I Watch Him
by Positive Mark
The quiet of his flat. The drone of a space heater, providing white noise, concealing the shrills of an ego, shattered by
truth.
He wanders the earth like a ghost with unfinished business.
He writes like the devil you don’t see hiding in your closet at night.
He’s inactive unless he writes.
Even though he’s not blind, his feet still can’t keep time. He merely sees well enough to let a piece of poem rhyme.
I watch him.
I watch him as he passes by mocking mirrors that will lie to him
never more.
My eyes wandered through an old photograph.
Pausing suddenly, I dissolved in tears,
remembering how, the first half of half
of my life, you were with me all those years,
and how my young love, bonny, bright, and fair,
stroked you with fingers, delicate and soft,
as well she styled you, "beautiful blonde hair",
and admired you, as wind bore you aloft.
So, bitterly, I asked, why did you leave?
Slowly, bit by bit, I was abandoned,
to sadly mourn and hopelessly to grieve.
Yet, I struggle hard to understand and,
thinking philosophically, I say,
drying my tears away, "'twas only DNA".
Sisyphus’ Silence
I sit, a silent, carved-out zone,
A soul entrapped, unlit, unwhole,
The majority’s tide grinds flesh to bone,
While others’ feelings wallow, roll
In mud that clings, a river’s drone.
Sisyphus slumps at mountain’s base,
Scowls at the stone, then dares a smile,
“Nevermore” hums through empty space,
The gods, once loud, now mute, exiled.
reality -
home, school
playground, job
in life everywhere we
are intellectually tested
t-rump -
an angry spoiled child
lost his billions and now
wants to rule the monopoly
game board with his farts
len
Eve chose neither red nor green between these,
Eat, sweetened me' feet needn't desert Eden,
Keep earthen delved deep beneath heightened trees,
Heedless sell serpent issue agreed in.
Centuries teems decades, millennium,
Free Verse verses' a-peck-o-peppers-herbs,
Elves live in teepees Sumer pole Autumn,
Presley name per some steep fee minced-free verbs.
Requirements necessary--get there,
Senseless feather-headed time essential,
Execute effectiveness engineer,
Acquiescence evidence credential.
Set preferences effectuate a theme,
Elevate efforts of the letter E.
The hourglass betrayed
The youth that once was mine
My brittle bones decayed
Through the ravages of time
A cruel and cold embrace
Is what I have in store
A traveler to face
The road to nevermore
No mercy once begun
This weary winter's frost
Those days spent in the sun
Are now forever lost
The Sunrise of a Nevermore
David J Walker
From here the sunsets closer than ever before
The deep rays quicken long-off memories
Removed to the distant shore
The fabled days of youth are no more
As I turn and realize
The light in my eyes
Was once the sunrise
Of an opening door
That I have traversed
But never more
O bipolar, harass me nevermore!
Depart from me! For Easter Sunday's here,
a comfort which transforms this time of year,
and gelds you like oxen for evermore.
O minotaur, you cursed bull! Whether more
man than beast, for you I'll not shed a tear;
away from me, fiend—never to come near!
Be gone, creature! Leave me ever the more.
So, one day, very soon I'll know new life
(though, like a captive in your hellish maze,
a labyrinth and scheme of puzzling strife,
despair, gloom, confusion, and dark malaise,
I languish like prey butchered by your knife)
as hope arrives, freeing me for endless days!
I am looking thru new eyes.
It's as if I'm Alice and,
I fell down the rabbit hole.
I see people for what they are,
Not who they are.
I am now in their world.
Fake smiles.
Fake faces.
Hidden feelings and arrogance,
But the same can be said for Johnny on the street,
who oddly resembles the Cheshire Cat,
Who only wants chaos and madness.
You can't believe these fake people with fake faces,
Who resemble characters from Alice in Bewilderment.
You run from the monsters,
Yet, holding on to the memory of those,
You love while trying to escape the madness.
One day I will leave this menagerie of a nightmare and,
Alice will never come back,
Nevermore, nevermore.
Here lay the broken shards
Of a glass called bones,
With it are weeping hearts
As cold as a stone.
You know you left too soon
Pending is our journey,
Awaiting is gloom.
You set fire to our kingdom,
Built a castle with the ashes,
Kept the crown, holding the matches.
The story continues…
How you fought battles,
Ablaze was you heart
Like your burning castles.
Walls are degraded and torn are your portraits
Smirking and ‘O so vain!
There lay your broken bones,
Never-mending for evermore.
Your stone cold heart, beating for nevermore.
The vines of fear reap its satanic fruit
in the hot sands
and cold desert winds of war -
bitten by the martyr, the Jihadist, the brute!
May its seeds of hate
at its poisoned core wither and die
and bear nevermore.
Written: June 2015
as if the body destroyed
endure the decline you try to mend
when entering and exiting appointment
and pharmacies and bandages
and palliatives and medicines
and therapies and hopes
and absurd bets
after the unsynchronized years
the age and the intercurrence of the discomforts
as they say putting velvet over the thorns
silently waiting for something wonderful to emerge
from the left end of the brightest star
or else already giving up
sure it finally comes from the distant valley
a warm and fragrant wave
sedation like a fog
cozy and comfortable
that embraces all spoils
of the tortured organic machine
the skin tattooed in the pain of bad days
and drive friendly
in conformity with an almost joy
to the security of nevermore
NaPoWriMo
NaPoWriMo Day5
Ancient
Shorts
Ancient powers forever lost
Mourn their passing
When time stands still.
Wander over hill and dale
March along the river's edge
On no occasion to be found.
Again, sweet song sung by the water
Beauty's incarnation to see the light nevermore.
To Edgar - whom I love in verse
Whose soul has met a desperate curse
Never to know his life's own worth
To Edgar - whom I've longed to meet
Whose purpose left him incomplete
Whose very hand spelled out defeat
To Edgar - who has come to fame
Yet while he walked - it was in shame
A haunted life - but not in vain
To Edgar - whose shadow falls on my floor
Whose unseen hands tap on my door
Whose pen shall move....ah....NEVERMORE
#5 3/15/20
Begone, thou creature hovering o’er my door
Your ebony feathers evoke my anger
My dear Lenore was swept up in your wings
Nevermore to share her love with me
February 19, 2020
For Charles Messina’s “Poe-etic” verse contest
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