My eyes have strained themselves to the brink of blindness,

But no lens nor drop will clarify the scene.

The skies are clear up to the horizon,

But no amount of distance can reveal

Exactly what it is I’m searching for.

Orbs of blue bend bands of light,

Refracting sea and skies and stone,

Shrouds of darkness give way to rays of light,

Sight shredded by strips of time,

Seconds spawning minutes making hours harboring days

Delivering weeks without what I want.

Colors burst forth from the infinite grays,

Brilliant and bold, too crisp, too vivid,

Separating themselves into slivers, forming into

Lines and waiting to become shapes,

Endlessly shifting, sliding, snapping into

Place, where it is they belong…

I’ve undergone this spectacular process,

Been baptised by the nothingness,

Let the hands of the universe work me

Into whatever it is I need to be,

Fitted with what was deemed necessary,

And when the world once again allows itself

To be seen, we are we once more.

It must have fallen apart somewhere upstream,

perhaps taken a detour or branched off into some

previously undiscovered tributary of temporal tidings,

because the current order of events is anything but chronological.

The usual tell-tale signs of passage have ceased.

Breathing and beating and blinking are all at a standstill.

I can only be thankful that this disaster didn’t

occur while I was mid-flow, or worse…

True, some things left to continue for eternity

may be enjoyable for a little while.

Having the clock stop mid-coitus would do

much for the male ego, but imagine…

An eternity of continual building,

release forever just beyond reach.

A never-ending buffet would truly live up to its billing,

with a spread that would never run out,

never get cold or spoil,

along with a hunger that could never be satisfied.

The man out for a sky dive would never

have to pull a chute, though he would

probably tire of screaming, preferring to endure

his perpetual plummet in pure silence.

And finally… The Dreamer.

Blessed is the one who stumbled into

what we view as plight, for he is

bound only by the confines of his imagination.

Free to construct endless new worlds, nay,

entirely new galaxies, where long ago and far,

far away could be wherever he dared to place it.

Now open YOUR eyes, YOUR heart, and YOUR mind,

for you, too, can share the fate of the dreamer.

Heed my caution, else risk entering into the pitfall

that awaits he who enters recklessly, without plan

nor passion, inspiration nor internal glow.

Avoid slipping into a visionless sleep, for a mind at ease

may as well be a soul silenced.

My mind tracks back to happier moments.

The gentle rest of head upon shoulder,

Waves of hair clinging to my face

As if desperate to stay there,

Evidenced by each individual strand struggling

To remain on the surface of my skin,

Finally falling back when space comes between us.

That space has grown too great

And the distance of a million locks of flowing gold

Separate me from fully living.

Despite the fact that the days are growing longer,

I’m finding more darkness than light,

My eyes unable to see through the gloom

That has wrapped itself around me like a blindfold.

My feet stumble as days and weeks pass,

Body simply going through the motions,

A constant struggle to survive until our next encounter.

Your smile is capable of shearing through this shroud,

Bringing forth the brilliance that you emit

And lighting up my world with the fire in your eyes.

When everyone else is just a spirit passing through,

I find comfort that you can reach out and touch me,

Let me know that there is more for me in this life

Than following the footsteps of the feet in front of me,

Left after right, one after the other,

Keeping step with those around me,

An endless waltz without a partner.

You show me that I am capable of far more

Than even I am willing to believe,

And that life can be based on those you include in it.

If this is true, how great my life will be

Knowing that it is no longer my life alone,

But a shared commodity that you and I both own.

Spoken, they can be twisted, skewed, slanted in such a way

That those on the other end can easily be swayed,

Sold on whatever promise the utterer puts forth,

Be it on a silver platter of a bed of lies.

The written word, free of the inflection

Of the human tongue, finds itself often

Misconstrued, lost in the translation from

Pen to page to peering eye.

Thus there exists a fundamental problem

In the exchange of language, with no guarantee

Of the intended message being that which is received.

We exist within this continuous tide of syntax,

An endless ebb and flow, birth and death of diction,

Attempting to stay afloat and absorb meaning,

Else we sink below the waves of words and

Drown under this depth of discourse.

