The Year Long Kiss (A Reprisal)

once more year's end and remembrances
captured on the still water glass of my well
preserved faculty, echo in the manner of visions
cast unto fragmented depths, a dual faceted mind's eye.

in chestnut hue, majority of that inner iris,
play acts of an eagerly sought after awakening,
devised into scenes—individual longing given character
and speech.

(where might the ready path to fulfillment be
amid such wanting avenues, will ever i see
a sparing of my year long misery?

will my lips contentment be granted by thine
in those unseen lanes we'll garnish with rose and vine,
sip for sip will our breath entwine?

o, how wondrous it seems in speculation,
true embrace, the consummation,
but what truth in that declaration?

you bid me question not your intent,
but the absence of communion solely meant,
breeds fear that no respite awaits the twelvemonth ascent.)

then tones of moonless night, grim
brush strokes of predictable disenchantment
despite all that was exchanged, linger callously
upon this canvas, my being, for the kiss denied
through four more seasons of waiting.

The Love Bite

from the beginning, her pull was full of thrill. the attraction of mystery and shadows. her haunting tune drew me to her like the wail of a siren. clandestine meetings on the lonely bench beneath the yellow candle lamp. the cobblestones echoed with unseen horse-trots and chariot chimes.

whispers emanate from the corners of my mind as she smiles behind the half shadows. her face is chalk-white pale; haunting. her tog of flawless red and flowing curves. hypnotic. her walk awakening electric attractions.

in perfect shadow her eyes aglow and teeth pearl white as she smiles, a purring cat playing with her doomed mouse; the chase her pheromonic ritual. my arousal her hunger, and my pulse the aroma of passion.

"hush, little man," she sings in my head, her lips on my neck.

and the love bite, a suckle and the goosebumps. my arm grows cold as she sucks my love dry. my neck tickles with tingles and she is ice-cold. fuzzy vision in a deathly embrace and the world is snatched from me. I sink into passionate oblivion, to the hell of bloody sin.

By Words and Thought

day's end brings with it a silence
that most nights remains broken
only by words much like poetry
and thought.

into that lull I draw forth tableaux
of times perhaps best left adrift
on the troubled waters of auld
lang syne.

how viciously wounding though,
the refusal of recollection, for at least
in memory I can cherish you as once
I did.

and the inquietude of vast longing,
frustration at time's lethargic pace,
knows the kindest, though briefest,
of stays.

Late Goodbye - Poets of the Fall

A revisit to this brilliant song poetry. This is from the song "Late Goodbye"

in our headlights, staring, bleak, beer cans, deer's eyes
on the asphalt, underneath, our crushed plans and my lies
lonely street signs, powerlines, they keep on flashing, flashing by

and we keep driving into the night
it's a late goodbye, such a late goodbye
and we keep driving into the night
it's a late goodbye

your breath, hot upon my cheek, and we crossed, that line
you made me strong, when I was feeling weak, and we crossed, that one time
screaming stop signs, staring wild eyes, keep on flashing, flashing by

and we keep driving into the night
it's a late goodbye, such a late goodbye
and we keep driving into the night
it's a late goodbye

the devil grins from ear to ear when he sees the hand he's dealt us
points at your flaming hair, and then we're playing hide and seek
I can't breathe easy here, less our trail's gone cold behind us
till' in the john mirror you stare at yourself grown old and weak

and we keep driving into the night
it's a late goodbye, such a late goodbye...

