The Poetry Marathon

An emptiness within an emptiness,
ever consuming the only means of escape,
with passionate desolation.

The darkness is but a pierced blanket
adorned with a brilliant multitude of stars.
At no edge is it ever thick enough
to deny the light of inspiration.

Time brings bright smiles and young laughter,
new love and a sense of belonging.
Desire grows to fight against the swelling apathy,
to take life back from the clutches
of disillusionment and abandon.

Choking upon an untrue breath
using love as a means to cheat death.
It is a lie that erases,
the difficulty of struggling.

The caverns at the shoreline are lit by a bonfire’s light,
And the wind begins to pick up the distant sound of a violin.

The waves can be heard breaking deep within rocky chambers,
A girl twirls with curls of red, and lays her chin upon a small fiddle.
Her adoring eyes look over the strings as she draws the bow to make them sing.

The oceans tide speaks of a great distance,
And yet her song lulls me towards some distant shore,
To a time that I have forgotten, in a place that doesn’t age.

She gives call to dance around the fire, as pagan ancients,
Apart of nature, celebrating the new moon.
The birds of night roost nearby,
And upon the wind somewhere is the memory of girl I once knew.

Softly slipping between a dream,
Let my mind be carried by nightingale wing,
To find the source of this haunting reel
And dance beside the fire with the girl with red curls,
In a time that I have forgotten, in a place that doesn’t age.

And if I should never return from the enchantment of her strings,
Let my soul remain amongst the ocean fog
that rolls in through the early morning.

Bringing forth the vital colors of existence,
portrayed in bleeding masses spilling
over confining lines of shape.

Abstract illusions falling in and out of view,
where mystery dances a wild macabre
in the swirling plumes of purple and green.

Black absence, a deep, smoky emptiness
hollowing its way through the hearts of every color,
with the shades of ethereal eternity.

Culminating reds, highlights of silver growing denser than gray matter.
Striking metallic flames, like silent cosmic fire,
behold the burning colors of thought!

The blues and yellows of stabbing lightning, piercing,
burning pathways of streaking brilliance,
through thunderclaps of orange radiance
pulsating with a living heat.

The mind is alive.

You move like a typing hand
that’s been removed from its appendage.
Each crafting leg steps
with the delicate dexterity of walking fingertips.
I imagine you along my spine,
cresting upon my distracted shoulder;
and without looking to find her,
I could mistake you for my lover’s touch,
for I am easily deceived by the webs you spin.

It is your predaceous composure that I admire most.
Laying traps that serve you well,
you do not mind the wait.
Patience suits you.

Connections are drawn by your filaments spun,
And throughout the treetops your tapestries are strung,
Collecting dewdrops that capture the sun,
Nature’s mandalas waiting for the insects to come.*

*Apologies for not resisting the rhyme 🙂

The original line of inspiration is “Fire! Revenge! Death to Kings! Life to the new world of the heart’s dreaming!” from On the North Sea Part II, by Edward Abbey.

Atop the hills they stood like beacons warning of an approaching fire,
All across the battlefield the hopeless youth sung songs of revenge:

“To victory, for glory, for honor, to make suffer the oppressors, we do not fear death!
We charge thy guiding hand with irreparable avarice and sentence you to
the abysmal history of impotent Kings.”

Come sing the songs of a dawning generation refusing to surrender its right to life!
Join hands with the martyrs of revolutionary definition, and make a stand with the righteous to
declare this enduring resistance as the
End of old world antiquity, set to kill impossible delusions of golden age fantasy with new
hearts and blood and dreams upcoming, with worth and passion to reshape our world
by our design, for our time, for the imperishable longing of
our chance to seize the day, for our chance to lead the
future by tomorrow’s heart’s
bleeding! Revolting! Triumphant and dreaming!

Dissolve your heart’s intentions with the cruel ramblings of brave love.
No one else will know its glory, but everyone will fall in its wake.

Standing bold enough to erase the face of a watching god,
I declare a black out upon the Sun!
For I am the fleeing nightmare of the fields on fire,
And I’ve come to bring a message from the dead.

Grave destinations immersed in emotions,
bleed the life from your aching soul,
hide beneath the penance of hunger,
a name for this torment, is yet to be spoke.

Behold a hollow monument of all my failing inventions.
I am a cemetery of ill-fated dreams.
Where love had dared to know my sin.

I rest my weary thoughts upon her cold breast,
and the life I seek has been drained of all its energy
The greatest confusion of all is staring right back into me,
still trying to hold onto a moment that has already passed me.

Upon the moment of recognition,
when I was realizing the value of my own worth,
I began to buckle under the weight of who I had been.

Break down the door to misery inviting,
further into the fall of mankind’s dormant city life,
I have come to know these empty ruins well,
I have found a way back into the light.

Taking a chance at knowing the world through a blanketing reassurance.
Searching for the moment when I can honestly believe I have succeeded.

Sweet insect crawling across the windows pane,
Bursting steps upon a transparent world.
Too small to recognize your own reflection,
Too miniscule to appreciate the view captured through this frame.
Cold, glass surface, continues.

To understand the intricate parts of this living portrait,
Each factor an accomplishment
set out to be known by the years of attempts that came before.
Smiling eyed little wonders,
Fair faced beauty with a gentle hand.
Verdant landscapes outside every window,
A room for every person,
And a table for us to share.

This is the view I am too small to see.
For every pity filled whimper locks my eyes
into the view of the few feet of ground lying in front of me.

Many a meditation spent in contemplation upon your palm.
Returning year after year, grown a little older, a little wiser, a little stronger.
Bringing back to you new triumphs, experiments with danger,
And permanent sorrows of the heart.

All the while my formative mind yearning for answers,
brimming with a curiosity about the future,
still believing in naïve ideas of destiny,
and trying to foresee any untold plans you had for me.

And the breeze from the lake would whisper through the cedar trees,
The cold familiar aroma of earth would collect upon my tongue,
And I would add its strength to my heart, to forever carry into the unknown.

It wasn’t until I grew much older that I realized no one was watching.
In all these years it had only been me listening, only me speaking.
Only me driving my fears and worries deep into the stone upon which I rested,
Bleeding my want for purpose into pools at my feet
And leaving it to soak into the soil beneath me.

So often does he never mean to play the fool,
But he can only build what will come from such simple hands.
And his failure is found often, and too often found cruel,
For it is only in this pattern that he finally understands.

Pursued by a desperate, predatory ache,
He seeks escape in the adventure of countless foreign lands.
Running from a truth he is too afraid to forsake,
For it is only in this pattern that he finally understands.

Denied any rest by the imprints of his memory,
His tired mind struggles to carry out his plans.
And in his most desperate hour she hears his soliloquy,
For it is only in this pattern that he finally understands.

Like a voice from the past, come calling does Death,
Holding a clock that’s ceased ticking and speaking hollow commands.
And so he succumbs to the Void his last breath,
For it is only in this pattern that he finally understands.

The silhouette of my soul is a dancing shadow,
A bestial revelry in the last hours of day,
I beckon the advancing throat of night.

I celebrate the freedom of my spirit
with swaying arms that could embrace the entire horizon.
I expel the filing system of tail lights retreating,
A marching pestilence receding from my being,
and shed the masked perspective of singularity.

I reject the notion of being made to feel small
And enlarge myself beyond what fixated fears will have me see.
I unleash the multitudes of my infinity
To serenade the rats with my seductive song
And welcome the hordes of the hopeless
To follow me to the end of the world.