Long Sestina Poems
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Where's that ancient land where civilization began?
There...this disconsolate poet was born:
to tell whatever wasn't told on his return,
and to choose his tomb under the shade of a pine;
to be, somehow, comforted by the canary's song,
or the presence of the carnations that, into the warm rain, would shine...
Find such an amazing land by the deepness of the calm seas,
and the fresh scent of the Alps and Apennines;
foreign Kings governed it by their mighty cities,
and the occupied people never knew it as a united nation,
until it was liberated by a northern, courageous man:
Garibaldi... proudly called the hero of the Two Worlds!
Where's that ancient land where the Imperial Rome rose
on the top of the Seven Hills, where Romulus
was fed by a she-wolf? Legend, you say, but facts
may prove that everything that occurred was true!
O glorious Rome, all that's left of your greatness...
are crumbling columns ravaged by the storms!
When we read Vergil's writings and follow him in his travels,
carrying papyrus and ink to write when time allowed him...
we see impressive images of prosperous towns and cities,
and in Baianum he rested a day, then climbed the Mount of the Virgin;
and he gazed upon the lush hills and mountains of the country-side,
and heard the Nolans chanting and wailing when he died!
Where's that ancient land where civilization began,
and mild seasons adorn it with their vivid colors?
One can't help being lifted-up by a creation so breathtaking:
that God Himself was surprised in its making;
whenever you go, there are pristine meadows with wild flowers...
something compels the writer and the artist to return!
Copyright 2008 by Andrew Crisci
In the darkness of night,
With only stars for light,
I wander through the trees,
Whispering secrets on the breeze.
The moon above shines bright,
A beacon in the night,
Guiding me on my way,
As I wander and sway.
The rustling of leaves,
A symphony that weaves,
Through the stillness of the air,
A melody beyond compare.
I lose myself in thought,
As I continue on my sought,
Journey through the dark,
A journey of the heart.
For in this silent space,
I find my inner grace,
And though the night may be long,
My spirit is forever strong.
So let the stars shine bright,
And guide me through the night,
For I am not alone,
In this world I call my own.
I wake to the low hum of wheels threading on the track,
watching dawn stretch itself thin through the window,
the world slipping by like a familiar station
I’ve seen before but only in passing~
September fields fading gently in the distance
another quiet mile added to this long journey.
I’ve learned that every life becomes a single, continuous journey,
its rhythm shaped by the steady pulse beneath the track,
its understanding widened by years of gathering distance,
its tenderness framed by whatever light enters each window,
its longing stirred by the beauty of landscapes passing,
its heart awakened at every unexpected station.
I think often of the people who stepped off at some station,
leaving me to continue alone on this journey,
their voices lingering only in passing,
echoing faintly along the track,
glimmering briefly in the glass of the window,
before dissolving into the widening distance.
I’ve learned that memory stretches across distance,
reaching back to every long-ago station,
to every face reflected once in the window,
to every moment that shaped the journey,
to every truth laid quietly along the track,
to every tenderness felt in passing.
Now evening settles, the world dimming in passing,
and I feel the weight and wonder of the distance,
the way it sighs beneath the rails of the track,
the way it gathers at each approaching station,
the way it deepens the meaning of journey,
the way it softens the view through the window.
So I sit quietly, looking out the window,
letting the world move gently in passing,
trusting the unfinished shape of my journey,
trusting the quiet wisdom carried in distance,
trusting the steady pulse beneath the track,
trusting the truth waiting at the next station.
Envoy
This journey stretches softly across the distance,
where each station glimmers briefly in passing,
and every window reflects the long hum of the track.
Drifting blissfully into the land of dreams
Pulled in by the sounds of late autunm
Which serenade their welcome for seasons silver
And whistle tunes of nostalgia
Singing echoes in an empty shell...
A joy hearts can embrace.
As time colours your hair silver,
It's known you've had much to embrace.
You can teach through your nostalgia
Your wisdom represented by the lines on a shell.
You feel your life has reached late autumn
But you have not lost your love for dreams.
Success is something we all desire to embrace
Aiming always for gold, not silver.
We fear being left behind like the empty shell
Of a creature moving on with its dreams.
We feel its too late if we wait til late autumn
The "what could have been" - a complex nostalgia.
What truly matters exceeds the value of silver
That is our living dreams.