Face of a Revolution

she looked at him
though young,
scarcely aware of sorrow
she understood

he looked, alone
at the white stones
as they covered the departed
and his face hardened against pain

little hands tugged at his garments
holding a little violet flower
and in that moment
the soft young face melted his heart

even in his final hour
the face, though older
comforted him, reassured him
for freedom was nigh

Freedom of Expression

the jailers stood firm
they had spoken; none would come out
their host's will almost broken
in the prison of the mind they tarried

the longing pulls the host asunder
pain of expression denied
sucked down the whirlpool of silence
to the bottom of hushed oblivion

the host with a trembling hand
seeks the quill of freedom
a doorway to the world of speech
but the haunting silences dim the words out

in the desert of the quashed
she came to me in the light
her gift the golden sand of metaphoric sophistication
and philosophic imagination

freedom was thus granted to the stifled
and they poured down the quill of freedom
smothering dry parchment with the expression
of words much like poetry

Dark Titan

macabre intrusions,
the variety baneful,
stench of dungeon rust,
an incessant sound of trickles.

its avarice though rabid,
trapped by twin walls
tames it to definition,
traps it by constriction.

it would be lex talionis, it swears—
seething in anger
towards pompous bearers of the resplendent
whose iron encumbers it.

but for a chance it had ignored of Prometheus,
the ruse seamless, flawless,
light under the cover of shadow,
and they struck at the opportune moment...

thundering roars ended in whimpers,
'the Dark Titan is fallen!' they sang,
ire mutated into rage
the lucent robbing it of its majestic cloak.

it had to return,
balance had been upset,
with light they oppress—
their days unoccupied by duels with darker forces.

they taunted it,
and its strength and will grew,
its umbrage tore the earth open,
and hades welcomed it home.

Among the Bodies

by Jerome Hambrick

Among the bodies of the humid night
Are brave souls left to fight
These are the ones they couldn’t save
The steaming jungle shall be their only grave
Snuffed out by lords of war
There’s one left to even the score
Pushing her way up through the walls of flesh
She goes on to face the final test
Taking what weapons they left behind
She salutes to her friends one last time
Finding their village that very night
She prepares herself for the final fight
While inside they’re having a feast
She rushes in attacking the beast
Shot by one, the only that survived her raid
Pulls the pin of her last…grenade.

ORDER (Revisited)

This particular poem started out as nothing more than a conversation between my cousin and I. We were discussing the belief, which most people hold to be true, that there exists a correlation between the manner in which one keeps their home and the order that inevitably seems to follow in one's life.

I must respectfully disagree with the proverb, however. For no matter that I've managed to keep order within my home, the outside world refuses to be swayed by my influence.

ORDER



need flows—
swift staccato beats, a jazzy trumpet piece—
through the vault like chambers
of my mournful heart.
which in turn sings of its despair—
a quivering contralto, notes sustained longer
than their normal duration (a fermata placed over each)
a song which tells of the lack of symmetry,
the lack of a mode of proper arrangement
for the poor state of affairs my life is in—
telling of my desire for order.

fear, of never accomplishing this task,
grips me in relentless measures—
a composition to be played forte
(which leaves one gasping and overwhelmed
at the crest, at the crescendo—
driving unmercifully home
the fact that I am steward
to two of the next generation,
son and daughter of vivacious spirit,
and that they require a solid foundation
to build upon.

but while fear
is a masterfully written piece
that resonates throughout,
determination flounders
and is rarely heard or felt
beyond the threshold of my inner sanctum—
place I frequently visit and stand
before my reflection, manner critical,
bleating sharp reviews, often scathing remarks.
I cannot seem to find the method
necessary for acquiring order.

all that is left is to accept the path
trodden well by others.
sacrifice must come again in great number
for rewards that are as grains of sand,
insignificant when they are but a few.
the time will come, however,
when determination is a powerful sound—
a concerto of unwavering movements,
a definitive fork that marks the place
where I can finally veer off course
and plot a route that is all my own.

~ Wamuhu Mwaura, posted on Words Much Like Poetry April 27, 2008

Note: This is a revision; the originally posted version of this poem has been unavailable to readers for approximately three months now. Apologies to those who've come across the "Page not found" message. It is now available.

Image: Sheet, Piano Public Domain.com

3 A.M. Lament (Revisited)

I cannot take any true credit for the following poem, despite that I authored it, it seemingly crafted itself. I began writing it with the intent of telling the story of a widow who nightly mourns the presence of her lost loved one upon the lonely extent of her empty bed. Instead, what poured forth onto the page became part of a series of poems that I termed "a little exorcise".

