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Lost Flower
Purple crocus all by yourself
In the middle of a hay field
How did you get here?
And why do I care?
Your tiny lovely blossom
Is here for just a few days
When it has fallen away
How will you ever be seen
Amid all the green grasses?
Who else will know you ever existed?
There is One who has numbered
Your pretty purple petals
He will sustain and preserve you
Until you rise anew next spring
And while the ground is still covered
In the leftover colors of winter
You will majestically appear
In all your royal splendor
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Ladies Laughing
I heard them just a few tables over as I lunched alone
Sitting in the non-smoking section next to the windows
How can they be eating and still be so vociferous I mused
Each minute was punctuated by gleeful, high pitched outbursts
They were ladies of all ages and colors and sizes and stations
All talking at the same time and eating and gesturing and laughing
Unaware or unconcerned that they were quite a spectacle
To all those around them or was it just me who noticed
In amazement I eavesdropped and tried to read their smiling lips
I heard no words, no sentences, no conversations, no gossip
Just the noise made by a group of women eating a meal
With joy so contagious I wished I could be sitting among them
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Green Leaves
Who knows why except the chloroplasts
It's nice to see them I hope they can stay
But they do have a battle every summer day
Too much heat or no rain in the forecasts
A plague of beetles or a rare disease
And man's careless or his blind greed
I do love the color and this restful shade
I can't imagine them not being here
So beautiful on this bright, clear day
They just simply take my breath away
Who knows why except the atmosphere
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Recycle Please
Like an empty plastic Wal-Mart bag
My life is being tossed and blown about
By time passing by like a speeding truck
Always being snagged by dilemmas
In the trees off the highway of society
Blown inside out exposing my emptiness
I am in too deep to break free on my own
But, please, don't bring the calmness yet
Because I might fall and lie flat and blue
Where are those warm breezes of hope
That use to lift me so high and take me so far?
So, the next time You see me just floating
Through the breezeway of Your ubiquity
Catch me please and put me with the rest
Pop the air out and put me in the recycling bin
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Killing Time
Quondam eons lost without their stories
A continuum of prompt procrastinations
In a rutilant sea where reason and veracity
Are drowning suffocating in crimson chaos
The blood of verisimilitude and innocents
Like forgotten and neglected bag ladies pushing
Carts of postulations in a sesquipedalian parade
Of inane narratives woven with canard and void
Records written by conspiring heretics holding
Degrees earned easily in a dogma of mediocrity
Theses and sheepskin inscribed with invisible ink
Creating history clean and sterile almost reality
Ages and eras half told as if they where fable or myth
Who dares to teach our children the truth of internments
Who will irradiate the death marches and sacrilegious crusades
Or chisel the epitaphs of lynched boys and murdered villages
And expose post emancipation slavery and perverted piety
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Hear What I Feel
Like a good jazz tune
That makes me move
Head bobbing and foot tapping
You capture my emotions
Listen to me as I improvise
All my words and all my thoughts
To harmonize with your desires
My heart becomes the drummer
Beating to the rhythm that is you
The melodies on your lips
Are trapped in my thoughts
You are the song of spring
The early morning symphony
That awakens life so zealously
Like a piano solo
Where every single note
Is so distinct and clear
Your eyes unquestionably
Tell me what you feel
My heart listening to yours
A love poem that never ends
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Banality Speaks
Big words wearing winged-tipped shoes
Flying off with their wagging tongues
Ancient, archaic and yet so juvenescent
Using their purchased discernment
Ascending with pomposity
To the role of an omnipotent
As they aptly and very piously
Become so omniscient
Lingering in a veneer
Of intellectual opulence
As they vociferously
Deny the grotesqueness
Of their vile, putrid,
Cerebral corpulence
With assiduity of acid
They perform their disloyalties
And are shamelessly haughty
In their perspicacity
As they openly question
A generation's sagacity
There is no confutation
No impunity only immunity
As they fastidiously speak
Projecting their words
With sonorous squeaks
Like scavenger birds
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Ode to a Dream
Your mind, can it separate itself from you?
Are you controlling it or is the reverse true?
A dream can be so real when you're unconscious.
Yet we question reality when it surrounds us.
Remember daydreaming while life passes by
And when asked where our minds were we lie
A dream could be for some an unattainable desire
For others it will take a lifetime of toil to acquire
Yet there are many because of the throes of living
Exist surreally captured in what they're reading
Minds and hearts absorbed within a fantasy
A dream world living vicariously
Dreaming dreams can help some keep their sanity
Too many nightmares and we question our humanity
A true dreamer aspires deeply wishing beyond reality
Hoping, inventing, imagining, seeing with lucidity
Dreams can be the windows of our hearts and souls
Either shining the light of aspirations and goals
Or revealing the evil shadows of our aberrations
Prophesying a future of blessings or maledictions
Are you dreaming or is your mind playing tricks?
Is there harmony within or too many conflicts?
Many are the dreams that are dreamt and forgotten
Lost and buried when we lie sleeping in a coffin
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Man Crying
It sounds almost like he's laughing
But there is nothing funny or joyous
Can't you hear the loneliness and despair
The sound of pain rolling off his face
A tried and failed young man crying
Noises of new life and the smell of infancy
Here there is joy and tiny movements amusing
The fruitage of love planted in hearts of hope
Soothing words being sung ever so softly
A first time father, a very happy man crying
Years lost because the days devoured his life
Eating fleeting promised moments like popcorn
All the while growing older and so far away
But he comes flying when his father is dying
Hear the echoes and a remorseful man crying
Fulfilled and fat with days of contentment
He would live forever but his heart won't let him
His wife, his friends, and his life have past away
He would fight harder but has no reasons to stay
It is for the future you hear this old man crying
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Love Filtered
Yes, I do.
