I started writing poetry in middle school. Some of this is highschool stuff, some is from later in my life. I think you'll notice the difference. The later stuff has a maturity to it that I didn't develop in myself until after highschool. Anyway, enjoy the uberness of poetry, and wear your white collars.

Expression of a Breaking Heart

She stared...

Blindly, glazed over, no thoughts, emotionless,

Destroyed, she stared.

Staring on the outside, empty inside.

He babbled on, in daggers.

And she stared... stared on...

Hm, she said,

And just stared.

� Eric Salonis, 1999

Dave

He stands

Calm and cool.

Eccentric in his own colors.

People are drawn to him, because he is dark.

Sword in hand, and pencil on paper,

He creates...

And he stands among us,

In his own world,

Alone.

� Eric Salonis, 1999

Glass Figure

I know you. I know how

This works - Abstract, like a dream.

Glittering like the glass you are. So fragile.

It will suck you in. It will turn you to flesh and

Ravage your heart to a bleeding, lifeless

Waste...

Everything is closing in, and you're so close,

But I'm the only one who is trapped.

You pretend yourself out, into a golden haze,

Filled with smoke.

You'll shatter someday.

� Eric Salonis, 1999

Longwright: My Gift (I Was There)

Behind all others exists

The one who waits in patience.

The truth reaches out into the morning,

Dew, wet upon the dawn's dancing light...

Once the dark mists from the night.

It waits for us to awaken, silently.

We wait, quietly, behind the others.

Fear nothing.

It is said, "There will come soft rains..."

Twilight is only as strong as a color.

Colors change,

As does the mist.

Vision never blurred,

We only see differently, as rains soften into steam.

Embrace the unknown.

May it be that you will waken

Into the new day.

Find the gold dancing upon the grass

And watch as that which once

Split us all in two pieces

Becomes the lifeblood to make

Everything you know and see

Within the light of truth

Grow and rejoice.

The mist has awoken with you.

Know love

� Eric Salonis, 2002

Keep the Dream, Lose the Faith

How do you keep up?

I try to maintain

Myself, who we were.

Keep the schooling, keep the dream.

But it's not enough.

The juices in our brain

Start the flow...you let go.

Lose the faith, hide the scream.

Day-to-day, I'm

Sucking down information,

In formation.

Keep the fire, learn the wit.

You only find you're the leader

In our auto-desecration,

Rubbing out the answers...

Lose the burns, take no shit.

Now, how could a star's

Twinkle be consumed to black?

We're burning out. I'm ice.

Find a reason, do your best.

...forget the diamond...keep the rest...

So, we leave them here to dissolve--

You're finding my way back.

We're burning out, tonight.

Keep the schooling, keep the dream.

Lose the faith...

Scream.

� Eric Salonis, 2004

How to Make a Fine Chair

The crucifying is nothing.

It's what's inside that wood.

I wonder: did it bleed, too?

How did it die for this death?

I watched the bird land.

It perched in the hardwood cedar.

Everything looked so cold.

Yet, peace enriched the surroundings.

There was no fire so great

As the winter,

Burning in frozen light.

White and blue are the hottest of stars.

God only knows when I'll be done here.

There is no one out here, to hear.

The silence gives way to the wingflaps,

And the snow brushing off the tree.

A family of wolves looks on, from the distance.

The bird takes off as the axe hits.

A rough spot ... must be a knot...

This tree is frozen in time.

It once stood high.

When the limb broke and the girl fell,

We had to cut it down.

It could make a fine chair.

. . .

I watched the man pass us by.

He sat.

The chair creeked a little.

His face looked white as winter in ash.

But seemed accepting, despite his fear.

He moved his fingers across the arm.

There was a knot in the wood.

There was no fire so great

As the volts.

Blue-white streams as you shake.

"God, I'm sorry fer wut I done."

No one is listening, as

The silence gives way to his last words,

And the tears mixed with sweat on his face,

And the creeking of the wood in the chair.

A family, the faces of wolves, looks on.

Some look away as the switch is thrown.

His fingers stiffen away from the knot.

The moment is frozen in the minds of the witnesses.

The man was tall--very strong.

Strong enough to break a neck.

"Why did he kill my baby?"

It doesn't matter to the knot--

A fine chair is waiting to break.

� Eric Salonis, 2002