The Secret of Rain
The sky sheds its weight in cold slivers
Which plopped on the wet pavement I was sat on.
Their journey is long, though I'll never know the distance...
They scatter before I can ask them.
These ancient waters, from the primordial seas
Hold ancient secrets of the dawn of the world.
Its surface they knew and know better than me
In oceans they've run, in storms they've swirled.
They will never tell, but I'll always want them
To spill those mysteries as they run and lie,
But their patience transcends generations.
A hundred-billion people did they deny.
The Sea Demon’s Promise (Part 1)
Part I: The Monk and the Stone
Some foreign fish, like fractured glass,
Shone beneath the rippling tide.
A kneeling monk cast there his gaze
Where it sparkled like a happy bride.
And the humble monk, rejoicing
At each gleam and glittering ray.
Yet, wondered if a gift or omen
The sea bore on this day.
The fish lay still. He wondered:
O, what creature could this be?
And reached into the biting cold
To claim or set it free.
The cold sea nipped his hand,
As if abrim with jealousy.
When he took the starry, glinting stone
Alight with mystery.
Then suddenly, afeared
That some temptation forth would spring,
He sought the golden altar,
To adorn it with this thing.
Not a fish, but precious gem
Not fit for humble men.
To the altar hence, or else,
Into the wide world to condemn.
Surely there beside the cross,
God’s praises it would sing,
And glory He that wrought him
To befit a crown for kings.
...
This is a poem I completed recently, and it's quite long so I'm posted it in its three separate parts. It's different from the things I've tried before. It's a bit medieval, a bit mythological, a bit fantastical. It's complex, but I've been told its comprehensible, and I hope the authority is good.
What the Clouds Were Like
The sky was like a stretch
Of pulled cloud-colored fabric
And thinned and thickened here and there
Rippling into the horizon
...
Dated May 8, 2018
All my poetry is filed in Google Docs and I have a folder called "fragments", full of things that aren't poems, but hopefully one day will be. Here's a little ditty that I didn't plan on publishing anywhere, it's just a thought I had one day.
My Son, The Soldier
Shall I, my son, send you away
With a blessing on your head?
Shall I surrender you to war,
'Til it returns you, dead?
Oh! Mary knew the kind of pain
A dear son's blood could bring…
Shall I give up my tender heart
To bitter Worry's sting?
And yet could I, with conscious true,
Tell him to kill what honor grew?
And Honor, could I then let fear
Put enmity between me and you?
The Outdoorsman
His face is not pretty, some may say.
He labors far too long,
His beard is left unshorn.
His boots and hands are worn,
To the farm does he belong,
His shoulders laid with hay.
Blindness in her eyes was born
Who thought “pretty” the one all plucked and pruned,
Soft, unchallenged except by pillows.
A dying fire with lazy billows.
Pity on she who for him swooned,
And saw the better man with scorn.