POETIC POVERTY

Poetic Poverty

Lying on my bed,
I see that there’s a new crack in the ceiling
That wasn’t there last night
There’s a decade old cobweb
With mummified remains
That looks like the man
From the old movie, The Fly,
Caught in a web begging for help
With his scared little mouth
In a perfect round O.

Hmmm. Let’s see
Oh, yes, on the left side of the bed
There’s the wall where my official certificate hung
Before it was confiscated by The Official Poetry Club
Because I hadn’t written anything in almost four days
And that violates stipulations of the membership contract
In the famed school of the unpaid
Poets of mail order prose
Plus, I hadn’t paid dues or bought any books
And was therefore, no longer
Officially, a poet.

Turning my head now to the right,
I peruse the blank square, picture-frame shaped,
Faded from sunlight on the drab empty beige,
That the portrait of my proud Muse once occupied,
Where the love of my life once happily lived,
And where all my hopes and wishes existed
In the warm admiration of her gentle eyes
It is blank
And I am blank
And the world is blank
So the page is blank
And all my ink has dried up in the well.

It’s almost like living
Without blood in my veins
Almost like having no heart
In my chest
I am the Tin Man
With hollow exterior
And nothing inside but a lonely echo
(hello….hello…..hello……)
My mind is a wasteland
With no words moving across it,
No tumbleweeds of angst,
Or clever repartee’
With a wit now so dry
It has died in the drought.

This is poetic poverty, this is
No Hallmark card verse, no obituary stuff
Made up out of guilt to hide the sad fact
That the dearly departed had not been properly loved
Until death’s hand has removed them
Beyond the reach of rejection
This is not limerick,
Or haiku, or prose
Hymn, lyric, ode
Sonnet, or symphony
Written on the gray cells
Of a composer’s vast brain.

This is inability to think or to feel
My gift has deserted me and left me to mourn
To crawl wounded alone into a dark closet
Howling amongst sweatshirts and faded blue jeans
That I still hang onto, believing one day,
They’ll fit me again and you’ll want me back
And I’ll be young and handsome and gifted enough
To write a great classic, some urban masterpiece
Or a radio jingle or at the very least,
My number on a matchbook that will go round the world
And find itself clutched in your hand some fine day.

I once was a rich man
And the king of the world
And poetry flowed from me so much
I drowned us both in the sea of my words
But you loved it and you loved me
You loved my verse
And the hustle and flow
Of new-age Shakespeare
Rising deep from my soul
Up to my mouth to your eager ears
Who could not wait to hear what it might say.

But that was before,
Before the drought came,
Before the ocean dried to stream,
And then to trickle,
And then to drop
Before the words no longer came
And they took the world away
Poetic poverty
Empty libraries,
Unwritten songs,
Starving sonnets
Begging on the streets for bread
Because I can no longer write them.

All the pages are empty now
Even potential titles
Have faded away to ghostly script
And piled up in the corners with the dust
I cannot write
I cannot spell
I cannot rhyme
I lie here on this un-made bed
With my hands behind my head
And I can’t remember a single thing I ever wrote
Except for my name in Junior High
Entwined with yours on the back of that tree.

Give me back my words
Give me back my words
I am lost without them
I am wandering in a world without a song
A man without a Muse,
A Tin Man without a heart,
A millionaire, without a dime to his name
And nothing to show
For a life full of rhyme
Not even a blog
On the damn internet.

Poetic poverty, this
Empty archives, empty arms
Dry, parched throat
With no champagne
Hovering ‘neath newspaper
To keep out of the cold
A homeless poet, bereft of poem
Looking for an addict’s fix
To make him write again
Looking for the muse and reader
That took the words away
Longing for the only one
That can make things rhyme again.

©by Voo
May 21, 2011
9:33 p.m.
Thank  you to my Muse………………♥
Ironic, isn't it??  

JOURNEY

Journey

Ride through the darkness in a cloak of black

Through forests of Evil and Gray

Over the mountains of volcanic Hate

Into the sunshine of day.

Gallop on horseback to the peak of the hill

As fast as the winds through the leaves

And there you will find only one of it's kind:

The babbling brook that grieves.

Sinister thoughts flash through your mind

As you ride to the valley below

Listening to moan and groan and sob

From forests you never will know.

Ride fast to the river in the palm of the valley

And cleanse your horse and yourself as well

And then all of the beauty of the valley is yours

To reach Heaven, you must go through Hell.

