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The Visitation

2008-06-01T00:00:00+00:00

In the lonesome, somber skies
    In ghostly, pale white
    (Fluttering, hovering)
With darkness in its eyes
    Bound by some earthly plight
    Pondered I: "What causeth a haunted soul
    To emerge this wintry night
For eternal slumber to demise?
    Why dost thou quiver and moan
    In sheets of ghostly, pale white?"
(Figureless, but draped in lies)


And then, a sudden chill
    The visitant drew in near
    (Lingering, loitering)
And drew in closer still
    As if to whisper something in my ear
    Implored I: "What dost thou want foul demon,
    Shadowy phantom of the air?
You have my attention, tell me thy will!
    What of this queer visitation?
    Of your burden I must hear!"
(And with a lurid shriek the sky did fill!)


Thereupon (in the wake of its cries)
    On gaunt limbs the phantom did stride
    (Leering, piercing)
I stood still, entranced by its fiery eyes
    Which bore the memories trapped inside
    Without utterance, the spirit my soul conjured
    And upon my conscious this tale conferred:
"In days of yore for thee I did ride
Seduced into battle by thy sweet lies
    While thou pillaged my land and stole my wife!
    And although in miserable life to thee I did abide
(In death no more) Hear you me: everything dies!"


Then, amidst this ghoulish nightmare
    Imparted in silent roar
    (Haunting, troubling)
Mine eyes opened wide and peeled bare
    Devoured this devilish lore
    And in this silent evening of fiendish dreaming
    I awoke to find myself alone once more
"Leave me, phantom of the night!" I shouted at the air
    But there was no response, only apprehension
    Which left me trembling on the floor
(And what sanity I possessed, I surely left it there!)


And in the stillness of the night
    I nervously hastened back to the quiet sea
    (Scampering, fleeting)
O, how I wished this damp forest the sun to light
    And in this wretched darkness no more to be!
    For the torment contained in that visitation stare
    (A most ferocious tempest did bore in me)
Of thy life; thy grim spirit of ghostly, pale white!
    Now mine eyes I shall not close
    'Til thy restless soul of torment shall be free
(For mine sleep is sure to be a woeful plight!)

Archipelago

2007-12-20T00:00:00+00:00

There's an island in my eye
surrounded by a sea
where many have drowned
while they gazed into me

Jutting out like a canker
in the mist where it lies
in the cold, tormented water
which licks at the sky

Where the rain briskly waltzes
in its shoes made of sea
where ships had once sailed
towards this island of me

Ships tossed in storms
on that dark, foamy brine
where titanic waves stirred
in this ocean of mine

Where tempests proudly flaunt
their unremitting might
as their thunder and lightning
prematurely awakened the night

And the seas quickly swell
the tides impulsively rise
until they breach the levy
of these saturated eyes

Flowing in succession
down my damp salty face
where a river has born
as the droplets embraced

And in the eye of the storm
where the gales have ceased
a small weathered boat
drifts silently east

An exhausted young maiden
is scanning my shore
With her tired hands clasped
to what is left of an oar

By chance our eyes meet
a congregation of seas
filled with uncharted islands
an archipelago of we.

An Old Friend

2006-10-22T00:00:00+00:00

Hello, my friend,
I thought you were still adrift!
What foul breeze has brought you in?
What grave misfortune has landed you here?

My friend, what treacherous fiend
has plucked the spark from your eye?

I have called this place my home
long before you came with your suffered face,
still distinctly chiseled with the slow,
painful culmination of its final days.
Oh, what joyous occasion...
What sad momentous grief!

My friend, I have long been in the dark,
will you grace me with moments of light?

Those seductive mountain springs,
forever shrouded in the dense,
soupy fog of late fall...
The morning dew, which makes love
to the exuberant flowers of spring...
Fierce summer storms whose flashes of light
detour throughout the amber sky...
These are but empty words to me now,
no sensorial memory remains!

My friend, why do you look upon me
with such callous, watchful eyes?

I remember the first time I died...
What awe to listen to the silence
of your own heartbeat...
That convulsive desire to steal
a breath from the stale air, as if
all of life depended upon it, ha!

Oh, my friend, what distasteful haste!
Has death not accompanied you here?
My poor friend, do you not see?
Upon landing here, you are as dead as me!

Seeds

2006-10-12T00:00:00+00:00

Traffic flows through the streets
mimicking the tiny, volatile cells of our bodies
submissive to the whims of the changing lights

Futures squirm from the safety of their wombs
the culmination of a lusty union of destiny and fate
a susceptable fetus ripened amidst monetary greed

Numbers wake to the dull pulse of bedside alarms
tired eyelids strain open to spark their stoic minds
like zombies they rise, to carry out their meaningless lives

The decrepit lay solemnly as a dejected testiment of vigor lost
young aspirations left withered in a porcelain pot by the window
their forsaken seeds flourish not far from the tree