Gone Like the Wind

You left me for a better place,

Where there can be no wrong

And I will never be the same

Again now that you’re gone

Gone like a snowfall in summertime,

Gone like a spark from a flame

Gone up a mountain I never can climb

Gone to a place free of pain

But pain imprisons me it won’t

Leave soon, it’s here to stay

Since happiness turned into grief,

When you flew far away

Gone like a bird that flew from its nest,

Gone into wide open sky

Gone like a tune you cannot recall

Gone though you strain and you try

You are and were my brightest light,

That filled my ev’ry part

Now light shares space with agony,

Within my heart of hearts

Gone like the mist of the morning at noon,

Gone like chain lightning in rain

Gone, plucked away from my arms far too soon,

Gone where you can’t come again

For one more minute with you close,

I’d pay whatever cost

To see again your shining face,

The treasure that I’ve lost

Gone like the leaves born away on the breeze,

Gone into mem’ry and heart

Gone like the wind in a hurricane’s eye

Gone and yet never apart

I know so long as I still love,

And grieve for you like this

Though you’re far off you’ll be with me

Far closer than a kiss

Close as the thoughts rushing ‘round in my head

Close as a bodily part

Close as the blood coursing strong through my veins

Close as the beat of my heart

It’s right you should stay in your place,

And have the joy you’ve earned

While I stay here and think of you,

And all the things I’ve learned

So Long

Do you have to have felt something to write about it? I hope not.

Poets have written incredible poems about death, and very few of them were postmortems. Authors have written amazing sonnets of the stars, but none of them had been to them; unless Neil Armstrong's '--one giant leap for mankind--' counts as poetry. Also, to quote some guy named Rumi: 'Poetry can be dangerous, especially beautiful poetry, because it gives the illusion of having had the experience without actually going through it.'

So poetry seems to be founded in writing powerfully about something that has never happened to you, which allows you to apply to it a fantastic element it would otherwise be harder to add if you'd actually been to the moon, instead of just looking at it.

All this to say, please don't discount the fact that I've written a love poem even though I have never fallen in love. I do have great experience with familial love, to siblings, parents, friends, etc., but the different love that comes with two unrelated people I have yet to discover. I hope I wasn't too far off the mark with what is written below, and hope that those of you who have experienced true love will comment and tell me how I did.

______________________________________________

The one I cannot live without asks this,

‘Will ‘So long’ be two words I ever hear?

Could you leave me without another kiss?

Go, vanish, love me no more as I fear?’

‘Will your love for me wither up and die,

And if not can it stand the test of time?

How long can this love last ‘tween you and I,

How long can we keep reason paired with rhyme?’

Before I say a word I draw her near

Into my arm as I so love to do

Then after my reply has become clear

I tell her just how long I’ll love her true

So long as stars shine high above us all,

And this earth spins beneath us constantly

So long as wind can blow and rain can fall

And while there still is salt within the sea

So long as the sun rises in the east,

And sets behind the west horizon line

So long as all this goes on un-decreased,

My love for you will outlast even time

So long as day breaks after every night,

And sunlight warms us walking hand in hand

So long as the moon shines above us bright,

And waves still break upon the golden sand

So long as the sun rises in the east,

And sets behind the west horizon line

So long as all this goes on un-decreased,

My love for you will outlast even time

So long as people fight for what is theirs,

And nothing worth acquiring comes with ease

So long as answers come to heartfelt prayers,

And people do what’s right, not what will please

So long as the sun rises in the east,

And sets behind the west horizon line

So long as all this goes on un-decreased,

My love for you will outlast even time

So long as I can rise above defeat,

And when you need me be there firm and strong

So long as I draw breath and my heart beats,

And even after both of those are gone

So long as nothing heals like joyous grief,

And all the truest lovers say ‘I do’

My dear it is my firmly held belief,

So long as that goes on I will love you

Mindloss

Your mind has gone dim,

Not one single whim,

The workers left early it seems

As still as a bus,

Long after the rush,

You can’t tell what anything means

Your trains of thought are,

Blank to the last car

None have left Mind Central Station

Not one single notion,

Starts up a commotion

Inside your imagination

A memory lingers,

At a snap of the fingers,

Thoughts, they would jump into action

But now there is this,

A Brain Basilisk

Has eyed you into petrifaction

You recall times,

When reasons and rhymes

Came to you quicker than thought

But now thought and reason,

Have gone out of season

It seems to all have been rot

What’s really the point?

To flex your brain joints?

What good will your thoughts ever do?

Rather you really,

Should lay back, ideally,

And devolve to primordial goo

Infect your ambition

With deadly condition

Some might call total indiff’rence

Don’t think or surmise,

Or hypothesize,

Flee at a real thought’s appearance

But why, wait a minute,

If there’s nothing in it,

Do you fight off thoughts with a will?

