Dave's Web Site: Poetry


I do poetry when I'm sufficiently inspired/bored. If you think my verses are bad, I respond, "Go write and post your own damn poetry then!"
All poetry copyrighted to me, but I don't care if you post it as long as you give me credit and don't try to sell it or something stupid like that.
In case you haven't noticed, I only write poetry when I'm in a bad mood, though it's more a matter of definition. My non-depressing pieces are here.

No More
Shine
Bust
Elements
Steps
Someone Tell Me There is Hope
Vapor Trail
True Love
The Vixen
To Free Myself
Strange Requiem
Where is Everybody?
The Merchant's Reprise


No More

No more chariots flying through the skies;
No more saints down chimneys at night.
Science has executed those dreadful lies;
Fantasy's frail against Logic's might.

No more boatmen ushering deceased souls;
No more torture in Circles of Hell.
Let not afterlife intrude on goals,
Be they furtive or flagrant or fell.

No more arrows piercing mortals' hearts;
No more red string between man and wife.
All that you feel are the pharmacists' arts.
Powerless is love to transcend this life.

No more Prometheus to give us fire;
No more Odin to redirect hail.
We must labor for all we desire.
Even then, most likely, we will fail.

No more Godmothers to answer Cinderella's plea;
No more dwarves to rally Snow White's cause.
Those in power tend to stay indef'tely,
"Survival of the fittest" is one of science's laws.

Why then am I here right now?
Why then am I one of them?
Must be brain cells going foul
To like this craft I condemn.


Shine

Once in a while I would pause to think
After one or two or many a drink.
Of laughs and tears and hopes and fears,
And Fate's cruelly severed link.

How these years have dearest you fared?
And did you know that secretly I cared?
Do you think e'er of youthful days
And the memories we once shared?

So many years now, you've not been near,
So much warmth in an unshed tear.
I wish you joy and wish you luck.
More than anything, wish you were here.

Who now stands in the place that was mine?
And who now is your friend in wine?
Who last heard your lovely laugh,
And who last watched you shine?

Soon then you shall disappear,
As did all things past held dear,
I think now upon you one last time,
When the moon sets, mind will clear.


Bust


We were friends once, but now no longer;
We were weak then, but we grew stronger.
Gone now are the hunts for self-identity;
Each established as a strong, proud entity.

Never again, will be that sense of unity;
No action we take, now is with impunity.
Rational self-interests govern our busy days;
No time is left for unbeneficial strays.

Year after year, our dreams ever grow bolder;
Day after day, our hearts ever grow colder.
No obstacles are left in our relentless quests;
No shades of yesteryear disturb our precious rests.

One far day when we wake, much older and more tired,
Will we seek to renew this friendship, long expired?
Who will be brave and gauche and break the proverbial ice?
Will we both wait for a coincidence from some god's dice?

Perhaps we will have both forgotten each other's name and face,
And only vaguely recall a close friend from those good old days.
And to grandkids embellish stories of cunning and trust,
And hope that they learn from our stories of friendship gone bust.


Elements

You are frost; you are the ice that freezes my thought.
You are flame; you are the fire that singes my dream.
You are chill, numbing every one of my senses.
You are warmth, melting each of my defenses.

You are light; you are darkness.
You're an angel; you're a shade.
Glow an aura of angry penance,
And shadow a hollow new existence.

You are air; you are the zephyr that keeps me loft.
You are earth; you are the spike that impales my heart.
You are wind, tantalizing just out of reach;
You are dust, blinding all who beseech.

You are song; you are silence.
You're an echo; you're a void.
Tune a melody of sweet sorrow;
And mute a chord of callous harrow.

You are life; you are death.
I have not any more breath.
Of this play, you'll not star.
You should know who you are.



Steps

How many more errors must we make?
And how many false steps must we take?
Until the destiny is no longer clear,
And the end is a not unlikely fear...


Someone Tell Me There is Hope

Muddled are affairs of mortals like me;
The path of true love is not clear to see.
Life is but a random walk;
Few are meetings 'f me and thee.

Forgotten are times of joy and bliss,
And tears and pain are always remiss.
Someone tell me there is hope
That I'll never forget this

Shattered dream that may've been true,
Of paintings of me beside you,
Of our home where children play,
And of days of vibrant hue.

The din of regret fills my mind,
I yearn for relief of piano kind.
Someone tell me there is hope
Exit forte I will find.

Often these days I wonder,
F'rgive me, would you, my blunder?
I have long now since repent
Of the choice that tore us 'sunder.

Salt a wound for health and pain,
Bear a scar to keep me sane.
Someone tell me there is hope
That this feeling will not wane.

Tell me something, will you, Fate?
Is there reason, I you hate?
If for 'musement this you do,
Little pleasant could await.

Pray a bit to gods who aid,
Curse away at those who fade.
Someone tell me there is hope,
He who meddles is not Sade.

For the want of nail,
Doomed a war to fail.
For the lack of sight,
'Demned me to my bale.

Err again never,
I will endeavor.
Allow me just once
To mend the sever.

Cannot I
Fate defy?
Are my plans
Doomed awry?

Someone please!
Give me ease!
Tell me now
"This hope seize!"

I
Sigh
And
Try.

Vapor Trail

A simple tune breaks the solitude of night;
A simple man sings, to no audience in sight.
The object of his affections is all but affected,
For the real woman is not as his mind perfected.

