Nocturnal

I love the night. Daytime can be so ordinary, so tedious. That is not to say it doesn't have it's pleasures; it certainly does. Yet daylight, with its sun and sound and motion, serves to reveal the world, and in the process of doing so, obscures myself. It is the night that I truly enjoy. Then, my thoughts are my own, and are free to run at will. The world still awaits, but now it is a quieter place, full of a deep, infinite blackness, and dappled with points of color and light which no longer obscure my thoughts, but focus them. It's only too bad more of humanity doesn't operate on such a schedule. As it is, work and friends and other such things tend to keep me firmly rooted in the daylight hours.


Nocturnal

The weary stars grow dimmer than the dawn.
Their luster fails, and they loose their hold,
fast-slipping from the firmament, then gone.
What happy night can keep from growing old

and merging with the edges of the sea?
We stony sailors of a fathomed sky
make fast our cables to a guarantee
of opiate repose, till, by and by,

the muted moon precedes an errant sun,
who glares, pretentious as a Persian king,
upon a languid world, shaped and spun
of filamental dreams that scarcely cling

to drowsy lovers, as they curse the day
and bid the lurid light to run astray.

Enigma

One semester down, and one to go. I really shouldn't say that until I have my grades and papers all turned in, but I can hope. At least it's generally cold and wet, so sitting inside with a cup of tea and a stack of papers won't be too much of a sacrifice.


Enigma

A smile never showed a winsome heart
as easily as hers, or held a breath
as firmly as a fetter; learned art,
to capture life within each little death,

as if a tethered bird, whose debt is owed
to she who brought captivity. So stirs
the ache, inamorato, now bestowed
upon your longing. Absence, thus, incurs

a deficit, a slow and steady sting.
These thorns will cripple even as they give,
but will, in giving, guarantee to bring
a cure for one full-riddled as a sieve,

for none is near as baffling as she;
to starve and slake, alike, a mystery.

Hush

I've grown quite fond of this rhyming pattern (ABABAAB). It has appeared in a handful of my poems, including the one just prior to this. I think it manages to merge the rolling feel of alternate-line rhyme with the slow and steady damper of a repeated rhyme, much like one might find at the end of a Shakespearean sonnet, and I'm quickly making it my own. Interestingly enough, I can find little or no evidence that it has ever been a popular pattern. This can mean (in order of desirability) one of three things: 1. I am pioneering a new and unique poetic form; 2. I am a poor internet researcher; or 3. this form has been 'discovered' countless times, but subsequently cast aside by real poets for its simplicity and failings. I'm currently being optimistic, and aiming for #2.


Hush

A wind arose an early day
and, trembling, she spoke
a word, as soft as ocean spray
against the weathered oak
that scans the sculling terns at play
and stands, a sentry for the bay,
before the earth awoke.

It was a whisper, passing hint
of hours yet to come,
when light was barely but a glint
of color climbing from
the secret spark, spun off the flint
of distant mountains, scarce a tint
and purple as a plum.

And down it drifted through the green
and dewy undergrowth.
It chilled the the air, although unseen,
and made the small ones loath
to rise and greet the quiet queen
who slipped a ghostly breath between
the sky and soil, both.

So fresh and heady from the first,
my timely morning kiss,
as finches bared their breasts to burst
into a warbled bliss
and dusky dreams, at last, dispersed
before a daybreak, unrehearsed
but never yet amiss.

Then, on and on and to the strand
it wound a fluent track,
past flowers in the hinterland,
unbuttoned but a crack,
and forests, somnolently grand,
until it rested on the sand
and let its bellows slack.

And, finally, expressed in full
and fastened with a flush
of rosy luster, as it stole
across the lands in rush
and ramble toward a distant goal,
her lonely word was rendered whole
and happy in a hush.

Storm-Life

Why is Oregon devoid of thunderstorms? Oh, how I wish for a tumultuous, end-of-the-world tempest...


Storm-Life

A reckless breeze, infrequent burst,
as fickle as my mind,
dramatically unrehearsed,
though never unrefined,
foretokens - but a paltry first
and furtive warning for the cursed -
the onset, close behind,

as roaring wind, ungodly wrath,
arises on the sward
and surges down the staggered path
abreast a howling horde,
though all too quick to cut a swathe
and drench the fields in a bath
and burst, unduly poured,

till restive breath, bare residue,
now carrying the train,
is left alone, of all the slew,
a remnant of the rain,
to make of it a morning dew
and nerve the worsted world to
receive a storm again.

The Coming Chill

Although the temperature is quite balmy for mid-winter, those few December weeks of intense cold gave a taste of things to come. Hopefully, we will not experience a resurgence of the powerful winds and icy snows of yesteryear that crippled the city for a week or more. Still, I look forward to at least some substantial snow before Winter comes to a close. On a separate, technical note, I maintained the same pattern of sounds in the three primary verses of this poem - 'th' in the 1st and 3rd lines, and 'm' in the 2nd and 4th. I really don't know if it adds anything, but it was a fun experiment.


The Coming Chill

A polar raw lays mantled on the earth,
a heavy fetter fallen on the bloom,
and I am found confounded in my mirth
and firmly muzzled. What a bitter tomb

of hard and heavy dusk, foreboding death,
as if a resurrection cannot come,
and rearing, mouth agape with withered breath,
in wait of mortal marrow taken from

the fallow bed of fading undergrowth,
where little flecks of life are stricken lame
at last, for now the winter keeps its oath
to fell each leaping stem, as if a flame

that casts a feeble glow of candlelight
were then extinguished, ere the day be night.