Happiness Missed

Every once in a while, I attach myself to a poet I particularly admire (don't worry, the dead variety) and try to emulate his or her style of poetry. This one came from my 'Emily Dickinson' period.


Happiness Missed

Happiness is often missed
in haste to satisfy
pleasures that, like breaths deep drawn,
soon scatter by and by.

But the grief that follows thence,
when understanding wakes,
ne’er is voided nor delayed
when on the heart it breaks.

So pass not the quiet need
that whispers to your soul,
for, in leaving it behind,
you leave what makes you whole.

Words

Every year or two, I make a brief sabbatical down to Southern California. I do this in part to visit old friends and to relax, but also to assure myself that, despite the chaos in my own life, there will always be some things that remain unchanged. California is my anchor, and the people I know there are sincere friends - the sort that will be just as true whether you talk once a day or once a year. So what does all this have to do with the poem? Well, I wrote it a while back, after I had gone three years without visiting California, and was suddenly struck by a deep melancholy and a desire to see all the people I'd left behind. There are times when you are surrounded by people and yet you are crushed by loneliness; you are missing that true companionship that is rarely found and never replaced by common friendship. That is where I was when I wrote this.


Words

There is sorrow and sadness in all that I see,
as even in moments of laughter I’m blue,
and nothing I do is now done happily,
for it has been so long since I’ve talked to you.

Falling Asleep with a Blank Page

A little more free verse. This might be the last one for a while. I suppose the title is a bit of a paradox, but I couldn't think of a better one.


Falling Asleep with a Blank Page

Midnight,
and the muse
has left me
for the poets
of the East.

The Forgotten

More mildly-structured free verse; this is becoming a trend. Give me a few more weeks, and we'll be back to well-ordered scansion, but for the moment, allow me my fancies. This was written in a graveyard, and I must say, as morbid as it sounds, graveyards are wonderful places to meditate. They are almost always well kept and spacious, with lots of greenery and statues, and the occasional pond; unlike parks, you will rarely ever see another soul; and by their very nature they are extremely conducive to self-reflection - good luck being flippant in a graveyard.


The Forgotten

It is sad to see the fields of graves,
once well-tended, now forgotten,
covered in a careless bed of leaves,
such a quiet, faded end
to so many loves and sins,
and to know that I'll return,
not a visitor of the dead,
but a man, soon forgotten.

Hypocricy

Well, I missed a week and a half, so I apologize to my audience, such as it is... Life has been busy. But here is a counterpart to the last poem (in form, at least; not content). I figure, as long as I'm posting quasi-free verse, I may as well make a run of it.


Hypocrisy

The poet freed
from the bounds of meter and rhyme
is a sad creature indeed,
who has traded aspiration
for instant gratification,
and freedom for license,
and just as abstract art and atonality
have replaced the form with banality
and formlessness and worse,
so to free verse
has abandoned the ancient verbal melodies.
But, alas,
even these lesser songs
have a place and time,
as here and now.

Don't Go Away

For those of you who know me, it should come as no surprise that I generally avoid writing any form of free verse poetry. I couldn't avoid posting this next piece, however. It is several years old, now, and I've grown quite attached to it, for one reason or another. It has a fairly constant, if loose, rhyming structure, but lacks any strict meter. I suppose, though, that at the end of the day, the tempo flows consistently enough to satisfy my inner scansionist. Oh, and just in case anyone wonders, I shamelessly hijacked the substance of the 'teardrop' line from Jeff Buckley's 'Lover, You Should Have Come Over,' one of the greatest lost-love ballads ever. That's a form of flattery, right?


Don’t Go Away

I’m lying in my bed
and listening to rain
that falls upon the flowers.
Why did I think I could sleep
when haunted by these hours;
seeing you again
and all that could have been.

Why did I let you go?
I know, no need to say.
I won’t let you go.
I know, don’t go away.

But who can say what time will tell,
so if you go I’ll wish you well.
Just promise you’ll give me one kiss
as we part, separate ways.
A teardrop to hang silently
in my heart all my days,

and you will always be on my mind, love,
yes, you will always be on my mind,
just don’t go away.

White Halos

It's not exactly fair for the young to write about the old, but I've done it anyway, and with all the lack of foresight and knowledge and wisdom that accompanies youth. It is in the spirit of this innate foolishness that I post this poem, which in all likelihood has little bearing on the reality of old age. But it is also in the spirit of that other old age - August, whose receding days whisper of falling leaves and school buses.


White Halos

My friends, your chairs are empty,
this loneliness is new.
Our days were once so plenty,
but now are numbered few.

I see your heads around me
with halos white adorned,
though not as angels are we,
but merely men forlorn,

Recalling how time wandered
and we did watch it pass,
without a breath to ponder
that none of this would last.

So now we’re left with hours,
and all these empty chairs,
and feebleness for power,
and halos for our hair.