Whether we intend it or not,
We hoard our memories,
Like a dragon in a fantasy story,
Within our cramped quarters,
They pile up in slipshod stacks,
Love letters and blueprints,
Photographs and macaroni art,
They call it an illness,
But to us it is treasure,
A different kind of aurum,
It is beyond valuable,
Despite the barbs and rough edges,
But I daresay,
To others it is more akin to copper.
We’re taught that sorcery died out,
That all of the sorcerers burned,
But if you travel to the isolated places,
Those hyperborean ice fields and glaciers,
Away from the urban funk,
And look to the sky,
There you’ll see the most mystical of sights,
A sky bound phenomenon of green veins,
A jade dragon over the peaks,
A stroke of intangible mana,
As if conjured by some Nordic witch,
Nothing of man could compare,
And so,
This aurora casts a spell upon us,
A gift of sight mystic,
And if such an ensorcelling wonder exists,
What other spectacles may hide out there?
Magic is very much alive,
The sky tells us so.
There was a girl,
Perchance a someday inamorata,
She told me of storms,
She was afraid of the thunder,
The primal sonance of it,
The unbridled decibel of its call,
I am no fighter,
But for her I’ll hunt tempests,
So I sally forth,
On to tornado alley,
To chase the rains and bolts,
To smite them in return,
Over stream and crag I clamber,
Battered by gusts and pellets of blue,
In tinfoil cuirass and rubber boots,
Toothpick blade and bottlecap shield,
An unrequited knight,
A banner of naivete at my back,
I nip at the storms heels,
The cyclone bellows in fury,
Neon glances all about me,
Burning the soil,
I am a flea to its authority,
But still I strike,
Just for her,
So the thunder ceases,
So she no longer has to be afraid.
Did you know?
Within each of us lies a feeble creature,
Our inner child,
Our youthful spirit,
He or she cradles our whimsy,
Our inner magic and imagination,
Our belief in flying castles and fairytales,
Our je ne sais quoi,
It’s a treasure we ought to protect,
But alas,
The poor moppet has a shelf life,
Wasting away year by year,
Diminishing in frame and power,
A candle slowly going out,
As the fumes of the world choke it,
It’s an uphill battle to keep it breathing,
But worth the fight,
If only to say you tried.
To be a poet is to walk among past giants,
To write is to scamper betwixt their footprints,
As they feast in their halls,
Subsisting on crumbs dropped from on high,
Vermin in their literary Valhalla,
A rat amidst their feet,
There is no beanstalk to their heights,
Shakespeare and Shelley,
Bronte and Poe,
Colossal wordsmiths and Einherjar bards,
They earned their places here,
I have not,
I came to climb to their zeniths,
Trying not to get stomped on,
Barely a flea in contrast,
To their elephantine labours of text,
My works are rock paintings,
Ink on seashells childishly spent,
In this land of giants,
I am but a neophyte,
I’ll likely never achieve the apex,
But why not keep climbing?
Beware my lad,
Don’t advance impurely or with lance drawn,
You’ll show due respect or else,
That woman is manticore,
A strzyga,
A praying mantis,
She is Medusa reborn,
Elegant and lethal,
Deathly and ravishing,
I tell you she holds no evil though,
She is justified in her monstrosity,
It was self preservation,
She was lashed by sharp tongues and closed fists,
Burned at the stake,
And betrayed ad nauseum,
Don’t you see?
She had to bear her own talons,
To defeat her past monsters,
She had to become one,
And no man shall ever hurt her again.
There is tell of a book,
An evil lexicon,
A book of dark lore,
Wisdom that was hidden for a reason,
Foreboding chants heard within its closed spine,
Bound with leather a little too familiar,
It seems to throb as if alive,
Animated by some foul dogma,
Its pages are a parade of atrocities,
Chapter after chapter of malice,
There are spells and rituals aplenty,
Devilry and runes galore,
It calls to the dreams of the mad,
It wants to be read,
To be liberated,
Though gnostics and warlocks are drawn to it,
Are they claiming knowledge?
Or are they moths to a flame?
That well,
At rest amongst the ivy,
That ritual circle of brick,
With its watery maw,
They say it can grant wishes,
For a modest toll,
Of a single copper,
Visible are past offerings beneath the surface,
I don’t believe it,
It’s too good to be true,
That water is a trap,
Wishes are fairytales,
And wishes are bait,
I don’t trust the ocean,
How could I trust this well when water kills?
There be shipwrecks and leviathans.
Our imagination can be a bomb shelter,
A shield against plight,
We can simply close our eyes,
And float away,
To find a safe place,
A world of our own making,
Where we can be our own monarch,
Our own imaginary friend,
It’s not a solution perhaps,
This mental palace of solace,
But it’s a necessary buffer,
Make-believe is a way to cope,
To escape,
So imagination is vital,
To deny the worlds attempts,
To break your ailing spirit.
We all have a drake wrapped about us,
Like a scaled shawl,
The regal emerald of opulence,
It speaks poisonous globules into your ear,
Greed and want and thievery,
A forked tongue caressing your lobe,
It wants you to take,
And take again,
Despite what the lizard whispers,
You mustn’t covet all,
You can’t possess the world,
You don’t own that treasure,
Or that heart,
You can’t count the worlds coins,
Don’t heed the hissing of the green dragon,
Just be your pure self.
WorldofHarley 