Love and true friends to embrace -
Fragile and beautiful like a shell
Together you travel to late autumn
Humour, bliss and peace fill your nostalgia.
Each person can be like a shell
Colourful personalities, qualities stirling silver.
They can rest on sands of nostalgia.
They can inspire creative dreams.
Their uniqueness has no late autumn
Fantasy and reality they embrace.
We need not mourn late autumn.
The winter brings beauty with its silver.
We hibernate inside our dreams,
Feel the warmth of nostalgia
As our homes hold us in a cozy embrace -
Just as to creatures their shell.
Dreams can be colourful fantasy or silver reality
And can warm our hearts in late autumn.
Dreams are shells that choose to embrace nostalgia.
When the parents are gone,
the kids survive by heeding advice and carry on
their wishes by honoring their true intent;
flowers sprout and then bloom,
never living their fragile, little ones to a fateful gloom...
as sunshine nurtures them!
Glimpses may not give us a full image,
but they can reveal their glossary of life and death,
and it depends on us how to put it
into a consequent sentence and give meaning to it;
our parents raised us up to a certain standard,
hoping we'd pick up the slack where they left off!
And will we be elated by parental pride,
by doing all things that are beautiful and honorable...
great things that endow us with exuberance and fortitude,
to conquer every boundary and win every battle?
History can take us there, showing us the ones who fearlessly dared:
Moses who bashed rebellion and Jesus who lashed the whip!
Many will stumbled on life's deception,
others will cautiously follow its trail to wisdom,
to find themselves acclaimed by glory
and flourishing in their endeavors: they will find immortality;
and if anyone was deceived by the notion...
that nothing outlasts us, they are completely wrong!
There's no greater joy than remembering
how our parents leaded a religious life without a spot,
believing that obedience was a reward for longevity; and was
God ever put out of their thoughts...not fortifying
their spirits and making them stand on a solid rock?
Foolish persons shouldn't be pitied for their self-inflicted wounds!
The kids can survive by heeding advice, unfraidly facing their challenges,
alleviating their fears with the words that they received from the elders:
walking on a straight path, avoiding danger and harm, to live a golden youth
and a longer life...when most youngsters lose these to drugs and lust;
and with no gray hair on their heads and no stories to tell their granchildren,
who are the victorious ones that should declare thier well-merited crown?
Copyright 2009 by Andrew Crisci
Season of death
Told to fear
Before bitter cold
Making everyone scream
For some warmth
And loving touch
Stay in touch
After the death
With some warmth
And no fear
Morbid many scream
Awaiting the cold
Decide embrace cold
With forceful touch
Hear the scream
Proclaiming the death
Eyes express fear
Needing some warmth
Getting the warmth
Fighting the cold
And the fear
With caring touch
Defeating ugly death
That creates a scream
Why a scream?
All filled warmth
Body shell death
Purple silver cold
Ghosts need touch
Soothe the Fear
Dispense the fear
Memories laughing scream
Everyone seems touch
Words igniting warmth
Melting the cold
Celebrating the death
Conquering fear death
Instead scream warmth
When touch cold
Drought cooks a garden;
foliage’s veins and arteries burn.
One wonders if rain will return;
the ground, an abstract of cracks.
Baked by the sunlight,
plants retreat; leave desolate dry land.
Miles of parched land,
can’t share its lifeblood, with thirsty farms and gardens.
Farmers pray for rain and sunlight;
when they lose crops, they feel nature’s burn.
Dying fields of cracks,
pray in secret for rain’s return.
As the farmer prays over his tax returns;
he lists lost crop overhead and pictures his dry land.
A tear falls upon the memory of dry, gaping cracks.
Unlike the gardener both feel the same burning.
Both are vulnerable; farm and garden;
to the ultraviolet blades of searing sunlight.
Many years of fiery sunlight,
Without rain, leaves a bleak tax return.
A farmer’s inner light still burns;
he’ll see, if a job, he can land.
He and the gardener,
will have success; when the spring rain fills the cracks.
Over-achieving clouds spit; crops thrive in the sunlight.
Unlike the gardener;
The farmer has a more interesting tax return.
Spring rains will fill the gaping cracks.
At one with the land,
his rage, no longer burns.
Come fall, his fireplace logs, will burn.
The coming winter, brings its own style of cracks.