Written when I was a child
and I never knew what it meant
until now.............

Copyright ©2004 Voo

SHADOW SEER

shadow seer

from darkness thick as thieves they come

but only to the edge

of peripheral sight hidden in night

they cling upon the ledge

of mind and madness, watching there

each movement and each step

they know where all the treasures are

and where your dreams are kept

insinuating into human hearts

they journal every thought

and teach their cohorts how to win

the battles so hard fought

the shadows come, the shadows go

and men go their way, blind

unaware that they are there

like quickenings in the mind

oft times they hide in midday's shadows

oft times they hide in stars

their whispers carried to ears of strangers

who don't know who they are

the shadow people, the shadow kings

the rulers of the night

unseen by few, the gifted, who

can see through dark like light

our eyes meet sometimes now and then

the shadowkind and me

we stare each other down in silence

till we cannot stand to see

but both aware that we are there

on opposite sides of light

me, in my sunlit world of man

and they, in their endless night.

                           

©by Voo

May 24, 2005

 8:42 p.m. 

UN-TETHERED

Un-Tethered



My mind is not tethered to my brain
It has an agenda of it's own
Frequently going off into the ethereal
Settling for the ephemeral
While hungering for the eternal.

I do not know myself, I think
Like God knows me
I am a stranger in my own eyes
And in the eyes of passersby
And family.

There is a heart cry
That few hear and no one heeds
It has been screaming out it's voice
Since the moment of my birth
And will continue on
Long after my death.

Sometimes
I don't even feel like God hears it
And if He does, He ignores it
And puts in on a list to be dealt with later
After galaxies, geothermals, sinners and saints
Have long been checked off.

Did you ever have the thought
That love is only given to those
Who have more love than they need
And never doled out
To those that need it more than breath?

I have
Because I am one of those
The loveless, the lonely, the forgotten
Adrift on a friendless sea
Surrounded by sharks
And burned by a merciless sun.

Nobody knows me
Nobody
They lie to themselves
And think they do
But they don't
And they never will.

Because I am un-tethered
To the here and now
And tethered only to the immortal lands
Where legends live and angels sing
And every one knows one another by the Spirit.

How I wish I could go there to stay
Walk those golden shores
And feel the love that never ebbs, 
Never dies and is never pulled out
From under the feet like a door mat.

I went there, once
One bright shining moment
That lives now in my memory
Like a lifeboat on a sinking ship.

It cradles me there
When life smashes me
With it's hopelessness and horror
And I can't stand to be here any more.

That memory is my gift, my hope, my faith
That there is more than this life, this world
Into which I have been born but do not live in
Only enduring to exist on while daily expiring.

My heart is a vast, uncharted chasm
Echoing back my own voice
As I wail out my longing
To a un-hearing planet.

I know that I am not the only one
There are millions of us
Billions, maybe, walking alone
On shores that leave no footprints.

One day when we have given up
And dropped our hold on survival
Eternity will reach down it's hand
And lift us to the celestial.

Lift us up to love
That we have never known
Lift us up to joy
That we have never tasted.

Lift us up to feast and banquet
To dine on the food that we are starving for
And the wine that our souls crave
Like a drunkard who has never had a drink.

I am un-tethered here
Like a balloon without a string
Bobbing here and there through perilous skies
Dodging crow and tree and bow and arrow.

But in my heart of hearts, I know
That when I have been shot down and shattered
The essence that is me, my spirit
Will straight way go to that other land
Where I am known.

The place I am tethered to, eternally
The place that can only be found in vision
The place that existed before terra firma was ever formed
The place that will feel like home.

Till then, I walk in shadow
And the sun does not shine on me
Because it does not see me
Nor does the moon know me
Nor do the passersby love me
Because I am only a vapor here
And to this place,  I do not belong.


©by Voo
April 13, 2017
10:38 p.m.