The sad truth was that in common they had naught;
The sad girl was not the true love he sought.
Pity it is that he had not realized before;
Now, he must endure pain disillusion bore.

Though now too late he has attained utter clarity,
Though now any love is clearly but a charity,
Morals and credo dictated a continued union,
While ever day, quakes would deepen the discord canyon.

Eventually, he knew, he would take no more;
Eventually, he'd set sail for a finer shore.
And then he'd wander for months or years
Again in search of a harbor with no piers.

And he shall leave not a trace of himself behind,
And he shall eradicate her every memory from his mind,
So even should they meet again by ironic fate,
They'd be as strangers, bearing no love or hate.

Such a future he could do nothing to avoid,
Such a history, is one neither would have enjoyed.
It is rather better, for him to play the role of villain,
Leave and be hated, rather than both regret a million.

Perhaps it was an excuse to his mind he stated,
Perhaps his personality is truly one to be hated,
And deserving of the stereotype of the promiscuous male,
And forever be branded as the damnable vapor trail.

"But my dear, wouldn't it be better for both me and thee?"
"But my dear, wouldn't it be better for us to be free?"
"So goodbye; I bid thee well."
"So goodbye, I cannot tell."
Thus he sang, as he walked away.
Thus he ended this final day.

"True" Love

Happiness and joy I can promise you not,
And eternal love ought not to be sought.
A fairy tale's ending for us may'nt be true,
But, for now, I think I'm in love with you.

The Vixen

Do you love me, or am I just anybody?
Would you love me, if I was a nobody?
How many times, have I been 'fraid?
How many times, have you betrayed?

The first time I saw your complexion fair,
your smile charming, your laugh debonair,
Your Siren's Call lured me, and many others.
Now, of psyche tragedy, we are all brothers.

I should of seen, I should of known,
that a vixen's heart is hard as stone.
When I saw you, my heart had raced.
For your smile, I'd do anything in unparalleled haste.

For a brief while, I thought myself luckiest of us all.
I thought you loved me, but that just heightened the fall.
I realize now what I hadn't before; you can't love.
Mortal emotions you watch dispassionately from above.

It's taken quite a while to quell my hate.
Haunting recurring memories of our first date
invade my dreams nightly but not yours,
for you were off somewhere testing new lures.

I wonder if you know, I wonder if you care,
I wonder if our story is ever a nightmare.
You flaunted, you flouted,
but I had never doubted.

Those thundering soft words you said, "Just friends,"
hit me with the force that a thousand bolts lends.
Tears welled up in my eyes as I prepared to cry,
but you did not hesitate in saying your "Goodbye."

"Just friends..." "Just friends..." That you did say,
not a result of what I did pray.
Friends don't breach unspoken pacts,
That you betrayed me is limpid from the facts.

People think I'm strong, but I am frail.
Loving you have caused me so much bale.
Devotion is that nasty unwanted inborn trait,
which causes pain beyond that which words can relate.

My friends did soon hear of this injustice,
my mental wounds they did try to poultice,
yet scars so deep are not easily healed,
I was not one to command my emotions, "Yield!"

So many promises, shattered in the wind;
So many futures, buried beneath the sand.
The time has come, I must move on.
Your face never again shall I lay eyes upon.

My heart you have milked,
my mind you have bilked,
nothing remains but my shattered soul,
broken into pieces by your treacherous dole.

By now my wounds and scars have gradually faded,
yet emotionally I am still all too jaded,
Women are grapes too sour for me,
alone in this world I shall forever be.

Now, if ever I should encounter you in the rain,
with no umbrella, no coat, just a face full of disdain,
should I pretend to be but a passing stranger passing by?
or aid you, risking to let myself once again die?

Who am I kidding? What illusions I'm weaving!
There will always be men to replace the ones you're leaving.
Or so you think, so it is now...
How will you be treated twenty years from now?


Strange Requiem

So it goes,
c'est la vie!
Thus is price,
of being free.

Destroy the world,
shatter your dreams;
they are but part
of a strange requiem

Scream at the world!
Shout to the night!
No one will listen
to your painful plight.

Free your soul and
transcend this world!
Perhaps next life
won't be so harrowed.



The Merchant's Reprise
Linked here

Where is Everybody

"Where is everybody?" asked Enrico Fermi
from his lab one fine night fifty years past.
"Maybe they hit the singularity?
Maybe civilization was not meant to last."

"Ah," replied a friend, "You refer to aliens."
"Bah!" proclaimed a fellow, brusque and burly,
"Everyone is we, and we're here. No paradox hence!
Occam's Razor supports me, and so I am right, surely!"

(Unfinished)

Random Facebook Comment

I once knew an Oregonian girl Da Lin,
Whose mind was kinda sketchy beneath that cheerful grin.
This girl cheated me every time we went dining,
And "Rawr!" she saw a dinosaur in the movie "Shining."

To me she'll expatiate Econ trash,
While doing a puny badminton smash.
She sent me a birthday card a few days late;
Though it's done by MS Paint it still looks great.

Her cousin Mike twice risked death,
Because Da wouldn't admit to causing a mess.
I got a speeding ticket because of her,
Cuz I couldn't fast talk the Portland officer.

She is gone now, far out of sight,
And on her Harvard porch--not a green light.
A little ambivalence, but this much is true:
Not a day passes, when I don't think of you.