Snow-blanketed land,
gleams in the sunlight.
When spring makes its return;
birth comes to crops and gardens.
Both celebrate, with anxiety burning;
formulating planting plans, for their land.
Land without cracks,
will yield plants, upon the rains return.
Praying that the sunlight,
will be kind to their crops and gardens.
Before there was a world or a word
there was unfathomable loneliness
in the gaseous expanse of pin pricked night
an infinite course of vibrations, sound
nascent, coalescing, gestating,
until planets ripening birthed with souls.
There was only the orb, the throbbing soul
and an unknown longing for word,
conduits formed synapses gestating
to wavelengths of crystalline loneliness,
the aching white noise, static, lack of sound,
and the wanderers of celestial night.
Man was born to such a daunting midnight
aqueous eyes and conical ears for soul
to shattering din’s discordant sound,
no bird song, no harmony, no words,
just an aging, aching, aloneness,
of random thoughts thus wordless gestating.
A rhythm of circular gestation
formed the day and lingering became night
and thus weakened, warmed the loneliness
with woman kind He brought her soul.
Ether resounded with sheet lightening, words
for those sounds were to souls, the God sound.
Strong, silibant streams of understood sound
released from the oval egg of gestation
songs formed as man combined the God like words
croonings of passion fill the nubile night
as joinings rolled-tidal of mated souls.
Word all powerful had freed loneliness.
Each creature gifted an end to loneliness
earth, water, fire ,wind, all given sound,
all graced beloved with shimmering souls,
hatched from the dragon’s egg, life gestates
into the bountiful passage of night.
Cherish the ever present presence of the Word.
No longer alone, a sound vibrating within
each atom relates to the soul, gestation continues
in the night's never-ending cycle of the Word's life.
*My PASSION is SONG
* Many lines have internal RHYME as well as
the end rhyme achieved by the use of the same words.
*Dedicated to inspiration achieved
through the writings of L'Nass Shango & David Smalling
A full heart chokes
too full to feel
anything but broken.
Seems all is lost
and only phantoms linger
must I remain?
A hollow husk, a remnant
yet, engorged and choking
on maudlin memories lingering
I cannot stop the feelings
the haunted thoughts of loss
surrounded by what’s broken.
Rise up, wrap, beribboned breaks
yes, I must remain
for others have a need not lost
in pointless, pitiful sobs and choking.
Regain, search, reform to feel
the worth of love which lingers.
A man child grown who has lingered
past the vows which broke
too full, still, with anger of his own to feel
I must remain
anxious, prone, and choking
for forgiveness must not be lost.
Let it be forgiveness loosing
let sweet reminiscence linger
un-choked
let the bond of love live unbroken
though soon I must go and he remain
and naught will be left to feel.
For there are many types of feelings
and many ways to lose
what remains
what lingers
the broken
chokings.
Be gone death and loss
remain but joy a lingering
repair my broken life un-choked by grief.
Back in the days, when men bold,
spun golden legends;
of exploits in the wild west;
of punch-in and herd-in cows
and saloon brawls where they’d shoot
and scores of bullets roared.
Stories of the Iron Horse’s roar
and gunfighters and marshals, bold;
Of gamblers, who’d go shooting
for the stars in cards; those were feats of legend.
Days when plains of cows,
fur-painted the landscape of, the old west.
These are the breed that won the west,
as across the plains, the Iron Horse roared.
those are the backs worn, herding cows;
the exploits of the brave and bold.
those brave and haggard legends
made of silver spurs and pearl-handled shooters.
You’re darn toot-in, shoot’in
like that, was what won the west.
While the Iron Horse died, its legend
lives on, belching out its roar,
across the plains, so bold.
Still, cowboys herd and rope their cows.
Modern day cowboys, herding cows
by truck and shootouts
no longer ring so boldly.
Wild no more, is the west,
where now, only cars and planes roar.
Yet, there still live the legends.
They aren’t as great, these new legends,
but it doesn’t phase the cows.
They calmly graze, amid the airplanes roar.
Though one may say, “shoot,
it’s spoiled now”, the legends live on, in the west,
of heroes brave and bold.
The west will always, have its legends, Though trains no longer roar.
Cowboys will always rope their cows, as they did in the old, wild west.
Upon museum walls, stories of the shootouts,
are told; of ancient heroes brave and bold.
10-8-2020
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