It’s almost as though,

When you don’t even know,

You have thoughts clogging up your brain still

See, when your head’s blocked,

And you feel your brain’s locked,

Inside of a thinking-proof box

You have a decision,

One's toss out ambition,

Or break out and shatter the locks

Your thoughts are all waiting,

To board at the Station,

With tickets to never seen shores

The train has been prepped,
The only thing left,

Is for you to open the doors

Bookish Friends

A friend, to me, can be a book

Filled with so much writing

Moral stories, no romance

Magic, plots and fighting

High adventure, teary drama,

Horror and mystery

To read them all would be a task

Too great for you and me

But if you gain just one book only

You’ll know its precious value

For like a book a friend can turn

Into what means most to you

Alone these books will gather dusts

Upon their lonely shelves

Their stories never to be heard

When they are by themselves

But friends and books alike were meant

To be with others like them

And rub their spines and shoulders close

With stories not unlike them

And books, like friends, are similar,

In that they will and may

Differ greatly from each other

In all and every way

One may be a tale of healing,

Helping feeble people last

Another has a tragic story,

Wishing to forget the past

Some may wish for time long past,

While others tell the future

He may love a good adventure

And she a child to nurture

Though they’re diff’rent, one and all,

They have the self same need

For you to open up their front

And turn the page and read

Everyone can be a friend,

So all may be a book

Waiting, searching, hoping, praying

For someone to look

Books are fragile, soft inside,

And will not often open

So when they do you must prepare,

To read truth and emotion

When the cover falls away,

You’ll read inside a life

Page by page and year by year,

Through all their loves and strife

To read a book like that’s unlike,

Anything else you’ll feel

To have and read one is a gift,

That none can ever steal

Some of us have many books,

And some have very few

The lucky have the oldest ones,

While the young make theirs brand new

But every book, regardless of,

Its age or quantity

Should know, for all its quirks and plot holes,
You make your reader happy

The Crow: An Ad Hoc Parody

If you're reading this, it's too late...you were warned! But you still read on.

What lurks below is a poem I wrote in an attempt to lovingly parody a much better poem by Edgar Alan Poe, namely 'The Raven'. It isn't actually a parody, if you  use the exact definition, more of a changing up of the poem and its point for (hopefully) humorous results. 

So, if you're brave, and haven't eaten a large lunch, scroll on, on into the poem below, valiant reader! If you finish it, comment below with your thoughts, and if you parish bravely in the battle inside, we will erect a memorial page on the blog, and your next of kin can send in a stirring epitaph for all to see.

_______________________________________________________________________

Once upon a morning weary,

As I pondered, weak and bleary

Many an empty alcoholic bottle

There came a noisome sound of banging

Upon my window where were hanging

Curtains that I’d bought on sale in Gottle

The noise started my head a-thund’ring,

As if through it a giant blundering

Was wreaking havoc on my sodden brain

Before to bed I could escape

The noise from behind my window drape

Increased until I could not bear the pain

With cries and swearing ripe as kiwis,

Plucked from the Obscenest trees

I staggered over to the window slot

At speed I cracked the window pain,

So that I could ascertain

The person who had helped me rest, or not

Sitting there upon the sill,

The target for my rife bad will

Stared back at me from both sides of its beak

Black as well-tarred undergarments,

Feathers scruffy as a varmint’s

With baleful eyes at me the crow did peak

Askance I stared without a word,

Down at the small black feath’ry bird

And wondered how it could have knocked so loud

But before I could inquire,

It hopped past me, sat by the fire

And kicking aside some bottles, to me it bowed

Taking my seat by the embers,

Of the hearth which in Novembers

I had lit and huddled by in need

“Are you my imagination?

Or a drunken machination?”

Asked I, but the crow croaked to me, “No indeed.”

“Are you then a devilish demon?

Formed out of my sinful dreaming?

Maybe from one of the books I read?

Are you one, or perhaps both?

Of those evil things I quoth?”

But the crow made answer to me, “No indeed.”

Then it bent and pecked with gusto,

At an empty can of Musto

Then stared at me, eyes black as a bead

“Did you come because you think,

That I depend too much on drink?”

Wheezed I too which the crow answered “Indeed.”

“But alcohol helps you to mend,

And makes you many a stalwart friend!”

Jumped I to my own defense at speed

The crow looked ‘round the empty room,

The friend-free floor with bottles strewn

I could but nod as the crow croaked “Indeed.”

The bird was right although I hated,

That a black dishrag seemed to be fated

To break me of my long established need

“Could it be, oh black winged wonder,

That you can heal a bad hangover?”

But that strange crow made answer “No indeed.”

Yet still with its frank dreariness,

It had broken me out of my bleariness

And showed me what I’d made myself in greed

So, happily, I shook its wing,

And thanked the crow for everything

To hear just one single last “Indeed.”

And as it flew off with a drab wing’s flutter,

I did not close the window shutter

But watched until I saw the black bird go

I was very glad for its company,

But was happy it had not stayed with me

For all its helpful merits…not great conversation was the crow

No indeed.