A handful of probably ill-advised poems on varying topics that I wrote between January 2006 and July 2007. Enjoy?
1/18/06 “Five-Leaved Friend/Fiend”
Arising from the deep forest/Hidden in the dark recesses of ancient wilderness
The emerald majestic plant god/The mystic green plant waits for man to unleash him.
Burns for the pleasure of millions./Pandora’s box will not suffer itself to be shut.
1/18/06 “Detached”
All hope has long since failed,
Everything right has been derailed.
A train slithers into the dark midnight,
An atrocity devouring all things in sight.
Where this snake goes, no soul can reveal.
This vile journey, my life it will steal.
1/18/06 “Perils of Education”
An arduous task to bear this weight on my shoulders,
My mind viciously strained, pushing vast boulders.
Painstakingly taught so information I can recite,
Discussion avoided, no applications in sight.
This system is flawed, to the benefit of none.
True intelligence shunned, no gain when done.
I toil to prepare for an alarming world ahead.
Alas, what should be helpful is useless instead.
1/18/06 untitled
Hateful leaders pursue unjust causes in a nefarious manner.
The populace watches on in silence as thousands weep.
The silence is deafening.
1/19/06 “What, Am I A Loser?”
So near is the person who calls himself seer.
The peer who will cause so many a fear.
A tear will roll down my cheek as I leer.
At the deer who stares me down as I steer!
On the road I turn and make a quick veer.
To miss a steep cliff, walls are so sheer.
It’s clear to me that my life has been dear.
To all who crowd around and do sneer.
1/22/06 “How Do I Fit In?”
I want to say so many hard things,
I only hope for what tomorrow brings.
She looks at me with a frown on her face,
It tells me that I need to find my real place.
More than anything I want her to enjoy
This life and leave sorrow for this boy.
Her smile radiates like the stars of night,
She shows it, I feel like I could take flight.
Please let me know just what I can do,
So I can see that smile and take it from you…
(I’ll try to give it back)
1/22/06 “Broken”
There once were good times, I have to admit.
Though what’s happened since obscures it.
I always fell for your gentle charms,
You could never help falling asleep in my arms.
Even our fights, though they were rare
Were moments with you I enjoyed to share.
Those times created the melancholy feeling
My mind held when you left for Darjeeling.
You took my fragile heart and flew far away.
Promised to love me again someday.
I couldn’t bear to see you leave me,
But in the end I knew that it must be.
Still I loved you and could not change,
Tried to move on but felt it so strange.
I wanted you back but you would not submit.
It wrenched my heart but I weathered it.
We thought of days past and it seemed we both sighed
It was only much later I found out that you lied.
You said I was still the only one in your life,
But your lies became clear, to my heart like a knife.
I forgave you so many times for your wrongs
But you tore my heart out and stole my soul’s songs.
The love I once gave away without any fear
Could no longer be reached, was no longer near.
Happy was I, and so little felt wrath,
But now to my heart I can’t find the path.
I’ve given you up; you’re out of my mind.
But the lock and key to my heart I can’t find.
I’ve found someone new, who cares more than you.
So how do I find the closed doors and pry to?
1/30/06 “Density…Destiny”
This life is not controlled by fate, or directed by any preconceived destiny. Rather, I walk my own path and no force but my will determines the choices i will make.
2/3/06 “Find Me”
Who knows what new search for it finds
With friendship antiquity it often binds.
Innocence makes it easiest to gain,
Loss of it inevitably begets pain.
Lucky children have it ever to savor,
Most blessed of parents can return the favor.
Psychoactives do not in fact increase it.
Precision guides it to bottomless pit.
In weak heads it will never be found.
Nay, the thing is trodden on ground.
Control it and gain most powerful of arts,
It carelessly smites the mightiest of hearts.
Naiveté may cause effort to leave it unused
Without it the psyche is no less abused.
2/21/06 “Let Me In”
I look in your eyes and lose all my might.
I could never wish for a lovelier sight.
I guess I can’t promise you anything,
But if you ask, for you I would sing.
I just want to be the one always there;
Through toil and pleasure to see your heart bare.
Where I’m headed, what I’ll be,
I don’t know
I just know I want you with me,
When I go.
12/20/06 Civilized
Barreling through space at
nine million times the speed of sound.
Time can not be bound with so hasty a pace;
the craft is unbridled by size shape and mass. None
watch the ship pass stars planets and particles unrestrained
by the invisible forces Sir Newton maintained.
Hybrid polymers separate its passengers
from a vacuum and the magnetic
forces of wormholes of doom
At fore things are bustling
Captain shouts orders from his chair.
Midshipmen are hustling
From station to concourse to lair.
One man has a mission, an order to deliver
He strikes out on a journey,
the ship spans a mile.
With twisting corridors and anterooms;
a labyrinth of tile.
It’s a jaunt of a week, or a day if he’s lucky.
But his stay will be short; arrive and then flee.
At aft things are secret, and brutalities commence. Poor men pour lives into indentures of servitude in the luxury ship, hoping to get ahead, hoping for cheap transport hence. Few survive the journey. The engine rooms spell danger. Virulent radiation pours out of gray engine housings onto the impoverished and needful. They draw straws for the next to perish. Attempts at escape are met with sanguinary vengeance. The area smells of blood, of sweat, of foul flesh.
Up in the control room the Captain grabs his mic
“The Andromedous Nebula is coming up soon.
All passengers look out to starboard if you like.”
He leans back and smiles as he thinks,
Ah, to be civilized…
Thank Science, thank Science.
1/7/07
The only one who invades my dreams
Not controlled, unfair it seems
That I endure such daily pain
I wonder often if I’m still sane
Now I think you’re of like mind
Now for naught I think I’ve pined
So close to me yet always so far
Friendship that I am afraid to mar
2/2/07
I lie here dreaming, me
A wet paper fantasy
Hopes up, hopes down
Heart kicked around
Still I await
Faith is my fate.
7/10/07
We’re here in our spaces,
Making our own way.
Trying to find our places,
With future bills to pay.
What leads the quest
Into the great unknown?
Can faith carry us forth
Or love set the tone?
We look ever onward,
Without care for the now.
But here is where we are,
And we avoid it somehow.
So little care for the people
Who mold and shape us
And disdain for the events
That comfort and save us
We overlook the vital
Times we should savor,
And look ever onward
Avoiding present labor.
So doomed are we who look
To the future for reason.
Until we pause and find
That present’s the season.
benknauff 