You Are Not – A poet’s revenge against the Cliché –

“My life as well as my writing are guided by creed in lieu of clichés” ― Carl Henegan

 

progguy1

 

You’re not like every cliché
repeated often till meaning dies

You’re like brilliant truth, 
revealing my weakness for your body

You’re not like a rose whose fragrance and beauty
are but an honorable mention

You’re like the smell of a thousand pines 
calling and seducing me to lay in your arms

You’re not like an angel whose wings
carried you to me from afar

You’re like mischievous devils 
whose temptations take me from reality to fantasy

You’re not like a song,
sung endlessly while children clap their hands

You’re like the sound of waves, 
crashing your sexuality over my beaches

You’re not like a gentle swan,
perfect beauty so many times compared

You’re like violent lightning, 
striking the lies of men and melting my soul to yours

You’re not like the ordinary,
the common seen on every poet’s page

You’re like the grandeur of space, 
possessing the beginning and ending of my life

Also published in Broowaha Magazine

Also published in Life As A Human Magazine

First published in Opinionsofeye.com

02142012 

The Emperor’s Katana – Lessons from the master craftsman

“ignis aurum probat, miseria fortes homines”, “as gold is tempered by fire, so strong men are tempered by suffering”.

skywing12

He took the metal, valuable and unique, and laid it in the fire. With an innate passion watching it, until the hue was just right, the color of heat, moving as storm cloud over the plain of the metal. Lightning strikes and thunder claps induced by his worn sledge shouted changes to nature, destroying the original form. In a violent move, calling out the tempest, he plunged it into the muddy water, clouded with ash and clay, a chaotic mix of elements, ugly in their application, wondrous in their result. Angry steam rose, the steel yelling at the breaking of its will, a will formed by nature, broken by the same. Fire and water, opposites, yet being used together to create a new thing, taking their turns as catalysts, creating beauty and power unsurpassed by the ordinary, waiting for their turn in the flames. Thousands of times, the process, the rhythm of breaking down, bending, melding, heating, were repeated, shocking it, breaking it from the apathetic staleness of commonality. The old man smiled and, in his careful hands, the metal changed, growing finer in composition, growing closer to its’ polished destiny as the Emperor’s Katana.

Accepting the opposites in my life, the fire and water of pain and joy, allows me transformation. My life changed by them from an ordinary, dull life of discord, into a life of gleaming beauty, purpose, and fulfillment. The trials, the pain, the joys and successes, I will let them have their way, not fighting what will bring me to completion. My destiny, wholly original and amazing, a rare and exquisite life, being declared as the Emperor’s Katana.

Also published in Broowaha Magazine

12212011

Frankenstein

“I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

Loneliness, dissatisfaction, and depression are all signs that my heartbeat sits in the background, flat-lined and breathless until I use it. Then I see it’s deformity. During my socialization, the malnutrition of nature and nurture led to a distorted development, an immature birth, an aborted process of creation. I patch up these defects with anything I can grab until I, a zombie Frankenstein, could attempt to imitate the living. It’s very obvious that something’s not right in this ambling beast. My expressions of adoration are awkward and stumbling, and especially given to extremes of violence and overcompensation. I’m quite adept at camouflaging their deadness with faked kindness and sweet articulations. In the world of the living dead appearances are deceiving. 

I use many things to stimulate my undead “love”. Money, words, drugs, and appearances can all be used to bring in the deformed masses that they may “love” me. I’m well aware they love my gifts, leading this Frankenstein to once again, lay on a mad doctor’s operating table to perform more abortions as I attempt to fix what can only be transformed by a power much greater. I felt real love once, when I sought a God that could deliver me from this horrid process. After I feeling it, it disappeared in my religious ideals and ceremonies which produced nothing of the vibrant love that I longed to possess. I know my last hope is in a divine intervention, and as I lay down on a stainless steel table of deliverance,  I wait for Elysian lightning to strike a real heartbeat in this Frankenstein of love. 

Hammer – Wisdom in the glyphs

 “All our words are but crumbs that fall down from the feast of the mind.”
– Kahlil Gibran, Sand and Foam

My dwarven frame easily pulled the hammer from the tree. Only the handle revealed what nature had covered in growth, the bark swelling over the mauls head, hiding its width. Lightning is what freed the dull aged tool from its captivity in the trees belly. I studied it with curiosity, swinging it and flipping it in my hand with instinctual proficiency. My trade gave me ample strength, spending long hours with pick and spade pulling trinkets from greedy stones in the ground. Thinking nothing of it, I slung it across my back and meandered down the muddy trail. Noon came, and looking for my daily treat of fruit from my trees, I discovered that all within easy reach were picked clean. I’m not lazy but I really didn’t want to climb my bulky girth up those darned trees, so with my dwarven ingenuity, I thought to sling my hammer into the tree to obtain my bounty. With a mighty heave my new friend flew into the fruit laden branches dropping their delicious meals in a scattered buffet. Thinking the hammer to have gone through the branches and fallen elsewhere, I turned to the fruit. Right as I bent over, I heard a rustle and whoosh behind me. Turning to see what fate had in store I caught the hammer right in the chest. Knocking me to ground, I liedthere stunned by a new bruise and this thought, “the hammer came back!” Now that I knew what to expect, I played with it. I enjoyed this little trick of magic that made life easy, however, at times I grew angry and threw her without a thought and she, being without mercy, would come back with her own ferocity and near take my head off. After suffering one to many broken ribs and a couple of black eyes, which, if not for my dwarven constitution, may have knocked me senseless and never to recover, I rubbed her and looked closely. During my curious examination I saw, in dirty and molded letters, this inscription, “Be vigilant where you throw me, for I am your word”.

Before the Family Breaks

“I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.” –  J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

 

 

Carried on the wind of misunderstood words,

Dark armies of thundering adversaries now descend.

Little ones scatter under lightning insults,
Hail threats, and driving strife. 
Not much resistance
Before the family breaks.

See the clouds huddled in poised formation. 

Only minutes until the downpour begins. 
No amount of preparing can handle 
The flood of anger, the torrent of rage
That woefully conspire
When the family breaks.

Look In the blowing wind of change and see

Two shelters still remain, grace and clan. 

Withstanding the maelstrom, 

They set up a refuge and inspire unity, 

Calling us to band together, 
Before the family breaks.