I’ve been told I should leave a kingdom,
My own domain of art,
A legacy to stand the trials of time,
So I began placing pebbles,
One-by-one as the years pass,
Painstakingly arranging a Stonehenge,
A monument of words and mineral,
Constructing some facsimile of a nation,
My soon-to-b empire,
I’ve started small,
I’m no colossus,
I’m only able to move stones thus far,
But I’m measuring up the boulders,
And the mountains after that.
Writers are like blacksmiths,
Craftsmen of tools and symbols,
An understated vocation of creation,
Fashioning words into blades of warfare,
Moulding beauty in the form of iron,
Coffin nails for a corrupt world,
The bourbon essence of a writers desk,
Just like the charcoal stink of a forge,
It’s a place of sweat and heat,
Thoughts smelted into priceless ore,
Material is wrought into cutting art,
A trial by fire upon the page,
In place of a furnace,
Your work is shaped with a different heat,
The zeal of your message,
The ardour behind your stanzas,
Just as torrid as any flame,
Equally as divine,
Poetry is a steel all its own,
Keen-edged and unbreakable.
Even in the healthiest of situations,
The closest of coteries,
You may yet find radioactive material,
Bitterness hidden in silence,
Toxic opinions,
Malignant arguments,
Polonium isn’t always obvious,
Despite its cool blue glow,
But its effects can be,
Like a cancer,
The radiation can seep out,
Unseen even by a Geiger meter,
Blighting the joy,
Poisoning the friendship,
Poisoning the well,
The host will inevitably grow unwell,
And unless decontaminated,
The crew will perish.
With this prison of a world,
Being alone in your head,
Is like being in a cell with an open door,
No bars on our windows,
No alarms to sound,
We are not bound in iron here,
Not clasped in manacles,
But we hold ourselves here,
Serving a sentence we didn’t earn,
We struck the gavel ourselves,
This is no painless captivity,
We’re tormented by jailers wearing our faces,
White-hot brands and deprivation,
Ghoulish torturers only the mind could conjure,
But we suffer through it,
Why do we?
The open doorway is right there,
Freedom is but a deep breath away,
Why don’t we break out?
I know not.
When I peer down at my hands,
I don’t see weapons of war,
Not banners of a daring artist,
But the shaking hands of a coward,
The tittering claws of a mouse,
In the day I shiver,
I find myself unable to take a step,
Unwilling to advance myself,
The palpitations assault me daily,
I shrink from peering above the precipice,
To take the steps for betterment,
Hoping instead for an easy end,
I am a craven,
Regrettably so,
Not only because I’m afraid to improve,
But also because I won’t end it.
I’ve been travelling space for eons,
Been across the stars,
I languish in the cold periphery of the expanse,
Getting my cardio across galaxies,
How do I survive you ask?
I consume worlds and moons whole,
Oh yes,
I’ve stripped countless planets,
Subsisting on dirt and magma
Both flora and fauna are my entrees,
Finishing the atmosphere for dessert,
Then on to the next celestial meal,
What am I?
They call me the great devourer,
But they give me too much credit,
I’m just a hungry god,
Doing what gods do,
Enacting our will on hapless mortals,
So I continue my culinary journey,
And I’ve heard of a new feast,
Some jade and sapphire beauty,
Laden with all manner of delicacies,
They call it Earth,
Sounds rather delectable.
Even in these drearier months,
As the year winds down,
There is still such beauty in the sky,
In the very air,
A titian blanket across the clouds,
And the perfume of distant bonfires,
The crisp wind swirls about you,
A cloak of winter imminent,
There is a serenity in autumn,
A composure unmatched in the years youth,
The dusk is here,
So drink in the tangerine sky,
Remember the summer times,
And feel the chill on your cheek,
Before the light finally dies.
The night winds down,
The inebriated and buzzed have retired,
Leaving you in the alehouse,
Only you and your beer,
Your pint-sized oracle,
Cupped in your hands,
An amber scrying pool,
Carbonated images on its surface,
As soon as your lips touch the liquid,
Magic happens,
Memories come flooding back,
Like so much ethanol,
Every kiss ever shared,
Every mountain ever climbed,
Every project ever aced,
Each failure for some balance,
The drink plays these photo rolls in your head,
Leaving you with this,
A cloak of reminders,
To keep you warm on the way home.
We are all aliens to one another,
We all look different,
Speak differing tongues,
And our brains can be extra-terrestrial,
But diplomacy is always the way,
Space exploration through words,
Through harmony,
They say men are from Mars,
And women are from Venus,
But I disagree,
In truth every one is a galaxy,
Full of planets of memories,
And poems riding comets,
Orbiting a pulsing scarlet sun,
Maybe we are all Martians,
But hearts are universal,
They reach across nebulae,
So leave your ray guns at home,
Instead wield your universal translator,
And make first contact,
For love moves at lightspeed.
He was a stickman,
A replica of a person,
Brought to life upon a page,
To a ballpoint mother,
Hastily penned and slightly smudged,
Art was his life,
His heartbeat,
The page was his home,
The quill was his ligaments,
And the ink his blood,
He dreamed big,
Ideas and scenarios always roiling in his head,
Fantasies in his circular head,
Of endeavours and monuments,
Of ladyfriends and families,
Alas,
Despite his aspirations,
With all of that potential,
He could only go where the pen led,
Only where the artist dictated.
WorldofHarley 