Stealing the sun’s bounty far better than

The forest greens and earth browns

Of the souls that surround me.

But all thieves take to fill some need,

Hide some shortcoming that they’d rather

Bury beneath miles of stone-cold expression,

Run the risk of apprehension than

Allow society to see their weakness.

Lightness fades under the weight

I bear within, and with every

Blink I require more of my eye’s addiction.

The balance swings away from its axis,

The light-grey becoming increasingly opaque

Until eventually the shapes and shades blur

Into indiscernible features, familiar faces fading

Until strangers fill their forms,

The comforts of home shift until

These warmths are replaced by a foreign cold.

I’d rather the sun freeze over, put an end

To its immutable output, take

Away the meaning of sight and light,

Steal away the burden of this blame and

Give me no choice but to see nevermore,

To turn all that can be seen into

A nothing shrouded in complete darkness…

There was no receptacle to catch them as they fell,

No container to hold the precious flow.

The drought has been long.

For many months have these fields remained barren,

This swath devoid of any moisture at all.

So often the most brilliant lights flash

When nary an eye is open to witness it.

Perhaps the winds took hold of my words,

Unspoken, though they would have

Resonated with a volume far surpassing that

Which my own voice could sustain.

The jet stream rushed forth with

Its newly found prize, the pressure

Pulling it ever closer to the surface,

Unused to the heaviness of the parcel it carries.

I desire complete immersion,

The ability to leave behind the weight of this body,

To shed these earthly worries so that

I may become weightless.

soon-to-be shades of a life I’m leaving behind.

These ghosts are not the haunting type,

benevolent memories of times we rolled up our sleeves together.

The power to bring these beings back to life

is (for now) in my hands,

but with every passing moment that pulse grows weaker.

This is not playing with life and death,

this is whether or not to bring these lives into my own

or to continue on my own path, content with mental snapshots

of visages that will not age, but risk fading from clarity

after several days or weeks or months, or perhaps just a few.

These distractions are not a nuisance.

In fact, poetry has no place without them,

as it is these drifting consciences that read what is written,

that serve as inspiration for the content of my mind.

Though time may dilute what these spirits once meant,

the proof is in this poem.

a burden greater than my shoulders can carry,

their gravity enough to crush me beneath.

We learn to cope with trails in our lives

by simply maintaining, keeping a routine.

Coping doesn’t interest me.

My aim is to overcome.

To crawl over the rubble of towers I’ve brought down.

One must experience several meltdowns

in order to discover the right formula,

the ever-increasing compound to continually drive

us in the right direction, eventually

leading us to the right path.

This weight may be crushing me now,

but I refuse to become Atlus,

his burden of the world robbing him

of the ability to make the slightest shrug.

Give me his load, ten times that weight,

and eventually I will learn to lift it.

When I grow strong enough to throw it

clear out of my life, I will emerge,

battered and not unscathed,

but stronger than I have ever been.

held captive behind bars and glass,

his very existence a spectator sport,

his job to entertain and enthrall.

I turned away and thought aloud,

“I wish that I were him.”

The other viewers quickly turned,

unsure of what to say.

And so, instead, they stood in silence,

though they slowly were shuffling away.

“If I were him, at least I would know

exactly what my world contained,

how far I could wander, where I should stop,

my dimensions clearly defined.

If a lion’s mane were to somehow grow,

I could select the role I wished to fill.

If I felt the urge to be alone,

my private quarters would never be far.

To entertain, I could let out a roar

and send shivers down every spine.

I would be the source of my own pride,

allowing no one into my sphere.”

A crowd had gathered, mouths agape,

every eye full of wonder (or fear?)

as my words began to change.

“Out here, the game is undefined,

the rules in constant change.

There is no handbook guide to life,

no facts without their flaws.

The parts we play are not by choice,

and we lack control over of our number of acts.”

The crowd had dispersed, yet a few dark

individuals with no cheer in their dress remained,

drawing close with steel shackles.

It seems the lion and I have one thing in common;

guards lay in wait for us if we ever grow out of hand,

but at least he knows where his lay in wait.