TREES UNBENDING

Trees Unbending


We were like trees unbending,
You and I
Tall and proud, in hardened coats
Rough exteriors, ancient roots,
Painful memories that would not die,
Besetting birds that would not fly,
Growing and growing yet bearing no fruit,
Standing alone with our heads in the sky.

But in the night,
Our leaves would fall
Silent tears would downward run
Whispered vows would be recalled
And days of love in Summer's sun

We were not always trees,
You and I
Once seeds and flowers, stems and vines,
Softly swaying, in lover's arms,
Children of future that knew not a past,
Unaware of the storms overtaking us fast,
Too blind with our love to notice the harms,
Love's jealous cold rain, fell on us at last.

And we grew into trees
That would not bend,
Grew into strangers that could not touch,
Turned blessed words into curses of sin,
And lost the treasures that we loved so much.

We were like trees, unbending,
You and I,
Surrounded by a forest full of green,
Living things that pulsed with love,
While you and I, we pulsed with strife,
Living things devoid of life,
Our branches broken like shattered dreams,
And only dark skies up above.

Till the woodsman came
And cut you down,
And you fell at my feet with a grievous sigh
And the sound of your falling was a terrible sound
And the forest was filled with my too-human cries.

We were like trees, unbending
You and I,
Suspicious mean mouths with nothing to say,
Wasting the years encased in that pride,
Depriving ourselves of the joy and the good,
Starving our hearts of the heart's only food,
Not finding that love again till it died,
Two trees, cut and wounded, now rotting away.

We are like trees, no more
For death has a way of making life
A thing so precious that nothing can
Replace the woman, replace the man,
Tear down the walls,
Remove the pride,
Love lives on in spirit
Though the vessel has died.

This is our story
And you must hear
First with your heart
And then your ear
Don't be like we were,
Please heed our pleas:
The falls come hardest
For unbending trees.

© by Voo
Feb 21, 2011
6:44 p.m.

SILENT SWIMMING LIKE THE MOON

Silent swimming, like the moon

We glide on silver clouds away

Past far beyond and ever more

Into the night before the day.

Silent swimming, like the moon

We gentle kiss the sleeping sky

Fly underneath the rainbowed hues

Hid deep within the moonlight's sigh.

Silent swimming, like the moon

Two lovers, we, on joyous feet

Dance over sorrowed cobblestone

That turn at once to golden street.

Silent swimming, like the moon

In night winds, sing, the hallowed song

Of love, of love that never falls

But when it does, takes us along.

Silent swimming, like the moon

Behind the treetops, standing still

With nightingales for decoration

We clap our hands at every trill.

Silent swimming,  like the moon

Most every night, like children play

Running here and there and seeking

Treasures the sun has stored away.

Silent swimming,  like the moon

We ride the tides, we float in air

Tumbling, laughing, loving, descending

 Back down to find the ground still there.

©by Voo

August 19, 2012

2:45 a.m.

LUCY HAD A LOVER

Lucy Had A Lover

　

Lucy had a lover

Every day till noon

They met at dawn and carried on,

Wrote songs about the moon.

Lucy had a lover

A tender, sweetie pie

He chased her 'round the bed and chair

And never made her cry.

Lucy had a lover

With eyes as dark as coal

He was her man, she had a plan

And marriage was her goal.

Lucy had a lover

Such depths he took her to

Up to the skies with passion's cries

His love was strong and true.

Lucy had a lover

But one day he didn't show

He didn't write, he didn't call

And she thought she'd never know.

Lucy had a lover

One morning he came back

He slipped in looking worried

Like he'd been leaving tracks.

Lucy had a lover

She forgave him for the strife

She knew she loved a mysterious man

But she didn't know his wife.

Lucy had a lover

But that love was over soon

His wife had lost the job she worked

Every day till noon.

Lucy lost her lover

And the wife lost her belief

He left them both for greener pastures

That he's buried underneath.



　

©By Voo

April 26, 09

9:18 p.m.

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