WARRIORS OF THE WAY EPISODE SEVEN..Maid of Mud (my favorite episode)

WARRIORS OF THE WAY 

EPISODE SEVEN

 
MAID OF MUD

                      
        My eyes flew open at first light. The sun was rising in the east and peeking through the trees in yellow wonder. I heard birds flitting hungrily from tree to ground in search of breakfast. The air had a crisp new smell to it as it often does after a downpour. Here and there, a few renegade drops of water fell from boulder and leaf and from the top of our arbor. I heard the horse chomping noisily on grass across the camp and the thud of impatient hooves. I thought then, surely, the last few days had been but a bad dream, nothing more than that. My father would not have let Starshine be taken from me after all of his promises. He would not let me stumble alone in unknown territory without my friend and companion. I ran my hands through my jumbled hair and attempted to braid it into a huge messy braid and threw it back over my shoulder. "My eye!" a voice exclaimed and the man threw back his coverlets and pretended to rub his injured eye in mock protest. "Thou hast blinded me, surely!" Hiding my face in my hands, I let reality rush over me and sighed to let go of hopeful wishes that were not to be. No dream, this. No Starshine waiting behind the boulder. He was gone forever. My father had told me an untruth. A surge of pain and anger flashed in my eyes and I looked at the man coldly.

      "And what is this?" he said looking around him and checking his feet and hands and neck. "I have lived through the night unscathed? I am not killed in my sleep by the rescued maiden with hands of iron and sword of steel?" On and on he went, checking parts of his unharmed body and gathering up his sword and dagger and bow in amazement. I drew my knees up under my chin and watched his little performance. When he had run out of things to check, I said in an irritated voice, "If thou wert a jester in the court, I should have thee tarred and feathered and removed from the court! Thy jests lack humor, sir, and thy pantomimes, imagination! In short, keep thyself to thy cooking pots and leave the jesting to the......jesters." My chastisement trailed off into uninspired mumbling as I realized that the man was sitting there watching me in delight, his blue eyes fastened onto my animated hands and mouth and laughing at me in true good humor. "Hummmph!" I said in ending tirade and fell silent in embarrassment.

          We sat there for some time on the damp bunk and looked at everything there was to look at except at one another. We looked at the odd trees with their smooth bark, the washed out camp and campfire, the sky filtered through the tree branches, the tall boulders standing there like guardians on the other side of the enclosure. I reached up and caught a drop of rainwater in my hand as it fell and held it there as a ray of sunlight suddenly caught it and made it sparkle like a diamond. A shiver went through me and I knew not why but the man reached out for my wrist and flung the drop away in sudden motion. "Why?" I asked him without speaking and he held me fast and gazed into my eyes with silent questions, probing, it seemed, my very soul.

 For long moments we stared, until the noise of a falling tree broke the spell and we jumped away from one another and busied ourselves with straightening our clothing and arranging the skins and blankets neatly in a pile. "I wonder what that was?" I said finally and the man gathered up his weaponry and jumped down from the ledge. He stopped and held out his hand to help me down and I hesitated. "Very well," he said, "Stay here and I will see to the commotion. Then I will see to my cooking pots and work on my humor." His tone was gruff and off putting and I did not know how to respond. 

    So I sat back and watched him walk away, pulling up his boots and running his tanned hands through his hair. His shoulders were broad and strong and his legs long and athletic. I did not recognize the fabric or skin that he wore but thought to myself how handsome he looked in the black tunic and breeches with brown over-vest and cloak. Like the man in one of the story books my nurse had given to me as a child. A prince, maybe. A dragon slayer. A killer of dark beasts and rescuer of fair....maidens. Or...not. An outlaw, perhaps, a wizard, a renegade of the House of Fallon, the shapeshifters. A mind reader. Yes, he was that, most certainly! I would have to try to be more careful and not allow my mind to run free with thought as I was prone to do. At least I would try. There was something regal about the man, a high born quality about the way he carried himself though I did not understand the way he spoke in his mix of the language of the Kingdom and the casual phrasing of pronouns and verbs. Never had I heard this manner of speaking! It was strange and yet I liked it.


      I rolled the word 'you' over my tongue and it felt odd but delicious."You! I shouted and laughed. "What meaneth You?" I jumped down from the bunk just as the man reappeared in my line of vision carrying a load of firewood. "You means Thou!" he shouted back throwing down the sticks and branches and preparing to make a fire. "Art thou always so noisy in the morning?" he asked as I made my way toward him and stopped at the edge of the grass. "Your boots are wrapped in your cloak in the arbor. Unless.....you like walking in mud." "It is no bother." I said haughtily and pulled myself up as tall as I could. Stepping carefully through the muddy mess, I came near to the place where he crouched and crouched there myself, watching him start the fire with some kind of flint contraption that he had produced from the pouch slung over his shoulder.


