On Beauty
Beauty is a cruel mistress;
Fair and foul and fair again.
She'll lead you to the mountaintop and then,
When the gentry fair
Come to gaze on your light
She'll push you off,
Off, into the dark of night.
On Ugliness
Ugliness is fair
Where foul wolves howl
Ugliness is cruel
Where vixens gowl
Ugliness will rise,
Where the fair die;
While one's skies
Are another's lies
On Light
Light exposes, light condemns
Light enlightens but has few friends
Light declared, light denied
All light stems from my love's eyes.
On You
I don't like you,
Nor you me
We know each other too little, you see
Familiarity breeds contempt,
But
We are both human;
We choke on our own scent.
On Darkness
Darkness there, darkness growl
Darkness dare, darkness cowel
Darkness 'ware, darkness howl
Darkness stare, darkness trowel
Darkness fair, hide me fowl
On Me
I yam who I yam;
I yam not tops
I yam not trash, neither
Nor will I spin your hops
I like crashing oceans;
I like beating drums
And I won't tell you
Where I'm from
I am but indifferent honest
Yet I could accuse me
Of such things it were better my mother
Had not borne me
I am very
With more offenses at my beck than I have words to put them in;
Or time to act them out
What should such fellows as I do?
Arrant knaves...
Go thy ways to a nunnery!
Where's your father?
On Sleep
On Waking
To wake is pain,
Or comfort,
Depending on thy life
To me,
To you,
To all of you,
Whoever you are;
Some fly to wakefullness
Others rise to the call
Like dead soldiers to the battle hymn
But me, I wake
In freefall
On Joy
A fleeting touch
A kiss
A cessation of pain,
Captured in amber,
Can become fuel
For a lifetime of misery
On Misery
A state of mind
And body
A form without perfection
A dry lake
A dead aspen
A moron to your left
A moron to your right
A moron in front
A moron in back.
The list goes on forever.
Let it end here.
On Death
Build buildings, son, build them tall
Take a nice piece of land
And build a wall
Storm the estab, son, burn city hall
Wave your magic wand
Build buildings, son, build them tall
But in the end won't you fall
Like Nostro come to Ister
And build a wall
Fail to act, or care at all
Oh my you're bland
Build buildings, son, build them tall
Follow the rules, son, follow them all
But what does it matter, if she won't take your hand?
Just build a wall!
Trumpets sound! Gongs clash! Drums beat!
You stare from heaven
As the masses weep! But who cares?
As you are cast into hell!
On Life
My mother told me
That if I stole
I would die. But what she
Didn't know
Was we all steal;
This whole plane
Is stole. Reveal
What betrays
Us better than ourselves?
Don't trick me, spider
I know you're a liar
My family needs themselves
We are all beggars to thee;
But I am a begger to me.
On That
Look at what the old men write
Drawing pictures from a life
High as a kite
Low as a flight
Look at what they leave us;
Look at what is there
Images of hearth and street;
A thousand shattered mirrors
Through which we see
Eternity
On This
And this,
To that,
As acorn,
To oak;
This little book of verses
A small working man's joke
And as my foot traverses
The world-to-world yoke--
This little collection of hearses
Will go up in smoke.
Author notes
Actually written as part of a short story, but I thought the poems themselves might be worth posting. I take no credit for the second part of "On Me." ;-)
Please tell me what you think
Comments
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Oh, and it would be 'wakefulness,' with just the one l
-
Starts off nicely enough, and introduces some cleverness with On Ugliness and On Light. On You is my favorite part of the poem- there's something so abrasive and tactile about the last line as it follows the little cliches of the lines before it.
Then On Darkness, which is too much clever and not enough content. Then On Me, concerning which I want to deride your use of "yam," but somehow I can't bring myself to. The first two lines of the second part of On Me seem unclear to me, as well, but the rest is good. Is the ending of it supposed to connect to On Death? Either way, well done.
Then On Sleep, which is perfect, onto On Waking, which imitates the quality of On Me, though I must ask: is there meaning to the last two lines, or are they simply there to sound interesting?
I like On Joy, though the emotional part of me doesn't like that it wasn't all joyful.
On Misery is pleasingly dry.
On Death is... I don't know. I feel like it doesn't really affect me until the last two stanzas. Also, the last stanza is the only one that seems to actually deal with death (throughout that section I was expecting you to go on to consider the breakdown of the described buildings).
On Life is where I start to be impressed that you've still got more of these. It's also the verse which gains the greatest benefit from a brilliant choice of words - yes, moreso than the clever ones, even. The word 'plane' I like especially, and it makes up for the fact that I don't really understand what you're saying (yes, my logic is fantastic). The rhyme of 'spider' to 'liar' and the last play meaningful play on words are excellent.
I don't have anything to say of On That. I enjoyed the vivid bit of nonsense that was On This.
That's all. ; -
On Everything
Your style is unusual
anything but casual
and all these poems
should have their own homes
it's quite overwhelming
but also amazing
to see how you write
of darkness and light
so I will applaud thee
for all the imagery.
Hehe, as I said, beautiful work. You might want to take a look at the lyrics of "Beauty is the Beast" by The Ark, which "On Beauty" really reminded me of.
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