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Best Poems Written by John Byrd

Below are the all-time best John Byrd poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | John Byrd Poem

The Quiet River

I remember
my feet stretched into the cold,
dirty water back home,
mud swirling
between each toe, 
alone with singular
thoughts,
none of them
uninvited.

But without
that intrusion,
without dark night
under the melting,
hot moon,
mystery and fear,
bitter wine and cigar,
freedom of the naïve,
I would have known 
none of you,
and never sought your
forgiveness
before the sun rose.

I arrive today
between 
the tempests, 
a modest look 
at the mirror, 
quiet again, nothing more. 

And in that 
quiet way,
a worker,
a father, believer,
and friend,
I approach 
the eternal questions,
the river only a memory now,
and still,
it is present,
with all of those questions and answers
beneath my feet,
when I was alone,
no voice interrupting
my late night tv dinners
by the streams.

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House of Cards

House of cards

I.

I fear
the clock
renders
neither mirror
nor dull glass.
Like the Lilly
it moves
and grows
and dies
unseen
by our
distracted
eyes,
telling me
nothing,
moment by moment.
Time, 
her only 
transgression
is death--
quick,
fluid,
emaciated,
withering and
vast.

II.

I will touch the sun
and every 
gray
will taste 
my eternity.

I will build
Babylon
with an
edict,
with an
imperial
deck of cards,
screaming,
hissing,
blind,
knowing.

You taught me, 
after all.

III.

Prince, 
ha-satan,
you
laid 
the ruin track
for me,
taught me to 
accuse 
Love.
You,
grand inquisitor,
pro-bono
prosecutor, 
veiling the world 
again
beneath fire,
beneath scales
under
twisted mouth.

IV.

We once knew
a peace
under
sun and rain.
God offered
the sun
and the rain
before 
snow fell
from 
the evil tree,

before acid 
dripped down
and you,

you, 

you,

heard your name
over and over 
again,

and the madness
cradled 
you
in flame.

Details | John Byrd Poem

The Missing One--A Love Story

The memory 
arrives
colder now.

Spring in 
Phoenix, 
a palace 
of tan grass
beneath 
our feet, 
all of you
that remains. 

The water
and the wind
still dancing
in my mind,
running
furiously
in my speech,
your quietness
appealing 
to every trace
of what I was.

All of this
makes sense,
the way 
anything 
exists at all
makes sense. 
Forgetting you
by degrees,
an impossible
arithmetic.
Keeps 
me up nights, 
wound up and 
scorned
by your presence. 

I search
for you,
your eyes 
touched 
by fire,
by impatience, 
your voice,
trumpet calling
me home,
and I remained.

I search
for you,
but I 
am 
the missing one.

Details | John Byrd Poem

On My Brief and Last Manic Episode

It was only this past week.
I had dreams
about Maria again,
and Cat spoke to me through
some diabolical means.
You would only
believe the dreams
if you knew me
(and because they are merely dreams).
I was going to find 
two witnesses
to stand before me,
(Revelation 11 style)
impregnate a woman
(chapter thirteen, for the interested reader) 
I hadn’t seen
in nearly twenty years.
We would name our Son
Joshua. 
Thank God that I’m older now.
Thank him that my knees can’t 
handle training to be God on earth,
like I’m Batman on some unheard of steroids. 

I had to go to work in this frame of mind,
and, when I was
putting away a bag of chips
on a shelf, 
I thought,
“something is amiss.” 
So I buried my tears 
in the hr’s office,
who had a bipolar brother,
and was endowed with natural empathy anyway. 
Today I got through the Damoclean downswing.
slept all day and spent some time
with my daughter tonight.
Right now I listen to Richter and experiment.
It sounds like Bukowski to me,
only not as clever or cool or polished.
But that’s Bukowski’s voice coming at me, 
being critical of someone not Bukowski.
Cat is the girl I keep writing about on this page.
Found out through Twiter
she was a Satanist. Maybe that
was part 
of the mania’s onset. 
Anyway, maybe she’ll meet Chuck one day. 
She can tell him (through our ESP)
that I was fond of them both.

Details | John Byrd Poem

Quiet Now, Quiet Now

I write freely, 
quietly,
without you,
without 
your trespass.
Love has a
texture,
whispers and songs 
in the dark
bring a 
vintage wine,
laughter.

No offense, but
these are
my words 
of straw, 
written indelibly,
finally,
to and about
you.

Life, this pulse,
ocean of pleasantness,
reaches out,
her hands wet and full,
deadly too.
I yield
to her feral call,
hungry, naked
exploited.

Interior world
of screams, 
vast and 
stolen, wishes 
upon the suicidal 
rock. 
Goodnight and 
so long.   

Quiet now, 
quiet now,
to you belongs
the kingdom 
you possess
and so long for,
crucify your 
curses there,
upon that cross,
a good soldier,
feminine, 
marching across
the marshes 
of your own
smallness. 

I will drink
the nectar
of rest, and you,
your twisted 
mouth,
and memories
like sores 
on your 
tired body.

Details | John Byrd Poem

Sun of Righteousness: Appeal of the Crucified God

Blaze of the Immortal,
come softly,
earnestly,
to my lips,
and speak 
the parallel
of love, of truth. 

This bitterness,
a mere interlude
to the chalk of soul,
the bitter gall, 
or the sweet
forever, wherein
I want to invade
every moment
of your joy,
of your suffering,
of your endurance,
of your love
and tears.

Those tears.
I have known 
you
before the great
depth opened,
before the 
treasonous fall,
and after,
the wick, after time,
extinguishes
at My word. 

I am love,
and there is nothing 
before me.
My origin
is bound
in the 
necessity
of My existence.
And, because I Am,
I love you,
every last one of you.

I love you in the fire of glory
and in the black fire too.
I will never abandon
my love for you,
while you cry freedom
from the pit of agony,
while you hold onto
everything wrong,
while you maintain
your everlasting Self,
I cannot help but love you.

What can I do
but what I have done?
Cut to pieces like 
an animal,
displayed for all to see,
each moment worse 
than the next,
each moment eternal 
in scope,
slain forever,
risen forever,
worthy forever,
always knocking and praying,
searching for you,
speaking to you,
loving you
in the paleness of your knowing,
in the paleness
of what you feel now,
I Am utterly in love
with all of what you are.
I Was utterly in love
with all of what you are.
I Will always love
all of what you are.

Details | John Byrd Poem

Candle

Sleepless, half-naked
and thirsty
beside the river,
under constant moonlight,
waiting to feel 
the final impact
of the Sun.

I am
locked up,
dents
on red knuckles,
tears betraying
a fear I can't
hide.
Nose in a book, 
laboring
to be someone,
losing, regaining 
the world,
the charitable God
reminding me
of the beauty 
of grace. 

Walking sideways 
down a Fort Worth
barrio, music
steadies my mind,
keeps me
from knocking
on a random door.

What do I fear now, 
but the silence of her voice,
of the voice I have known,
the siren that
drifts me down
to the great rivers,
searching for the tree of life?

And I fear that 
you, my love,
were my tree of life,
in my own
strange way.

The vastness of you,
my only ocean
in the universe.
My delight carved
into the plot of land
I never had the wisdom
to let lie fallow.