Spoils of War

This dust-blown town doesn't sleep
It just lies under the covers, scared and crowded
Forever scanning the skies for hope

No love-songs or lullaby-lines to comfort it,
Just the empty moves and broken melodies,
Penciled hastily by distracted fingers

This once proud and golden skyline
Now hangs miserably in metallic defeat
Blanketed by an endless and unforgiving fog

The plight of one becomes the plight of many

Rejoice, for these are the spoils of war

Making Music

Chaos causes my mind to swim,
Like the circling of sharks frenzied for a feed.
There is no peace, just swirling madness;
That is, until my hands find you.
Your cool wooden frame feels like home,
As do your biting metallic strings.

When clumsily strummed, you buzz in disonance,
Only adding to this vast commotion.
But my fingers soon, though calloused and bloodied,
Settle into their place along your neck;
As if this where they've been all along.
My other hand, in senseless harmony, strokes you:
down, down, down, up, down, up.

Instantly disorder is silenced-
And out of the quiet beauty rises;
Now music's being made.

Prose is all I have right now.

My Words

I want my words to mean something.
Not just the regurgitation of half-formed thoughts.
Caught by the toy crane, dipping into some endless abyss.
Continually running out of quarters before anything good comes up.

I want my words to say something.
Commanding audiences without brute force or shouting.
But with the softest of whispers as if spoken by the wings of a butterfly.
Balancing gently on the petals of a flower, though temporary as it may be.

I want my words to change something.
Igniting as a fire does the hillsides in the late summer evenings.
Where containment seems a lost cause despite the attempts of many.
Leaving behind the charred ruins as a permanent reminder of what's occurred here.

I want my words to mean something.

So for now, I'll choose them carefully because some day I know they will.

I don't have anything new.  Creatively my life is one big vaccuous hole, so here are some thoughts I have about poetry.

Do you know what I like about writing poetry?  I can say or be anything I want, even if it's only for a few stanzas.  In those short lines, I can find a freedom that palls in comparison to anything on this earth; a freedom where even the most shackled of circumstances becomes boundless and independent of any hindrance.

Do you know what I dislike about writing poetry?  What I write is instantly assumed to be my own personal thoughts and feelings, when most times that's not the case.  A lot of what I write is the emotions and the struggles I see in others.  Those inside things that you have to be paying close attention to in order to find.  If I only wrote from my point of view, I'd quickly run out of topics.

At least that's how I feel about it.

Thin Ice

Panic's thrusting jabs
Pierce you like a knife
Freezing fingers choke you
Soon to end your life

Inches from the surface
You plead for unknown strength
To deeply hold your breath
Past any average length

Thoughts are all you have here
To race your speeding pulse
Images come flashing
With shivers you convulse

Lungs begin seizing
Water rushes in
Darkness has control now
Under ice so thin