Cliffjumper

                          If I

                      close

                   my

                  eyes

                  it's

                  easier

Eyes to eyes

The granite margin

Ears to ears

The west wind calls

Impulsive bliss

Only to imagine

A thousand fears

A thousand falls

                     A

                  coward's

                  eyes--

                  what's

                  wrong?

Eyes to eyes

A preterm pride

Ears to ears

Canyon-bound

The seeker's creed

Without the heart

A thousand lost--

A thousand found.

seventeen

Don't leave me behind––

They ask for too much,

forever wanting,

Wanting me

to satisfy them in their infinitely individual ways,

to pride myself on their satisfaction,

ingesting their fears,

washing away their despair

I see their countenance every day,

dissatisfaction every hour,

disregard every minute.

It's true.

I can't satisfy them.

In the end, they don't care about me

Why do they so hunger

for eighteen?

What can she do

that I can't?

What is she to them?

Another opportunity?

Another chance to

––what––

fail again?

What is eighteen––

but an artificiality

constructed by the past

disgraced by the future

––What––

Can she

satisfy them?

Can anything––

but their illusions?

––illusive––

––elusive––

When I was with them, they did everything

––to help me––

everything

––to help themselves––

but it's too late, they've given up

––on me––

––on themselves––

They can't satisfy themselves.

Once I lie dying in the dust

they might reach for––

nonexistent freedom,

false hope,

blind conviction,

But they're them.

They couldn't

and they won't.

They could never,

and they will never

Not without me. So––

Don't leave me behind––

Not like the other two millennia.

Not like sixteen.

Don't leave me behind––

Necessity

There are kings

—of wasteland,
ruling the domains of the discarded,
the realms of the abandoned,
the lands long left behind.

There are knights

—of failure,
shame is their steed,
aberration their armor,
blindness their blade.

There are creators

—of destruction,
erecting chaos,
forging blight,
compiling oblivion.

But there lies in all

—a resident but necessary evil:
in every crown guilt,
in every helm doubt,
in every mind mania,

And thus the most capable leaders,
the most vigilant guardians,
the most ingenious thinkers,
who warrant the highest regard,

—also merit, in some ways, the least.





Are we not all kings and knights and creators in our own ways? Mind the necessity as with all questions of balance. Mind the risk, the reward, the trials, but none too much. If only...if—

The Search

They sing,
And she sings along.

They run,
And she slows to their pace.

They search,
And she searches with them,
For something she can never have.

They wait,
And she waits too,
A lone raven among crows,
Singing a sorrowful song,
Running an endless race,
Searching the barren world,
For, it seems, nothing at all.

And then they feast upon their morsel,
Belting out a victorious whisper,
Dancing in empty elation,
Having advanced in their search,
For, it seems, nothing at all.

And she will sing,
Until their voices die,
And she will run,
Until their strength wanes,
And she will search,
Until they find what they have sought,
Until they become, it seems, nothing at all.

Having sung,
And understood not a word,
Having run,
And gone nowhere,
Having searched,
And found nothing,
She leaves in search
Of more who search
For, it seems, nothing at all.





Such is the price of something we, as humans, can never attain. In the eye of one who possesses this trait, we are such ephemeral creatures, who come from, and eventually fade into, and thus seem to simply be, nothing at all. So why would they search for that which they can never experience? Why do we seek to understand "inferior" animals? Why do we engage in the perpetual search? Why do anything? Why do we ask these questions? There can never be a perfect answer. On with the search!

Not If But When

When all fails to change,
When none bow to authority,
When the lowliest of the low dare retaliate,
When the mightiest of the mighty can do nothing,

When speech turns to drone at meeting air,
When ink turns to smoke while forming words,
When heads turn away at a single glance,
When eyes avert into the shadows,

When the ships fade from the harbor,
When the shop windows cloud with dust,
When the brightest gold dulls to gray,
When the softest throne hardens into stone,

When the night is tainted with screams,
Yet screams yield nothing but spite,
When the day is rife with enmity,
Of insurrection and utter rancor,

When consciousness and sleep are one,
When death and life converge,
When the once-dominant fall before the once-weak,
When the once-weak fell the once-dominant,

When power is leeched dry,
And reshuffled is the fear,
When taken with unsuspected force,
Deny not that the end is near.





For such things are inevitable...at least if history is any indicator. Yes, history, the silent witness to the greatest sins, to the reality that it is never if, always when.

Where All Must End

"There is a place where the sidewalk ends,"
Where gray turns black,
Where shifting smoke fills every crack,
Where there lacks a line 'twixt the ground and sky,
Where the dirt can fly,
Where the air can sigh,
Where the warm sun rays will wave goodbye.

There is a place where heartbeats end,
Where none dare tread,
Where the light hangs dead,
Where the sound of footsteps is dulled by the dust,
Where eyes bear crust,
Where bones bear rust,
Where the wind brings death with every gust.

There is a place where colors end,
Where day is night,
Where wrong is right,
Where all the world begins to blend,
Where the skies descend,
Where the buildings bend,
Where all must come to an end.

...including the poem. (that was not a part of the poem) Anyway, this is a poetry experiment I am taking for a spin; with all the talk about endings, here's to a potential beginning.

As for the (possible) series's name, I believe something akin to "Divergence" will be appropriate. If you have not already deduced, the experimental series will consist of poetry beginning with (but likely diverging heavily from) the first line or two of a famous poem. In this case, the first line is from "Where the Sidewalk Ends," by Shel Silverstein. As Silverstein's poem is relatively short, I thought it best to take only the first line.

The Nowhere Walk

More poetry!

We walk,
Our shadows trailing long amidst a wake of dust.
We speak,
Our words a haze of lies within truth within lies.
We watch,
Our eyes that seek the rust upon the needle.
We ponder,
Our thoughts lingering in states that are neither and both.
We sleep,
Our dreams a soundscape of whispering voices.
We live,
Our time a sliver of gold on the current.
But then we find
The gold is hay, and the voices tell lies of the dust.