A poem for the Artists

This peculiar poem discovered me while I was writing a contribution for an encyclopedia while exploring the islands around Iceland. It appeared in my travel bag, along with several death threats and a one-way ticket back to my hometown, but I appreciated the effort of whoever it was that put this together. I gave the one-way ticket to a man trapped in a heavily regulated, first-world country and sold the rights to the death threat to a greeting card company, but I kept the poem for myself. Whoever wrote it, aside from the fact I suspect they are vegetarian, will most likely remain anonymous until the sun cools.


A poem for the Artists:

When rights are secured and respect is given,
when your colors are flown above every roof,
Will you at last touch the sign of heaven,
or struggle beneath it, panting, driven,
And envy its grandeur; secure, aloof?

When every child chants your heartsong,
when every sailor charts your star,
Will that make your weak soul headstrong,
and bold enough to stand high up, afar?

When all the masses come together, when they in unison work in cheer,
trying to chip a relief, a story, to please your mountain, cold and sheer,
will then your icy heart be melted, will then your soul of stone be free?

No. No words of recognition reach you,
no acceptance fills the aching cave that was your heart.
You may sit enthroned with honor, mad praises piled for your art,
But ever cold your heart grows harder, deafer too, your straining ears,
until gray be your mantel, gray your colors, gray the skies you paint with tears-

Wait! There is not one rose below heaven, whose seed was not sown by the Sky,
There is not one beautiful treasure, that was not crafted by hands from on high,
Empty, you declare yourself sinless, alone, you decree yourself free!
But can you sing the song of ancients, can you make your blind soul see?
What good is a rainbow to the sightless, what good are your colors when you are gray,
Can you write the true art, true song, sing the words that never fade?

At the door you stand uncertain, only within may you see the Source,
leave your luggage, heavy, crushing, stop your heartsong; it's made you hoarse.
Knock but once, and you'll be answered, ask but once, and you'll be free,
Enter the home of all your music; find the source of eternity.

Fear Not

Fear not the pounding ocean waves,

the soaking surf, and chilling spray,

Nor hungry fire that leaps; ablaze,

fear not the furnace nor the flames.

Fear not the roars of lions grown,

Run not from teeth and claws alone,

For they can rend but flesh and bone;

But fear the One who writes on stone.

Fear not the eagle from orders old,

whose talons red are dulled with gold,

Hoard not the things that are bought and sold,

Put not your trust in moths and mold.

Fear not the deep encroaching black,

the entropy of hungering lack,

the dark and freezing, aching cold;

they hide the pinions; silver, gold.

What if Hearts Had Windows

This a short poem from a discarded book I salvaged at the twelve penny book sale. The author is unknown, and the poem was never named. To be exact, it appears to be the reason the book was discarded, as it was written on the front cover in pink marker.

What if hearts had windows, what if souls could sleep?
Would all that passed beneath the sea be purified, entombed within the deep?
When Joan lay bruised on prison cot, when Carton surveyed his guillotine,
did they fathom some better lot, did they think that pain would make their hearts pristine?

No, no darkness would enwrap those two, no silence from Sheol,
no shameful peace with worms for sheets, no huddled company of kings-
No. First shall stand the smallest ones, towering robed, honored, crowned;

Let the weakest come forward first; of all our trials theirs were worst,
Let those who hunger, faint, and thirst- their drink by far is a sweeter thing.

A poem of Totalitarianism

This is a poem that I was fortunate to chance upon whilst discussing the meaning of life with a historian who studied the life of the Grand Inquisitor. After much disagreement and debate, he broke into my house last night and left several thousand copies of this poem in various places like the toilet bowl and refrigerator. Needless to say, it has been permanently burned into my memory. I put it here in the highly unlikely case that there are only few copies left in the world, calling it 'a poem of Totalitarianism'. A very dark and morose bit of literature, but I found it intriguing.



Why men are such a funny race, we change like faces in a crowd,
some grow teeth and growl like wolves, others shudder; huddled, cowed.

Come wolves, crack the whips,
come sheep, mold the clay,
We shall build where others foundered,
Bring the mortar, bring the hay.

How can they demand before the Pharaoh?
How can they see the statue and yet stand?
How can they look and not long to worship,
before our God amidst the sand?
Crush the dissenters with crimson boots,
choke their churches in an iron grip,
let nothing stand between us and progress,
let not the vision of our Godhead slip.

Kill the wise men in the palace, put the prophets to the sword,
slash down those who dare decry us, ignore their imploring to the Word,
pile up our tottering tower, heap up Hell that I might die,
but let me perish below my Babel, in desperate hope it will fill the sky.

A poem of thoughtfulness

I was given this poem by a friend.

What have the blue skies looked down on, what have these high hills seen?
 Where has the old wind wandered, before it is reborn young and clean?
The clouds have poured a thousand times, but I wonder whether not each sunset sees,
an evening as young and new as the sky, when it bends low touch the trees. 

A poem for strangers

Due to my somewhat unusual height, I tend to see the underside of desks and tables a lot more than most people do. While it is almost invariably an unpleasant experience to turn one's gaze upwards towards the clammy crowded mass of dried chewing gum, I had the luck today to come across a little bit of poetry somewhat had scribbled on the underside of a study table. Since I was already in the job of prying things off the underside of that particular table, I decided to take this one off too, and transfer it to the big wide world that is our internet.

This one was titled: "A poem for strangers."

I walk as I always have; head down, feet in front,
purposefully examining my shoes as I make my way through strangers.
What a tumult they are making, to their friends, to their phones, to the ones whose names have meaning!
Their faces have no names to me.

I walk as I am accustomed to; hands in my jacket, arms clutching objects, maybe a splay of fingers gripping two,
My focus is on the floor, hoping that I may pass unnoticed in this sea of strangers, knowing that I will and feeling small.
There is no ocean spray that lowers my hood as they do, no cold wind that does not turn my face as words between these nameless faces.

Perhaps that are not all happy, perhaps there are some like me; whose eyes are swimming for a shore of open space in all the comradie.
Perhaps they wonder at my jacket, at my hood and parcels, at my hurried furtive feet,
they wonder what my story is and who I hope to meet.

Maybe they are accustomed to pondering, speculating like me,
if all these bywords will make sense, if these faces can be friends, if names uttered, chattered, whispered, will give meaning and direction to my feet.

More poetry from ancient greece

This is some poetry I found while examining what I first thought to be graffiti on the node of a Grecian urn:

The crowds are dark and silent, like the storm that brews above;
There is no call for brotherhood, no laugh or word of love.
They wait in dreadful silence still, they know they are not wise or brave;
in fear we stand in huddled mass,
each small as a single blade of grass;
but one great wave.

This wave is dark and fearful now, the tide has turned against its strand,
each single drop of water flees,  it does not try to make a stand.
The crowd knows an execution waits, they know that there is death for some;
But we are an obstinate wave indeed; and we won't run.

What plotters scheme in secret talks, what mobsters yell to angered crowds;
What tyrants at frail freedom scoff, when fists are shaken at the clouds,
What rings soundless on our stubborn ears, toiling heat from the burning sun;
Oh we have seen these signs before, but we won't run.

The tide has turned a thousand times, countless grains have been ground to dust,
the heavy sand beneath us heaves, it hears the call and seaward leaves,
But to stand firmly in the draining sand,
to raise our stained and grimy hands, for we must stay and we must stand,
Because we won't run.

Let tyrant trumpets about us blare, let new orders brandish spangled flags,
Let the seamless empty oceans stare, let them call our banner rags;
Let their leaders pose and call themselves The One;
What motley fools we are indeed, for we won't run.