    "The wood is wet," I said needlessly, "Wet wood will........."  "Why don't you go find the cooking pot and utensils while I do this task?" he motioned to me. "The rain has washed everything away that was not secured."  I did not see the pot anywhere near and wondered where I would eventually find it. "Findeth it, I will," I said confidently, "but first, tell me why thou didst what thou didst?" (referring to the violent grabbing of my hand and the flinging away of the raindrop.) A growling sound issued forth from his throat and he shook his head and mumbled something I could not hear. He worked furiously with the flint for a moment and then brushed the hair out of his eyes and looked in my direction, if not into my eyes. "Some things are best not remembered." he said and that was all.

"Hmmm." I said back and walked around the perimeter of the camp wondering what that meant. I gathered up a big metal spoon and a few other objects strewn about but did not see the cooking pot. There was a water flask hanging from a small bent tree and a black tunic embroidered with silver leaves and a crest I did not recognize. Strange symbols were woven there interspersed with others somewhat familiar. I determined to examine the garment more closely and hung it back on the tree. 


      Observing the path that the flood waters had taken, I followed it in my bare feet, enjoying the feel of cool mud between my toes until the bare dirt gave way to wet grass and dripping forest. I thought to myself how dark it seemed in that part of the wood and questioned whether or not I should venture there. Hesitantly, I stood until I heard the man shout "Don't go too far! And don't go into the forest!" And having heard that, quite naturally, I took my first step into the dark stand of gnarled black trees. Who was he to order me about so? No one ordered me but my father and of late, there had been no order and no command, no word at all from that quarter. Not even the still small voice in my heart had spoken to me that I could recall. I had been, at least in my own eyes, abandoned by everyone I had ever loved.


     "I am a warrior!" I said to the trees in an angry voice. "I need only...." and hushed myself before speaking words I would later regret. Impulsiveness had always gotten me into trouble and even quicker word and thought had gotten me out but then, why get myself into trouble in the first place? "The mouth is a deep pit." my old teacher had said to me. "Thou openeth it to devour others and falleth into it thyself." I shuddered at the memory and of the punishment that had followed my impulsive words and actions those long years ago and quickly mumbled "Mouth, shut thyself. I command thee." I tripped over the blackened handle of the stew pot and picked it up as I fell against a tree that felt slimy and cold. 


     Disgusted, I brushed off my shoulder and looked around for the utensil in the shade that seemingly could not be penetrated by sunlight. "What a horrible place!" I said out loud and my voice rang like a bell in the eerie silence. Surely the pot was close to it's handle! Surely, it had not rolled back into....that dark and frightening nightmare of a wood! "I can live without stew." I thought. The man could hunt and eat his kill with bare hands for all I cared. I wasn't about to go further....and then I heard a crunch and then a sound like a whisper and to my right, I saw a movement so swift I could not tell if it were beast or bird. I started and then calmed myself with brave words quoted inside my heart, learned at my teacher's knee and again while walking beside him as he illustrated his words with scenes from nature.

 "Fear not." he said to me over and over until I wanted to hit him and make him fear me! "Fear keepeth us alive!" I had shouted at him one day quoting my friend the shepherd boy who had much wisdom in my eyes. "Fear maketh us to run to liveth another day!" "Fear holdeth thy heart captive!" he shouted back. "Fears enslaves and grinds and torments! Fear not, beloved student, but live in freedom!" "How canst I live in freedom when mine every footstep is overshadowed by thy shadow?" I had yelled back to him as I fled up the face of a cliff while he struggled to catch up with me, clutching for the hem of my garment. I had been seven and it was my birthday. All day I had waited for my father's call to come to his chambers but it had not come and I was hurt and angry. My teacher understood but in his unmarried and childless way, he did not know how to make it better.

 So he attempted yet another lesson on how to be fearless, telling me that someday I would have need of his teachings and for his trouble, his impudent student had led him around the whole of the village running through briar patches and rose gardens, horse stables and under storage sheds. The children of the village and court watched us excitedly, urging me on, shouting at me new places to hide under and to run through while my teacher had followed my every step, stumbling and fussing and threatening me with dire expectations.


