February 14, 2011 by thegnosticpoet.

“It’s always darkest e’re the dawn.
I swear your dawn will have its worth,”
She scrawled upon the wall and ran.
I looked upon the dripping words,
Blacker black on a blackened wall,
And wondered why my wyrd was here
Not where I’d thought for good and all.
But destiny is always queer,
Not caring where we’d go or why
Nor lighting paths to show the way
But bounding us like hedges high,
We blind beggars who shun the day.

Bitter herbs and bitter tonics:
How would we shun them if we could?
Yet sometimes they’re the doctor’s orders
So we take them as we should.
I, like a horse recalcitrant,
Have pulled the wagon where I would,
Again the master takes my reins
And turns me back into the wood
Whose dark and twisted shapes still leer
And reach above to block off sun.
Perhaps beyond this darkened passage
Waits the brightness to be won?

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April 11, 2010 by thegnosticpoet.

I write in hints of shadows where
The passion cowers, peeking out,
A child amongst the grown-up legs.
The suicide is not on stage,
The ardor of ten thousand days,
The flesh that presses softer flesh,
The dagger drawn to rip and tear,
The arguments with rending clothes,
Invisible for all to see.
And what is left between the words?
Just paper, white, untouched, unmarred.
The conjuror will cast his spell
To find the only one he’s fooled
Looks back at him within the glass.

Posted in Blank Verse, Iambic Tetrameter | Print | 1 Comment »

February 9, 2009 by thegnosticpoet.

How many watch the greatest play
All in their seats they listen, still,
The while we actors do our will
To miss our cues and waste the day?
But will they close their eyes to us
When scenes are private by our wish?
Or like voyeurs, is this the dish
That stays their eyes upon our lust?
Or when they breathed was it enough
To live those lives both sweet and rough,
And we, the actors who remain,
But play to emptiness in vain?
I’d rather think the hall is bare.
I need none there to watch me here.

Posted in Sardine, Line Pattern, Iambic Tetrameter | Print | No Comments »

July 11, 2007 by thegnosticpoet.

I thought, and then I moved the stars.
They clinked and tinkled as I stretched
To shuffle them about, and Mars,
With baleful glare, the hostile wretch,

He marshaled planets for a war.
But Sol commanded them, “No more!”
And back they went to placid sleep
To graze their orbits, bashful sheep.

Posted in Iambic Tetrameter, Rispetto, Poetic Forms | Print | No Comments »