It Follows

My eyes roam skyward, sailing East
and, though a week can seem a moon,
when senses, on such beauty, feast
the night will pass away too soon.

My soul is drawn, when sailing west,
to more than I can, safe, absorb,
I am, by heaven's grace, possessed,
enraptured by an ancient orb.

It follows that a moonlit sky
would call your memory to mind
no matter where my roving eye,
no matter where you are. I find

that, love, the distance can't eclipse,
I feel you heart-- if not your lips.

If One

If you are gone and I am left
or else the other way—
if one is, of a love, bereft
to face the break of day,

then one heart wakes to God’s own light;
the glorious unfurled,
and one, the bitter end of night;
a cold and lonely world.

Which one of us will live alone?
My love, what does it matter?
With one name etched in marble stone
the other’s heart will shatter.

~ © 2006 By: W.D. Neighbors ~

When Rhyme Has Passed

I think I’ll think outside the bag
and write between the verses.
I’ll stiff them when they call for sag
and act while they rehearses.

I know I’ll live outside the land
of rules and lengthy speeches.
I’ll, findng rhythm, tune my hand
when free is what they preaches.

I’m anti-poet, since you asked,
inside the lines I’ll not.
And chances are, when rhyme has passed,
my verse they’ll long forgot.

 by: thewebsailor at: 1/15/04 11:56 pm

Tapestry

In tribute to the grace of loving long
I offer this to you in threads of rhyme –
A layered quilt of life, a silk sarong,
our tapestry – eternal, spun from time.

The narrow, cobbled, stony street we saw
where players danced and sang in days of yore
has yet to touch this lovers feet. In awe
I realize that now I love you more.

A piece of steel upon a knap of flint
can strike a spark that will, with luck, ignite,
we came together as if heaven meant
to purge for good the dark abyss of night.

A conscious thought, a choice, or cupid’s call--
you are my only love-- you are my all.

The Flow of Time

The flow of time is always cruel…

Like wintertime molasses.

I'm older now and such a fool…

I don’t know where my ass is.

(okay...its stilly....I don't care)...lol..... it is a "draft"....which means it can look silly while I continue to work on it until it either makes sense...or I quietly delete it.

A Well of Hope

I’m crazy for other reasons
but I so love a storm
from here inside my comfort zone,
with coffee, safe and warm.

And I believe in kiss for kiss
instead of tit for tat...
that dreams are love’s reality,
can you imagine that?

Our words are tools of verity
and verse extends our scope;
the heart’s a harbor built for love;
the soul, a well of hope.

All things being equinox

Magical balance in equinox lives,
if spring or the ending of summer.
Autumnal or vernal, the feeling it gives
is antipathetic of bummer.


I’m hating the solstices, bulging at ends,
unequal in daylight and lack of.
I’m loving the spring and the cool autumn winds
that summer just hasn’t the knack of.

Rhythm, circadian, charges in pools
of equally lengthy partitions.
The solsticey seasons appeal to those fools
encumbered by blind inhibitions.

Autmnal and vernal and solstices, props
and sets of the solar position...
to let us know when to be plantin' our crops
and tell us when we should go fishin'.

Dateline

Time Travel from the perspective of a sailor crossing the international dateline...

The Scholars made a circle out of time,

divided it in pieces like a pie.

Assigned to it a rhythm (not a rhyme)

and threw it, like a net, around the sky.

But Earth does not a perfect circle make.

Imaginary lines do not lie true

so pieces of our lives we must forsake

to hold it all together as we do.

All time will push against a Sailor's bow

when heading from tomorrow on his way...

and when he sails the other way, somehow,

it steals from him a piece of his today.

Knights of the Breakfast Table

Said the knight to the dragon, "I'll lop off your head
and, foregoing breakfast, eat dragon instead."
Said the dragon, "You dreamer, you haven't a clue
I've hardly been trying, I'm toying with you."

And the battle resumed with sword and with flame;
the combatants concerned more with fortune and fame
than with dodging the heat or avoiding a thrust...
these equals in battle, their skills did they trust.

With a sword made of poems, a shield made of hope
here's a modern day dreamer so far out of scope
as to wish himself thither, to there he'd be willed...
to win a fair maid when the dragon he's killed.

"Don't meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!"

Axle

Time is many wheels revolving slowly
along a central spine,
an axle. Is it accident or holy
this universal line?

The stars exist in circles never-ending,
arrayed in common space.
The paradox? The view of time depending
upon the viewers pace.

The Earth and her companion form an axis,
an ordinary wheel.
Man, and this is where the parallax is,
has pride enough to feel...

that time and space revolve around his need,
the need to understand.
And, strangely, time now seems to be, indeed,
unfolding as if planned.

Beauty in the Beast

She might have seen the beauty in the beast
who prayed for her attention for so long.
She might have heard his pretty words, at least,
if only he had written them in song.

There lived a silent poet underneath
the muted suit of armor that he wore,
but only at its death did love bequeath
the nerve to write what wasn 't said before.

A never-written sonnet is a waste.
To hold the tongue of love is near a sin.
The sweetest words acquire the vilest taste
when seasoned with a love that might have been.

His poetry, his eloquence and light,
is wasted on the cold and lonely night.

Moonlight

From the dish of the gentle breeze
moonlight butters the night.
air as soft as a baby's breath
sweet as a young girls sigh.