Compos Mentis

Happy 20th Post Poems!

So...this is the last day of September, obviously, and for some reason I thought it would be cool to get in 20 posts before the archive moves to October. Since this is the twentieth, and since it means I've been in school and doing this blog for about a month, I thought I'd switch it up a bit and steal an idea from Paul, which I do regularly enough anyway. This post won't be about some thought I had. It'll just be some of my more recent poems I'm taking out of my notebook. Most of you have heard all of my decent old poems.

Thoughts

I don't ask for them,
not anymore. I beg and plead,
teasing and coaxing
them out. Among others
I see no signs. Well,
Perhaps. Through some Accident
they come out: miracles
of spontaneity and freshness.
Then-
What bothers me most is
what does not bring reflection.
Moments of bright opportunity
inspire only the usual stream;
Preplanned script on
an everspinning wheel behind
the invective. I can't stand to
discuss causality then-
it is too much, too much to ask
to speak of freedom to those
chaining themselves to the walls.

Imperfection

We hold on to so much
what are they?
It's not the perfections that drive
us, it's our flaws
that bind and complete
worries fall in the face
of failures rising up, so
often does the late start
lead to a stronger finish
and the dischord ornaments.
Our connection to the ideal
is strained, but there's
no need to complain in a
comforting paradox, take
hold of me and I
now cannot release. Hold
on to me and never
never let me go. I
cannot see it, what
others can only, what
I miss in the signs...
but when I see you
it doesn't matter at all.

This one I wrote while I was in England. You could probably have guessed that from the title, but I wanted to make sure you knew.

Londonplace

Gray-green hues mingle before me
I am above color recognition; I let it pass
through me. I know it as I know myself.
It has always been a part.
I didn't see the moon last night
you know that means the night overwhelmed me.
The moon is comfort. It is the same
wherever you see it, not fully real 'cause
it's never yourself. It's always nice,
though, when you're home, to look up
and see something invasive and
different.
I'm different. I've changed. But I think
now. I'm more myself than ever
because my home feels more like home
than ever before.
Perhaps because I've never been here before.
It's the air, the ancient air. It's known
people and cannot change. But I know people
and change constantly.
The inside changes; the whole remains the same.

Okay, I was going to stop with that one, but I'm going to do one more.

S.C.

You glanced away. I knew it, then-
I was not the one your heart lived for
not the one I had hoped to be
eyes down, you've broken me before

I could stand: you took me by the hand,
leading me from the wearied green foilage
to a land of light, where we stand,
dancing in the folding future

Eyes closing. I see a hundred sunset
frames for you. Nights of laughter
drowning the dreary day's upsets
then you're gone, gazing steadily at the stars

You fly out of my sight. I hope
you leave forever, forsaking me
to the vision of a window: looking
in can only make you see.

and I'm taken away to an untamed life
unheard of futures with no more strife
you live in the ideal of my adoring mind
where I cannot see myself in kind.

I walk to the river and swim.
the water's cold. It drains
the pain I had forgotten. It's
eternal, forever piercing and leaving
behind the life of a moment.

posted by Emmett @ 09:10