Poems

Poems are like songs, sometimes.  They can get you through a dark winter day, or at least sing at you while you slowly forget the sun's ever coming out again, that it'll ever be Spring, while it's always winter and never Christmas and you're not warm.  Here are three I like a lot:

Alone  
Edgar Allan Poe
From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then- in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life- was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.

Chocolate Cherryblossom
Angel Merriman
Nightish cloak of tresses dark
Draw eyes from gleaming crown to pleasing toes
Elfin eyes with mischief spark and shutter click
And oh, and now...a nose, a nose!
You are a glorious spectacle.

Hm. Pause.  If you say so.
I am not what you say!
You do not know.
(You really do not know)

Oh! To tangled get in that fair lip...
Lost for days and days.
Wandering languid that oasis
To sing for weeks and years about the trip!
And legs lasting millenia.

I am vile! she protests
The Whore of Babylon writ large
Unpainted Jezebel!  Bathsheba with no bath!
Voice soars from dulcet tones to harpy screech
Then down again and down some more to sultry sigh:
You do not know.
(You really do not know)

Your heart is huge

Voluptuous and lithe and firm and warm

Nothing but openness and welcome

For any and for all

Unless they love.

(Unless they love.)

For then you needs must flee.

Clutching control tightly to your lovely chest.

In fine, elegant hands.

I am napalm, cordite, cyanide!

A toxic waste.
Graveyard of broken hearts.
Faerie light florescent lighting fools the way to dusty death
Look upon my past, potential suitors
And despair!
You flatter me in vain.
You do not love.
You do not know.
(You really do not know)

Thoughts that spiral serpentine,

Then gleaming, shatter into shards

That splinter, form, regroup and mend

Sure shaming thoughts of ancient bards.

You cogitate compulsively.

Relentlessly, excitingly.

Crystalline explosions daily.

A mind?  What mind?  I do not mind!
(I do mind children)
I was but born to womb
Not let my mind soar skyward
Taking my heart-string with it
And mine is murky, inconsistent, trod on,
Gone.
You do not know.
(You really do not know)

Be. Be! For there's naught else.
Rage.  Rage! Oh rage and cry!
Grow. Grow! Thrust roots through bed and laugh,
Live.  Live! For sure, one day we die.
  

She Walks in Beauty

 Lord Byron (George Gordon)

She walks in beauty, like the night

   Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that’s best of dark and bright

   Meet in her aspect and her eyes;

Thus mellowed to that tender light

   Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,

   Had half impaired the nameless grace

Which waves in every raven tress,

   Or softly lightens o’er her face;

Where thoughts serenely sweet express,

   How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,

   So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,

   But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,

   A heart whose love is innocent!