      At the end of the day, remembering his face when he had fallen into the pig pen on the far side of the village, (as he attempted to stop me as I walked around the top of the fence like a circus rope walker), had been the best birthday present I had ever had. I laughed beneath my bed covers far into the night and when I fell asleep, I dreamed I was laughing and when I awoke, a smile was still on my lips. "I hope thou art happy." my teacher sniffed as he began the next day's lessons, inspecting his arms and legs for imagined injuries and pulling out his charts and books. "Quite happy." I said honestly and smiled at him in feigned innocence. Impulsively, I went to him and put my little arms about his waist and embraced him.

 Looking up into his stern face with brown eyes big as saucers and sparkling with mischief, I had said as sweetly as I could, "Beloved Teacher, thou has done well. When thou wert falling into the pig pen and being eaten by the swine, I was not afraid! I remembered all of thy teachings and lessons that lasted for a thousand years, and I feared not! Wast thou afraid, Teacher?" And holding me close against him without my knowing if I would be rewarded with swat or sweet, my teacher began to shake in helpless laughter which could not be contained and which exploded into gales of mirth that soon encompassed us both and ended in a happy dance around the teaching room. And to this day, was a treasured memory kept within my heart.


       "I fear nothing!" I said through clenched teeth, peering into the depths of shades and shadows in that unwelcoming wood and gathering my courage from the spirit of my teacher. A tiny beam of sunlight pierced the gloom unexpectedly and I squinted my eyes to see the cooking pot there yards ahead underneath a particularly evil looking tree. "Oh, no!" I groaned and brandishing the stew spoon as a weapon, I decided to run like lightning, grab the pot and get out of that cruel place in three beats of my heart. One step, two, very slowly, three...though my heart was racing like a wild thing in my breast, I inched towards the beam of sunlight. "Run, thou fool!" I admonished myself but did not heed the warning. "They art only trees! Thou canst outrun them!" The sound of a soft growl reached my ears then and a snap of twig and a gust of icy wind whipped around me and grasped me in it's chill embrace, then let go of me so quickly that I fell to the dirty, mossy ground.


      Scurrying to collect what I'd dropped, I whirled around in fright so many times that I lost my sense of direction and for a moment, felt more afraid than I had ever been. "Fear not, child!" I seemed to hear my teacher say in a calm and loving voice and the sound of it quieted me. When I began to breathe almost normally again, I realized that I could hear the sound of loud breathing not my own and chills went down my spine. Keeping my eyes on the pot lying in the ray of sun, I gathered every drop of bravery that I could find within me and holding the spoon like a sword, I ran toward the thing with feet that flew as with wings. Amidst cracking noises and deafening breathing and trees that seemed to grab at me with menace, I grabbed the pot, swirled and ran toward the forest's opening that seemed somehow to be a thousand miles away.

 But on I ran, hearing the rush of feet behind me and the chase of something bigger than I and more terrible than my mind could conjure. I ran to the opening of the trees, into the grassy field and sunlight, into the muddy, bare brown dirt and toward the camp and blazing fire that looked more welcome to me than anything I had ever seen. "I have found it!" I shouted, holding up the pot and spoon and rushing excitedly toward the man and as far away from the forest as I could get. "I knew you would." the man said to me, watching me run but not knowing why I hurried so. "And in good timing too as I have found our breakfast and made the fire ready." 


        I wondered if the creature in the forest would pursue me here and I opened my mouth to tell the man of the danger, when in my haste, I slipped in the mud and went flying across the camp still holding the spoon, and came at last to rest at the boot of the owner of it. I was covered in mud and looked, I was sure, like a wild thing and worse. My hair flew into my eyes and tangled itself around my body like a vine. My long tunic swirled around my waist and my bare legs stuck out like a broken doll's.  I thought to cover them but saw that they were already covered in thick mud. I raised one humiliated hand to push the hair out of my eyes and unknowingly wiped a trail of mud from cheek to forehead. 

All was quiet for a while as I sat there trying to get my bearings and then the man with sky colored eyes said, with laughter in his voice, "My, my my! Aren't you a lovely thing fresh from the morning, covered in dewdrops and with flowers in your hair? Never have I seen anyone so anxious to return to my company and to my cooking and so enamored of me that thou hast thrown thyself down at my feet!" And I didn't know whether to laugh or to cry so I did neither. I just sat there looking up at him and holding the spoon and thinking about my teacher.

       TO BE CONTINUED IN EPISODE EIGHT..............

https://bluevineyard.blogspot.com/2017/05/warriors-of-way-episode-8-becoming.html

                         please read and comment.......Voo