Young Love, Poetry

When the people cry in sorrow

When the nation falls in pain

When a hero knows no morrow

When a champion dies in vain

When an apple ‘parts the branches

When the spring is running dry

When the tears of Heaven a- flowing

When not a cloud drifts by

When the sun is clouded over

When the Moon reigns in the sky

When the crow flies o'er Dover

When the stars flick out the lights

When all these horrors strike

Like the viper, curled and sprung

When the final rest draws near

At least we loved when we were young.

June 2010

The Light of Love, Poetry

A ray of light, shining through the dusky mist

Falling upon the petals, brushing the rose with a caressing touch
Stroking the bloom tenderly, smiling with pleasure

Always knowing their time together is short, sweetly filled

The memories too strong to suppress, too hard to bear

The glowing orb sighs, sinking into a waking trance

A dull light resting deep inside the ancient soul

An aching only numbed by time

As the irresistible beauty reaches out, crying softly

Begging for the pale ghost of love to leave

A new path forged, the bursting heart rises again

Come to reclaim, the victor of a battle of loyalties

A single breath of hope keeping them alive

Their souls intertwined, held together in one strand,

Twisted in Fate’s loom

Love once more joins two as one

Perfection is achieved

As the Sun rises

And night becomes day

April 2010

Death by Living, Poetry

Across the void the souls await

Ethereal ravens guard the gates

Though none would dream of trespass within

The hearts beyond cry out for saviour too of sin

From the grasping clutches of the angered saint

Once the highest glory lost to evil man’fested

Reaches out with gnarled claws a timeless feat

Trapped in the cycle of ill-will to hope

Desperately clutching the intangible face

Of those who caged him free of will

The ravens guard the ghastly graves

That none might follow in their wake

The sole survivors of the reapers’ trawl

To net and stow the rebels all

Those who at the end were still

Escaped the wrath of those living still

If living it be truly called

For the endless cycle the end is the head

The tail pierced and broken lays limp

Captured in the jaws of priceless serpent

Upon  which all of time depends

 A master calls a servant to his halls

To flay his life from him so soon too short

The boy cries out but pain to no avail continues

Mercilessly casting him to death

The jaws of the serpent open wide

Swallow the conscious soul inside

For  one poor child the chain is broke

As the mangled tip slips forlornly from the vipers’ grasp

Falling falling through the endless void

The creature wails and hisses out of pain at last

 The crushed and broken body engulfed in flame

Is consumed by the mindless monsters’ blaze

As just another poor heart falls its’ way

Lest Ye Forget, Poetry

Lest Ye Forget

Never forget

The lives lost

The faces blurred

By the tears of time.

Never forget

The life you have

Who died to give it

Whose life was lost

To save yours

Never forget

That one day

It could be you

Dying for a face

You’ll never see

Never forget

That every cross

In the endless fields

Belongs to a face

And a life

Never forget

That beneath the soil

Lays the spirit and bones

Of the ‘Unnamed Soldier’.

September 2010

Hera, Poetry

Hera

“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”

Those timeless words, so simple in their sweet compliment,

That yet do not justice to one such face as yours.

More apt, perhaps, to compare to a violet sunset,

Or yet more alike, that ecstasy of a stolen kiss.

A summer’s day, in all its glory, pales before your coveted smile.

So I put to you this: Compare not to a summer’s day,

Nor a sunset, or kiss, but to the beauty of creation,

For only in the splendid design of life can be found parallel to your own sweet perfection.

Take my unworthy hand, so presumptuously reaching out,

And grace with the act my rough and callused fingers across your own soft palm,

In so doing, gentling my raw and aching heart.

“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”

Nay, for not by a single article can your beauty be explained,

But by all the world and the glorious creatures upon it.

I would have to list every item of pretty nature,

And denote each moment when the grand design of the world came together,

For only in harmony can every one of these equal your own radiance.

Alas, my love, to make any earthly comparison is to do you wrong,

So I must beg that you accept my most humble words,

In apology for these unworthy descriptions, and in gesture of my unceasing love.

January 2012

Dreamer, or, Oscar Wilde, Poetry

Dreamer

Is not an idea but a soulless thought?

A musing, idly wondered, soon grows old.

Easily dismissed, by its creator,

A dreamer who sees more futures than foretold.

To the layman it seems that this idler’s dreams

Are more than his own life can hold.

Taken in by imagined promises made,

The follower craves ever more,

So he takes the world, imagined, untamed,

And merges it with his own thoughts.

The idea has grown, bloomed, expanded,

To beyond the poor dreamer’s recall.

The disciple is consumed completely,

His own self is lost to the thought.

For now it possesses his lifetime,

His world seems no more torpor-fraught.

And the man who created the monster,

Lies dreaming of what his mind wrought.

March 2012

As Above, So Below, Poetry

As Above, So Below

~A Reflection on the Transient Nature of Beauty

The night sky glimmers with a thousand stars, or more,

Flickering in and out of sight like the curious stares of so many darting fish

as they glance out from the undisturbed surface of the pond,

Then plunge back into the inky depths of the unknown,

where no light violates that beautiful, ancient empire.

Occasionally, a star will rush across the motionless pool of black,

Leaving in its wake a tail of blazing white.

Like a mayfly, its short-lived splendour graces the scene for but a moment, and is gone,

A hundred times more brief yet more lovely than any treasures prized by Man.

In the night sky, too, like the beautiful pond, hangs the elegant moon,

Glowing golden-white in the star-scattered Heavens;

Rippling gently with a silver hue beneath the flitting mayfly’s gossamer wings.

And above the heads of the marvelling fish, she hovers, holding her silent counsel with the stellar Court.

The sky grows paler, and the stars shy away from the brilliance of the dawning day,

The majesty of the Sun overwhelming the delicate balance, the finely-tuned harmony of the night.

And on the fringe of the pond, the mayfly stills its tired wings, settling for one final rest, as another emerges into the brand new morning,

As still the fish look on, timeless observers of such incalculable wonders as only they know.

March 2012