Suffer Silence

Given that I skipped last week, here's another cheerful poem to lighten the cold, dark nights. Well, maybe not, but I promise to post some warmer poems over the next couple weeks, as we enter the Advent season.


Suffer Silence

Silence is madness’ seat, turning the mind
back on itself, where it cannot but find
cancers concealed from introvert eyes
by the confounding of pleasureful guise;
voices that call out of women and wealth,
hindering man from the sight of himself.

The Drowning

I was certainly not depressed when I wrote this poem, but I generally find it easiest to relay emotions that are opposed to those I am currently feeling. I don't know if everyone is this way, but often my most cheerful or beautiful poems come when I am most depressed, while my poems of death and destruction find their way out in my happiest times. Funny, but that's how it is. I suppose it is a sign that we can best express not what we truly are, but what we truly desire or lack.


The Drowning

Rippling the water
with a shrill and shivered cry,
and wings that beat a frenzy,
in a final, fluttered try -
a vain attempt to rise up
to the mountains and the sky;
naught but the hope of one who’s fated
nevermore to fly.

Returning

As much as I would like to post more seasonal poems, I've run a little dry for the time being. So, instead of giving you a poem about falling leaves and rain and tea and other autumnal whatnot, I figured the next best thing is a poem that feels as if it should be read while sipping tea to the falling of rain and leaves. Here's a quiet, cozy little poem about companionship and marriage.


Returning

Walk with me now; I know not where to go,
but I can find solace in you,
and then, perhaps, though the journey is slow,
we’ll make our way there, sure and true,
back to the home that I used to know,
and through us it will be made new.

Rain

I love rain. Not the five-minute rain bursts of Michigan, nor the two-month obliterating rains of California, but the lingering and fabulously wet rains of Oregon. I would never complain about the sun, but ultimately, I enjoy the sun insofar as I enjoy the shade, and to enjoy something only to the extent that you can hide from it is an odd pleasure, indeed. Rain, however, should not and cannot be avoided. It is a delight to every sense of the body, and turns small daily happinesses into great ones. I intend my next purchase to be a full-length umbrella; not to keep dry, but to hear the drops of water as they strike the cloth.


Rain

A timpani patter upon the tin roof
announces the fall of the sky,
and everyone here seems to be so aloof,
though none of us shall remain dry.
We cannot escape, and to tell you the truth,
I never intended to try.