Stars and thrones

Day Five:

Such sad strings...
but what to believe?
And what lies we've yet to tell.

No doubt left
in the minds of men
who bring hell to earth this day.

Despair not,
they say, teeth agleam.
We shall be saved from all things.
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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Pixies, Where Is My Mind?

1080

Day Four:

We're up
all night -
minds churning
somewhere
outside our heads -
like the city
that never sleeps
To it,
what good
is a sunrise?
What good
is the spotlight
on our blemishes?
What good
is high definition
for the self-confidence
of an uncivilized world?
And yet,
how better to know
so many versions
of the truth?
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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Incubus, Just A Phase

A journey in the desert

Day Three: A fourteener.

The screams of death did wake them from their early morning sleep,
and by the time the sun was high, no rest could they then keep.

They packed their things with greatest haste and made their way ahead -
far better to be bruised and tired than stay to die instead.

No sweetness of fond memories would dull the painful trip,
instead the horror of the dawn their wounded minds did rip.

Upon a great divide they came, a chasm deep and broad
and now despair, it did set in, they knew their hope a fraud.

Some fell to cry and others stood, eyes too dry to tear,
none could speak a helpful word, none could humble fear.

And then a great light, bold and proud, from the canyon rose,
an ancient man within its shine, who spoke in lilied prose.

My weary pilgrims, he began, you've traveled far and wide,
such pity is it, now, to find yourselves at my divide.

I know you flee from what you fear, an evil undeterred,
but know that there is solace here, a peace you've not yet heard.

You've tread on mystic land, my friends, on holy ground you've bled
so fear not what's behind you, for you are already dead.
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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Howard Shore, The Breaking of the Fellowship

Segments

Day Two: A poem about the stars.

Awake and lost in dreams,
she connects the dots
from a flattened patch
behind her father's house -
a grass angel, wings and all,
flying nowhere
but keeping her aloft.
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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Pond, Moth Wings

Success

Day One: A poem of negation.

It is not waiting for you on your doorstep
when you wake in the morning - there is
no morning dew struggling fruitlessly
to break through its plastic wrapping
and attack its soft, erodible exterior.

Nor is it in the mail, on its way to you
as we speak. There is no ship date, nor
an estimated day of arrival - no box truck
carries it carefully within its worn belly.

It does not settle in with you at night
under your blankets. It does not wait
for you to finish brushing your teeth
before it turns out every light in the house.

It does not turn off the lights. It shatters them,
takes them one by one from their homes
and smashes them down on plywood floors.

It does not care what you've spent. It does
not understand how hard you've tried. It
hides itself away, a hermit from those who
would love to find it the most. But it is not
merciless. It is only unreasonably selective.
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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Unknown Mortal Orchestra, So Good At Being In Trouble