Home / New Poems / Gallery / Archives
Wilderness and Wasteland
These poems really get down to dealling with the sadder aspects of life, grief, anger and depression. Writing poetry was a way to turn these emotions into something creative and positive as well as understanding them.
| Antarctica | The blow torch of life | The plains |
| The wheel of time | A circle of darkness | When I am not |
| The difference | Laugh a little | All talk |
I should not be here, I know.
I am like Antarctica,
A desert covered in snow.
Nothing moves, nothing grows,
Everything is still and slow.
Yet the sun rises
The moon sinks
I will eat and drink
Deeply at the well of contentment.
I sit overlooking the river with my back to the trees,
I shiver but I’m not cold.
A gentle warmth
Moves, lifts and unfolds each wing.
I sing to the night,
Keening with the wind
To something unseen
Yet felt like a ray burst.
Breath, grieve, laugh and cry
Rise and go now,
Go beyond word, beyond silence
To the still living place
Where there is no trace of violence.
There is only the redness of lips,
The brightness of eyes,
Expressions fleeting over time
Moving with memory.
I will wait if I don’t break,
I will rest my head in my hands
Saying softly that I understand.
Then I will stand feet firmly planted,
There is so much that we take fore granted.
I just wanted to say thank you,
For being there when I was happy,
For staying near when I was blue.
I had such a dream of being still,
Resting where the light spills
Of listening to the music of the spheres.
I had a clear dream of harmony,
That there was only peace in me
An acceptance as gentle as a warm calm sea,
I felt myself relax leaning back in your arms.
I knew that it was enough,
That my cup was as full as it would ever be…
Then I woke to noise and struggle
Full of a compulsion to rifle through time,
The sock draws of shock.
I realized that no pair matches.
Search and search or be the mad hatter,
Wear all your clothes inside out or backwards,
Confuse the spirits or make them laugh.
I thought that I sat in bronze stillness,
Instead the blowtorch of life was alight.
It melted me, set me free,
From posture and structure.
It made me malleable and indefinable,
The perfect expression of the postmodern human.
Why can’t I unbend?
To speak and fully be here.
I pretend to myself I am resting,
Waiting for life to make me.
I don’t know where the next level is,
The view is flat.
I’m afraid, I want waves of emotion,
This calm place is unknown.
I have never been on the plains,
I can’t read them
Yet I feel calmer and more assured.
Without a friend on the horizon
It is endless.
Freed from the wheel of time
I spin in ever decreasing circles,
Hard edges rising and falling.
In all of time and space
I have no place to dream.
No where to sleep,
No thought to set me free,
To become and go beyond.
Oh I am sorely tired in body and mind,
Caught in a complete bind
Behind my own ideas.
They keep me alive,
Set my mind afire.
I thought to reach out to take a hand
But mine is a hand full of thorns
Grown out of a heart rosy with pain.
Just the same,
I will go on through sickness and health.
I will dwell behind the blur of my eyes,
The steady rhythms of life.
I will rise and go on
Until the sun sets.
I can feel it in me.
A circle of darkness,
A sphere of sadness.
If only love could melt it,
It would diminish and shrink
Instead my words fall fluttering.
I want to sing,
Sing up the sadness.
Let it move like a tidal wave,
I don’t want to be its slave.
Art gives me peace,
Your arms give me rest.
When I was younger I laughed,
I felt myself blessed by the world.
Let it be so again
Take this dark ball of pain
Let the cat play with it.
I exist not,
I am not,
I am nothing.
I feel nothing,
I have no pain.
The sun shines on all but I cast no shadow.
I wish to dissipate into the air,
To say I don’t care,
To retreat and be free.
I do not exist,
I am not here,
I do not care.
Spin this mantra
Entrance me with it,
Rivet me
Sing me into existence.
I am not while I can not laugh.
I am not while I can not speak,
Yet I know that these things are possible.
Sometimes I look and wonder how I dare
To stare into your eyes.
I see a core of belief unlike mine,
You think that people are kind and basically just,
You trust in reason and enlightenment.
I am silent before you,
Dumb with sorrow,
Not seeing that tomorrow holds hope.
I wonder how you can believe
When I have seen red claws wielded.
The cut and thrust that won distrust,
It taught me that eyes are for eyes and teeth for teeth,
Yet I wish I could step inside your belief.
That I could trust in others and myself
Because when I look at you
It is with the shallow glaze of distance,
Without humanity or love.
Why are you so serious?
Didn’t you learn to smile?
No I lost the art of smiling.
They made me take a heart to break,
I chose mine, yes I chose mine,
A long long time ago.
What is the truth?
How can I offer you proof,
That laughter can settle on you
Just as it resides in me.
Don’t speak,
Can’t you see
That I am ridden and angry?
I learned that laughter can go backwards
And be the portent of disaster.
Then be gentle,
Cry until you can laugh again.
Laugh until you feel the tears,
But stay with it and play with it.
Release your pent up grief
Laugh a little at life and death.
Talk, all talk, no action taken.
Given this invitation,
Go away and find peace,
A surcease of demands and people.
No reason to cry here,
You can see your mind disappear.
Let it loose to dance and play
With a myriad of pain.
These are the ripples on the surface,
Do they serve a purpose?
Sometimes I doubt.
Sometimes I am without hope.
They are only ripples I know,
They can be disbanded,
Time will take and change them.
I will not be as I was before,
Still I am bereft, lost and crying,
Let it go, let it flow
Show me how
Anyhow.
.