Into the Depths

Into the Depths

I have dived into an ocean

Now I realize I’ve gone so deep

I don’t know where I am

The only thing I thought I could do to save myself

Is see where the light is coming from

Then simply return to the surface

But now, where I am, there is light coming from all directions

I now have no idea which way I’m supposed to go

But I presume that wherever I go

there will be nothing but goodness

In whichever way I choose

Monolith

Monolith

Running laps around the carousel 

Blitzing at American Dream speed

No time to think of why

Just churn out numbers until I die

I run straight smack into a monolith

It suddenly appeared right in my way

So massive, so resolute 

So beautiful 

I hit so hard my mind just stopped cold

I feared for my sanity 

I lost all semblance of bold

All thoughts stopped 

The words would not come

Silence allowed me to hear

The rhythms of the entire universe 

The ringing in my ears

Still screeches from the impact 

I hear the slumber of others

Their soft snores ebbing as the oceans 

I hear the cries of witches, warlocks

Selling their impotent potions

To the most delusional highest bidder 

But most of all I realize I have never been still before

I’ve never paused to realize the meaning of the floor

I’ve never seen such clear blue sky

I’ve never sensed the rain

I think the most disconcerting thing

Is I never felt my pain

This is why I’ve been so alone

I toss aside my humming phone

Looking up to the folds of granite 

I pause, I linger, I fold, I panic

At the thought I have to scale this

Yet even though I consistently fail this

I put all I have into the ascent

Which all I have is me

The fireflies begin to flicker, burn 

They begin to light a pathway

So though there fades the light of day

I still climb, I still ascend 

Especially when I am still 

The Hope

The Hope

Poetry shouldn’t be forced

I’m not sure anything good comes from coercion

I’m so impeded, the words won’t come

They are there in my mind, in my soul

Yet there is this dark blockade

Anger, fatigue, self-doubt, irritation, impatience

These are the bricks in the wall

I so often wait around for inspiration

Inspiration is too fleeting, too fickle

I might be sitting on this rock for ages

Moss growing all around me

Growing on my face and eyes

While waiting to be mesmerized

The sun completes all its seasons

So I search for more, I look for reasons

Why all this is the way it is for me

Instead of resting along the trees

I wander off into the bramble

Thus the reason I mumble, ramble

Along the sidewalks of the mysterious plodding way

I still don’t know quite what to say

I still don’t know quite what to pray

Or how

I must go deeper than my brow

Maybe I must go higher

My skin has tired of these annoying briers

That daily scratch my skin

I wonder if my past, the lives of my kin

Have gone these overgrown life ways?

No, I cannot go backwards, that makes no sense at all

I set my eyes for the ambers of fall

Knowing there will be a winter

Christmas is coming

The Way

The Way

I can feel the poems within me

Growing, moving, churning

Not yet ready to see the light

Yet building the light within me greatly

Sometimes I feel volcanic, ready to burst asunder

Sometimes there’s simply quiet, undercurrent

Moving the continents

One millimeter at a time

These senses are so subtle, sublime

Yet also they can be a sudden torrent

I don’t have my container ready to catch it all

The drops disappear into the warm, rich earth

Something will grow from them later

Something that creates a vast, deep crater

Too deep to see the bottom

Too wide to know the expanse

No droning lore or circumstance

Can describe or tame it

I can feel the poems within me

They grow, they move, they delight

They torture, they tense, they torment

All at once

All in a day

This is the way

Of the poet.

10/17/17