So you say.
I did.
But now?
Why do you ask?
Are we not one?
I am me and you are you!
So, you say, two.
No, no…you are mad.
Who are you?
I am the one for you!
Yes, but go!
Oh, why do you say so?
Why?
Is it bad?
Yes, Yes!
So, you are mad!
No, but I'm sad.
Sad? Why?
See!
See what?
Who is she?
A pal.
A pal, you say?
She is no one!
So you say!
Do not cry!
Why not!
See! For you!
For me?
Yes.
For me?
Yes!
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He Gave Us the Birds
Whenever your world
Sounds like a freight train
Going though your bedroom
Remember He have us the birds
When your day is a nightmare
And night blacker than a raven
Think back to those times
You were awaken by sparrows
A day of great sadness will come
For days you hear no laughter
Recall that fall when you saw the vee
And heard the southern call of geese
When the hour of indecision and trepidation
Comes with doubts and self questionings
Difficult choices and unknown paths
The voice of the owl was there first
And when you scream out your existence
But no one is listening or paying attention
Don't let the roar of all those doing the same
Drown out the songs of the mockingbird
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Opaque
There is no saving light, no prize
For the stolid, pernicious soul
Blind to what is gracious and wise
Savoring his deadly, wicked role
He has no insight, no spirituality
Neither is there any reflection
No reasons for his godless cruelty
As he inflicts pain and confusion
Insignificant as a grave's shadow
Ineffable sorrow planted, harrowed
Bearing the fruitage of eschatology
Obscuring prophesy with mythology
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There Are No Gentlemen Here
I address them as gentlemen
What they said left me stunned
Was there a lie in their reply?
To whit: "There are no gentlemen here"
I was left baffled and somewhat puzzled
Could the truth be in their poetry?
I looked for ambiguity in their imagery
Reading, searching for hidden meaning
It was only 'til recently
Immersed in their verse
Prolific and prophetic
I understood what was said
No cavaliers or verbal queers
Nor teenage boys making rhyming noise
But gifted persons of empyreal vision
A true renaissance veiled in innocence
They allow my entry in to their gallery
Of crafted phrases taking one places
Where space and time have little room
A quite simple house unpainted, numinous
See all the marking and the christening
As your mind sails and your heart wails
To words of emotion crossing an ocean
Of youthful dreams and submarined fears
Hear the voices with various choruses
Of other guests who share their best
Stories of conquest and of love lost
Of profound sadness and of happiness
Step into part of someone's heart
Dig the cryptic or forgive the cynic
Dare be amused or very confused
Unwrap enigmas and taste ideas
Or you can pour your own and more
Flowing from your loins the heat of heaven
Steaming from your will the chill of hell
Concoct a potion or drink someone's poison
Then there are those who I suppose
Come to engage or perhaps to enrage
Even though few, are welcomed too
Paying no toll for exposing their soul
And there is me with this simple plea
Don't close the door or start to ignore
Middle-aged guys who try to disguise
The appalling sin of being "gentlemen"
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Just One
Hear the loneliness in the voice
Words unspoken upon their lips
Eyes filled with pangs of solitude
Staring down into vacant hands
But there are sighs and exhalations
Mixed with phrases of deception
A self-seduction to soothe the pain
From the emptiness of just one
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She Dares To Speak
She is braver than I
Just wants to say Hi
Yes, she is searching
So just what am I doing?
I say Hi and wonder
She talks to a stranger
Hiding in a computer
Is she safe from danger?
But it's with me she chats
Exchanging personal facts
Wondering: am I the only one
In her night of conversation?
She tells me volumes so freely
I can only reply, "Oh, really?"
I learn to mirror her expressions
Can she detect my exaggerations?
She doesn't always tell the whole truth
About her husband, her age and her girth
She lets things slip, she talks a lot
I listen, cause I'm online each night
Sometimes she emails me pictures
Of herself, cat, dog, kids and shares
Her recipes, bookmarks and beliefs
She sends me smilies or she grieves
I never have to initiate a session
She's not shy and has no hesitation
To just say, "hi," and them some
I sense she's become an addiction
And when she dares to come meet me
I'm surprised it came to this so quickly
Being non-committal and quite unsure
She calls me shallow, an ass or a boor
She lives in Eugene, El Paso or LA
She's safely hundreds of miles away
Not young or too old, full-figured gals
Grandmas, teachers, my Internet pals
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Dark Side of Felicity
Life without joy is worse than death
Happiness even for a little while
Is worth the moment of birth
Discern the purpose of a smile
And a world of possibilities open
But not for those who are astomatal
The living dead sowing contention
Killing glee and anything jovial
Turning simple pleasures into evil
The furtive, surreptitious fool
Whose felicity is all things cruel
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Humans and Forever
What's this with humans and forever?
Show me a man who has been there
An ocean would have come closer
But it doesn't wish for a happy ever after
Older than the invincible heroes of folklore
The moon never sings about loving forever more
Why would a mountain pray about eternity?
Yet how we earthlings long for immortality
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Creativity
Creatures of creativity find your medium
Or should I say double X in yellow or blue
Paint with chisel and cutting torch those words
Spin your canvas on your wheel as you cry
Etch your dreams and carve your sunsets
Play your rhymes upon the drum and clay
Mix the melodies of color with soft phrases
Dance to the curves of your cold sculpture
And wear your free verse upon your head
- Copyright © R. N. Stewart 2002. All rights reserved.