Unfinished Business

One escape will always need another,
For truth is ugly, as dark and pure
As any diamond could tell you,
Its hardness is its cure.

The diluted shreds- merely ash, but
Dead, and growing fine-
They leave their roots upon the sky-
And upon illusions dine.

False fears breed false hopes,
Lust that never fails.
What began as bewitching glory
Ends as darkness pales.

To stab that beast when it was light
Would end it- bleeding and cold.
To enter it, and consume its rage
Would find me foolishly bold!

(At last, I walked to it, unarmed
And gave it up, resigned.
Perhaps I'm no good martyr
To take that hell to mind.)

Where Ideas Should Begin

No leaves do dance upon my palm,
I hold no song of elves,
Yet human voices coax it sing,
(They let go of themselves.)

The marbled moor, its fair faced queen
Empty of night's souls,
Only in dreams to vessels fill:
When sunrise overflows.

(This world of magic,
My lady lore,
And all these told
I've seen before.)

The sunrise coral on murky sea,
And no fish blinks an eye,
Feeding on the broken tap
At the end of sky.

(I've seen it happen,
It's happened before.
Perhaps each day,
Perhaps of yore.)

The tap will dry upon the morn,
And then they'll wake and see,
Their sun will rise, a fading rose
Wilting in decree:

"There was the secret, spoken before.
Hence the silence, and sleep no more."

Love In Color

His eyes did pierce the birthing sac
Of all the colors, miracles
That trickled from the sky.

So sad were they, in their untrained day,
That they'd turned a world a murky gray.

For now, dawn fell like pleats of gray,
Ironed out by the heating sun.
Noon did fall like painters' gray,
Finishing what the dawn had done.

And so the day went,
And so the day came.
And all the days
Were just the same.

All the gray smiles with gray parted lips,
For people still gray laughed their fill.
All the gray jobs and silent quips,
For people still gray firmed their will.

All the doves that plagued gray skies,
For peace, still gray, did push and shove.
All the gray people who couldn't tell lies,
For people still gray knew to love.

So, then, someone loved him.
Blind to gray, and all was gray.
More blind than he,
Who turned color away.

She gave him song,
She gave him grief.
She gave him all
Eyes couldn't bequeath.

He gave her joy,
And all he made.
He gave her tales
Where color stayed.

One night, when
Rainbows swirled in her mind,
And his mouth was full
Of gray pleas to find,
He drew her tears,
Which she couldn't see,
And wove a thread of ecstasy.

And so the night went,
And so the night came.
And never his night
Was quite the same.

For now, dawn fell like lover's sigh,
With all the flushes
Where they belonged, on high.
For now, noon swept like phoenix wing,
Rising, falling in royal swing.

And night, oh night in all its joy,
His eyes, so piercing,
A star's envoy.

Celestial Want

Lady Heaven bade the bumbling Night,
That drunken poet's pride,
To blind an eye on a fullest moon,
All shadows cast aside.

Then she went to court the quarry,
That pebble in the Sea,
That Night had thrown a skipping stone,
Lonely, an isle could be.

A man, however, had reached that orb
That trailed the careless Dark.
He'd sowed his wildest hopes and fears,
His roots in white so stark.

But Heaven, oh help her, set her mind
To carve a mask of moon.
Bright and shining, all shadows shed
So even Night would swoon.

Only she would dare- cross he, sowed there,
Despite the night half blind.
The man, indeed, had been hard with greed,
For dreams could not rewind.

Lucky for her, he fell in love
With her shining silver tress.
Lucky for him, she flirted away
While fishing for redress.

And in the end, neither could leave
The other's want behind.
The mask of moon, hung in the sky,
Is Heaven's courting find.

Love

It's so strange how there are two areas of my life to which my heart heads when one or the other becomes too unbearable. It's as if I'm walking on a tightrope. On one end, there is a safe, but noisy and chaotic room that never seems to end in its tipping, clanging scales and understated cabarets. The other side is a room with an unending masquerade ball, in which the masks only come off when one believes too deeply. Everyone seems to look so majestic in their ball gowns and airs, while I'm still in my tight-rope walking, practical clothing desperately trying to draw on a good mask to hide the vulnerabilities and frailties.

At the moment, I'm loving the rowdy informal room a lot more. The drama that supposedly happens in show choir hasn't caught up to me until now. Of course, it's fairly mild, but that doesn't mean that it's not making me feel more vulnerable. Ironically, these buzzing rumors have helped me fit in! Still, the tight rope hasn't quite stopped wobbling. At some points, I feel as if I'm barely hanging on.

All these disappointments that I feel mix with the soap opera that runs through my head whenever I grow bored of reality. I was going to write a script about it, but I don't feel comfortable doing that. It seems to lack the artistic element that I love in poetry and that I highly tolerate and admire in novels and especially in short stories. I think I'm going to give up Script Frenzy. Maybe I'd be more commited to it if I had the time. Yet, I don't have the time or the motivation for it. Right now I'm wishing for the next noveling challenge. Apparently the Labor Day challenge had an entrance fee, so I don't think I'm going to do it. It would be fun, but I'm not sure fifty dollars is worth it. Maybe I'll just do it for my own sake and not be an official participant.