Storm Petrel

2002

Another early work. Storm petrels are a family of birds that, as I am led to understand, are capable of diving underwater and coming straight back out. The coolness and metaphorical-ness of the image prompted this poem. The meter is funky, and I like what comes out in the rhythm, although I’m not sure if parts of it completely work.

A small dark bird and a fell dark tempest
A dark wild wind and a dark blue sea
The bird is tossed by the three dark furies
Yet beats its wings upon the storm

The wind in howling hatred rises
The little bird rises in the gale
The sea’s white teeth all gnash in hunger
Wind meets sea with a dreadful wail.

The wind in fury not yet sated
Now beats the bird beneath the waves
The sea receives the speck with pleasure
To send it to its dark wet grave.

Yet up form the swell of the whirling whitecaps,
The little bird bursts alive and well
The tempest screams with awesome fury
The little bird sings upon the storm.

What Lurks Behind the Stars

2001

One of the earliest works to assume a completed form, Later expanded into a sonnet for an English class. I’m not sure what to think of it now. To me, It feels very different from my current stuff.

What darkness lurks behind the stars, that man
Should gaze so raptly to eternal space,
Like some forgotten sentry made to stand
In wait of some infernal foe to face?

And if it is not darkness, what then? friend?
Though few find friends by gazing in the night;
A thousand lamps their radiant rays out send;
Perhaps they seek for our celestial light?

Humanity then seeks itself above,
For friends and foes we have in fair supply,
But purposeless I will not call such love
For brilliant fires far off upon the sky.

My musings her mean nothing to the night –
But I must leave… the stars are quite a sight.

Runaway Train Lost Woman Blues

April 2005

This was written for a girl just familiar enough to be fascinatingly incomprehensible. It wants to be a song, but I haven’t actually figured out how to sing it.

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She was dangerous for all the right reasons
I was doomed in all the right ways
I was falling in love like a runaway train
And she never knew what to say

Well, you’ll never get anything perfect from her
But she might be the perfect girl

Well it started ‘round four in the morning
And it ended at eleven PM
And if I had to get hit by a runaway train
Well, it might as well have been then.

No, you never will understand what she does
But you know she does it well.

It was then I started drifting backward
It was then I started drifting free
And though she couldn’t keep me from falling apart
She made me do it elegantly.

And you’ll never get what you expect from her
But she might give you what you need.

There Is

January 2005

Another philosophical meditation.

An unfortunate suddenness
To the nature of things
As they are

An impractical dizziness
To the way of things
As they might be

A most difficult evasiveness
In the nature of things
As we’d like them

And a firm and inscrutable providence
In the way of things
As they turn out.

Out of the Clear Blue Sky

April 2005

Another philosophical meditation with natural imagery. I could do with better luck on option #2, really.

Sometimes life comes like a summer storm,
When subtle warnings on the winds are borne,
When the grey clouds gather in a mighty train
Calamitous, reckless, foretelling rain
And the prophet thunder before them goes
As we stand in fields as the warm breeze blows
Awaiting, with hearts bare, the wild flight
The blessed rain
And magnificent light
Of the storm approaching.

But sometimes also life comes sly,
With the barest hint or suggestion why,
It comes falling out of the clear blue sky.

Another Misty Morning

April 2005

Poems that come to you when your head clears at 3:00 AM are always good.

It is another misty morning as I write this
Another grey uncertainty of dawn
Another weary tumble into lightness
That the clouds will not surrender to for long

There is another well-worn circle in my head now
Another quiet journey in the dark
Another wordless mystery my heart bows
Forever aimless firing at no mark.

It is another silent pensive cloud that greets me,
Assures me I have written this before
And another mental struggle now defeats me,
Assures me that I cannot win the war.

And yet another far-off birdsong lifts me
And echoes with a half-forgot refrain
Another feeble sunrise makes new morning
And nothing stands forever quite the same.

To You

April 2005

Clearly written with a girl in mind. Simple folk or blues type of melody here, probably stolen from something I can’t remember. Still, I think I can actually sing this one decently.

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Like a river to the ocean
Like a salmon to the stream
Like a dying man to water
Like a lobster to the steam

Like a freight train, slowly rolling
Slowly rolling down the line
I’ll come rolling to your doorstep
If you’ve ever got the time

And I’m running out of options
And I’m running out of time
I’ll come running straight to your arms
That is if you don’t mind.

Like an arrow to the target
Like a bolt from the blue
If you’ll answer one more question
I’ll come flying straight to you

I’ve got nothing left to give you
I’ve got nothing left to lose
If you give me one more answer
Then I’ll fall in love with you.

Like a coward out of danger
Like a prisoner going free
Like a hammer needs an anvil
Like a blind man needs to see.

Like a river, slowly flowing
Slowly rolling to the sea
If I ever get close to you
Won’t you please stay close to me?