It is a favorite of mine simply because it set a standard for my poetry; every piece that has come after it has been measured against it. For the most part, I feel that I've managed to keep in line with the amount of self-reflection and imagery contained in this piece. I've revised it somewhat (betrayal though that might be to whatever muse gifted me with the inspiration for it); I feel that it flows better in this new form.

3 A.M. Lament



thoughts, virulent in nature,
flit with the delicacy of butterfly wings
through that which is the seat of my thoughts
this exasperation is aimed at none other than myself—
once again, I’ve come in for a share of a rapacious interlude,
which has left me somewhat sated, and disrupted for a spell
the perpetual season of my anger.
and, with the conclusion of our rarely practiced distraction,
there is now, within you, a sense of righteous dominance,
an assumption that I have yielded to your brand of careless love
and that guilt has no residence in the streets of your conscience.

but guilt ought have a comfortable shelter,
an extravagant domicile even,
in the vicinity of your soul.
for the era of my pique,
a frigid winter of seemingly incalculable years,
was begun by the first strike you laid in smarting fashion
upon the softly rounded curve of my cheek.
o, curse the inanity of my sense of judgment,
curse my misguided faith in the bonding of the human form,
I knew, I knew!

at the commencement of the affair,
I knew that there was to you a savageness—
your temper flashes made of your eyes
a moisture bereft plain,
whereupon a wildfire spreads and blazes intensely.
(but I thought, too, that you were civil enough
to reign in your violent tendencies
thought that within you there was to be found
a measure of esteem for those who are fairer,
often weaker in the sense of the physical.
I reasoned that since woman, as I, gave birth to you
endured for you the terrible onslaught of labor,
reasoned that since woman, as I, tended you to her breast,
wasted herself to sustain you—).

a tear coasts a salty path down my originally insulted,
and continually offended, cheek.
I pull closer about me the widow’s weeds
my sheets and bedspread have become,
they mourn with me the extent of my naiveté,
for though the glacial fury has descended
and restarted whatever timepiece which tracks
the course of my enduring ire,
I tell myself that the hour of lamentation is done—
three a.m. has become four, time to sleep;
the babes will wake and they will need me,
or whatever pathetic creature it is that wakes—
angry and drawn from the nightly lament—
to a woeful existence
that is more than in her power to change.

~ Wamuhu Mwaura, posted on Words Much Like Poetry March 19, 2008

Note: The originally posted version of this poem has been unavailable to readers for approximately three months now. Apologies to those who've come across the "Page not found" message. It is now available.

Image: Thomas Burke, Andromache, Public Domain

Burden of History

---

by Kirill Coda

I look out onto the world and wonder
what it would be like not to plunder
or even buckle under,
under the weight of all my blunder
one's mind does ponder—
what if I could turn back time,
back to when I was at my prime
and maybe commit a victimless crime,
or I could just apologise...
But for what, I did what any man would do.
I listened to my words much like poetry,
much like the words of a decree,
no man would disagree,
that the burden of history
is the world's greatest misery.

Note: This poem was submitted to Words Much Like Poetry via our project on WEbook.

---

The Weight of Water

a swift turn, and salty tears find
the barricades I've constructed against them,
obstructions forged of altercations
with serrated blades wielded by burdens;
instead, for the homage I've paid them,
words much like poetry travel
the well rounded curvatures
that delineate my face.

as for the tears
(who've failed time and again in their attempt
to deluge my barriers, to wreak their own brand
of havoc upon me), I refuse to assign the weight
of that water any significance,
though fearsome it may be—mountains,
sturdier than I, have given way,
formed canyons to channel it
so that the world's grief might stream
steadily into Poseidon's cherished hold.

perhaps a day will come, a day when
that substance I hold back
finds its way around obstacles,
as water is wont to do.
until then, I shall drown in my words,
grant them leave to express my woes
in lieu of that which I have denied license.

Image: Ansel Adams, The Tetons (Snake River, Wyoming), Public Domain