost too fast.

 

Though the darkness waits, to the light we thrall.

It speaks, over silence: love of substance

In the vacuum—in the dark—where the call

Would not be, if only for a steady rhythm

Beating, beating in the orbital arc:

Steadily rises the echoing Hymn.

Day Thirty: Long Last

The suns turn, blind to one another?

No, circling, dancers, lovers, rivals,

Burning in the cold,

Aching in the numb,

Animals in the sky structured with

Dark and light, mathematics in the dark,

Poetry in light.

And we, blind to one another?

No, the stars circle, like dancers, like lovers,

Like our rivals, defined in Kelvin and men,

And so that stars hope, and the sky

So filled with animals and folk,

So that the grandest are held

In the smallests’ regard,

So shall the lovers turn:

Us, and ours.

 

I wanted to have something really epic for the last day. But it was just taking forever. Still, this’ll do.

 

Love, all. Obviously, I won’t stop posting, but this category will have one more concluding wrap-up post and then that’s it.

Day Twenty-Nine: Nearly the End!

The music that plays in this over-grown bar—hard rock on cold nights

and that tune you always seemed to know—with a little static dancing in the new

neon lights, sometimes even the walls seem to glow.

In those god-blessed moments we can see where our folks spent

all the time when they were young,

as the music plays out like love in the sun.

But then, the stubborn old gents and bitter young sons,

they can’t keep up with the tune or in their moments of pain

tell themselves it’s not music,

as the chorus starts up again.

When the cool evening comes they’ll remember the sun,

And the love that they were convinced they were missing.

Though the rest may see what it was said there’d be,

We each see something different in the light off the walls,

And whisper a different truth into the empty halls,

While hoping and hoping for someone to call—

We’re all just looking for something to heft.

But the jukebox keeps playing; but when we thought we were staying

It turns out that we had already left.

Day Twenty-Eight: A really short poem

Taught To Be Free

Freedom cost nothing but the chains are very expensive,

And freedom can only be seen through their keyholes.

we build

We build our own chains, throw them off and build again—

Left to our own devices, we will only fashion ever more vices:

We were never taught how to be free.

Day Twenty-Four: Outside Experience

I forgot to ask you “Why?” before

you took my hand and

broke the sky.

And though the sky goes to infinity,

you never took me farther than

we could see.

Below us lay a looming light: the sun! such a fixture once,

but from above seems just

a light.

To our left, an embrace of shadow, and we dallied:

though the moon still seems mysterious,

not from distance but

from barrenness.

I don’t know if you noticed, but the stars are the pinpoints of my interest,

Who lost their light at my behest,

or flicker in the night, all for the best (though I know you took it grudgingly)

for my earthly moon and listening stars’ sweet intent:

(at least when the darkness touches parchment)

for there never was much to write about light,

nor about the suffocating lack in black.

But these objects we study,

Caught between us, the question, and my answer,

will never come in time but only in

your hand in mine, where you hung

us high upon the ground, the highest,

where so many merely lie.

Day Twenty-Two: The Human Epic

We and the world are mostly water, similar

Percentages, by about 9%. The distance around

The earth is almost 25 thousand miles. If we

All walked in one direction, we would circle

It five times before we died.

When I run my fingers down your face and

Touch nineteen million skin cells. When

I say “I love you,” it is the combined work

Of seventy two muscles and several years from our lives.

Once, we were single-celled organisms,

For only half an hour—a time which would

Burn about 75 calories if we were having sex. If

This were the case, for that same half an hour we

Would have joined 100 million other people.

I will never taste you with the same buds for

More than ten days. All we can do is

Remember, and experience anew.

Maybe that’s why I never get tired of you,

Or this.

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This poem kind of sucks, but I have a great idea for the future based on this.

 

Basically, the muse comes and goes, but I have something to work on when it’s back.

Day Twenty: Untitled

She watches him at the bus stop,

And he doesn’t know her name.

She smiles at him when he looks past her,

And hates herself for trying.

These moments, they won’t stop passing,

Like the busses, day after day.

A player in the oldest story, she

Wishes the bus would take her

Where she really wanted to go:

Across the uncharted seas between

What we are, and what we do.

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We aren’t what we pretend to be until we stop pretending.

 

I missed the post yesterday, that’s two for thirty, but I’m still doing thirty over all. I know it’s a bit of a cheat, but, eh, so sue me.

 

In other news, I sent off my first story a few days ago. I’ll expect the rejection letter in a couple of weeks.

Day Nineteen: Poetry Rewrite

The television starts to sing again,

A haughty unchallenged little tune again:

Such beauty from a human mind

Could only by dull unowned fingers be refined

To such a haunting din. And the magic left

Within us is taken only to be sold back,

What was taken being all we lack.

 

So then be all my credit cards and cigarettes

Left with anarchists and malcontents:

With smeared hope on every hard-earned dime,

Sweat and bled from nine to five—

God, it’s all just dirt and dust and grime,

To be reminted and imbibed

By starred men in striped bow tie.

 

The din and dust dims this light in us,

Banished by a single fashioned match–

But the darkness is old and deeper than it looks,

Full of mirrors and shameless crooks.

Once, the only thing to fear was fear itself,

Now excepting terrorists, embarrassment or ill-health.

 

And what I love and what I don’t,

Sold to me by bits of smoke,

Echoing hollowly through the T.V. screen.

And the television starts to sing again,

A haughty unchallenged little tune again…

————————————————

I don’t know how I feel about this. It took a bit of an overhaul, for better or for worse. I’ll think about it.

Day Eighteen: We Love, Dear (poetry that sucks)

I am happy in the moment

that you touched me.

And this skin you made me love, dear,

Has stopped hurting.

We are something so much greater

Than the sum of our parts–

A part of an idea, dear, and though

The moments pass,

As long as I remember, this touch

Will last forever.

Though we may fall apart, though we

May have our own ideas, dear,

Though this skin may start to hurt again,

Nothing will change, dear, what has been,

And in this moment we are free.

So we, loving mortals mortally loving,

Are left to lovingly see, dear.

Day Seventeen: The Flea Circus

What a wondrous thing the flea circus is!

Little babes in hand of the impressioned man

And lovers of the country, adorned in fineries

To the spring time fair. They pray for a lovely

Weathered day, they pray for a Holy care.

The crowd approaches, so brightly refined, under

An enormous tent of red and gold,

to watch the marvelous drama unfold!

A little one cries out: Oh tentman, will you show us

Your marvelous things?

Little one, he replies, this show will be fit for kings!

Come one, come all, lovely ladies and courageous gents!

‘Tis a fine day, ‘tis a kind way, that so many of you

Turned out to see my humble show. Without further ado,

My little wonders I show to you!

And the silken veil was lifted,

And the little wheels squeaked

And the littlest of babes craned their necks to peek…

 

Golden bars striped a tiny red tent

That upon a tiny three-ring circus lent,

And a crowd of fleas gathered

On a cloudless day to watch an

Invisible attraction start to play.

And the gossamer mechanisms

And tiny instruments were left unspent.

 

And a hush fell over the crowd, shocked,

For they were not afraid to die.

Someone comforted the children, and took them far away

And they all went to their homes that night,

To await the return of day.

—————————————————————–

I know the rhythm’s a little off, but this still made me a little sad to write it… And now I’m quite sad to post it. Anyway.

 

Life goes on.