Our Words
June 16, 2007

They have interesting lives,
Our words

They have such pretty lives,
Colours,
Auras,
Flavours.

Every word has a shape,
And a light,
And a shadow,
And a sound.

Every letter has a tendency,
A family,
A soul,
A place to belong.

Language is the greatest masterpiece
Yielded by mankind.
It expresses and describes
What we have forgotten to say
With our eyes.

Men and children miles away
Can read my dreams,
And your dreams.
Nightmares and fantasies
Can span with world
With words.

Every single thing you say
Is on record in time.
It has a history like no one on this Earth
Would believe.

Words can form the lowest and highest
Human thoughts,
And communicate messages
That break hearts, save lives, and win wars.

Every letter is its own, but owned by the many.
Every word has a mate, but grows lonely on a white page.
Every sentence completes a thought and brings new thoughts
To life, just as any answer makes more questions.

A syllable can yield more impressions
Than there are stars in the sky.  


Love, By Any Other Name
May 13, 2007

Mother-the name for protector, teacher, and friend,
The angel kissing bruises and mending all hearts broken
The word for a love that has no end,
On the lips of the children and grown men

Mother-the word spoken by sons and daughters,
Sometimes with smiling faces, sometimes with tears
A woman watching as the toddler totters,
And loving her baby all through the years

Mother-the song of a noun that says much more,
It says more than a tome could ever define
A mother is full of advice and lore,
In a mother's arms, everything will be fine

Mother-the title for a queen full of compassion;
Love, by any other name is hard-pressed to compare
For a mother's love is a limitless ration.
Few things in this world equal the love you share,
Thank-you, mother, for being there.
 

My Lion
June 4, 2007

There is a hill, through which
The world may be seen
Passerby pass this glass hill by
And then they vanish

At the top of the crystal hill
Is a mighty lion
His body is gold and his eyes
Are black coal
His veins are obsidian

The tall grain beside the hill
Is like copper and amber
And it sways in the wind like waves
Rhythmically, recording the progress
Of the day

I try to climb the hill
Looking at the lion, with eyes
So blue, so clear, that you can see
My soul

The lion growls, and whispers
And roars a song to the wind
And listening, I cannot help but think
That his roar is for me  


Inlaid
May 18, 2007

She is not sodalite
Nor are her eyes sapphire
Not tourmaline, opal, or even
Lapis lazuli
Instead, riverstones soaked
In colour by sunlight fire
Not quite slate or turqoise
But teal

She is not rose copper
Nor are the strands spun gold
Not ruby or garnet, or even
Fiery tiger's eyes
Instead, the warmth of quartz
And rough glamour of desert rose
Fall like red moonbeams during eclipse
The blood of lilies a rain
Her mane

She is not porcelain
Nor is her skin amber
Not alabaster, sand, or even
A fool's gold
Instead, milk and cream
With the ripest peach of the season
In the curve of her cheek
All the gilt and paint and inlay
Providing some reason
To ignore a decaying
Core  


I Count the Raindrops
April 11, 2007

Numbers fall like raindrops
Over the dusky eaves of this town,
On corporate cads at the bus stops
Through the mothers' fingers at a department store,
Counting down on the rooftops  
Running down the gutters, never losing track.

Numbers measure every crevice 
That fills with this strange rain;
Like ivy creeping on the trellis
Peering over the fence, but not seeing.
Raising an army of material malice 
The numbers storm the streets.

Numbers follow the lightning
And find followers -
Empty faces defined by the counting
That surges forward to the drum-beat of thunder.
Lives are directed by the marching 
And cruel years counted down.  

Numbers stain the dampened pathways
Where the soul sleeps,
Beneath the shell of serial days
Light, to damp eyes, seems comforting.
Beneath textile fabrics layers blaze
And warmth rushes to animate fingertips.
In numerical defiance, in calculations' haze.

Numbers fall like so much rain
But cannot define;
The writer's words, or the painter's pain
For our colours cannot be counted.
The equations can never gain us
What in pain, is shared: is yours and mine.  


There is No Greatness in War
April 9, 2007

Oh, America, Africa, Europe, oh, far Eastern lands
Why don't you pause to wonder at the blood on your hands?
There is no longer any greatness in war
Though heroism spans our ranks
There is no glory in these politics, anymore
And there never was, fair world

Oh, America, Africa, Europe, oh, far Eastern lands
Why do you only join together to paint over the blood on your hands?
There was never greatness in tyranny and corruption
Though heroes walk our streets
There is no hope unless you fight the darkness in each nation
And there never was, fair world

Oh, America, Africa, Europe, oh, far Eastern lands
Why will you remain blind to the stains and the blood on your hands?
There was never any way to alter the past
Though heroes search for ways
There is only time to change the future approaching fast
And there's your chance, fair world

Fare well, fair world