To Feel

I, light of foot and dark of thought,
give in before the tide
and clutch the pain I, “sigh”, forgot,
the dread I feel inside.

Embracing fear that’s still around
from heartbreaks out of mind,
I bare my chest. Of truth, I’ve found,
I like the naked kind.

Love is a loss I’ll reinvest,
I’ll wager soul and shirt.
To feel the love, I find it best
to reinstall the hurt.

Bluewater Ink

A deep water Sailor
with far away dreams,
his lover of flowers
and cold mountain streams,
moved nearer to heaven
the closer to be.
Their river of love runs
away from the sea.

Where eagles go wheeling
with power and grace
o’er shimmering aspens
in meadows of lace,
what stars will they reach for,
what thoughts will they think
on high mountain paper
with blue water ink?






Posted by Dean Neighbors at 4/14/2005 09:45:00 PM

Reflections (for Marty)

Having spent time with my "rock hound/UFOlogist" brother in law and his family...

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In darkened desert peaks
imagination seeks
to find the ancient faces in the stone…

and “want to see it eyes”
search water-mirrored skies,
in wonder, for reflections never shown.

An object in the lake,
in helpless double take,
escapes from unidentified to known...

the visitors from space,
in alabaster lace,
are beams the moon has spilled for you alone.

Pieces of Thought

I build them with pieces of thought that I’ve found without much revealing the meaning. While formless appearing they’re really quite round so I seldom send them for cleaning. They’re aren’t any chalk lines defining my field so I always swing for the bleachers. In spite or redemption, I harvest my yield, the finest I brew for my teachers. They stumble, my sonnets, my ballads take trips, my "ambics" have too many digits. While some are off honing with diamond tips I’m home building whatzits and widgets… with meaningless phrases and bits strung along... like old Dr. Seuss wrote a Bob Dylan song.

Jacob's Ladder

“And he dreamed,
and behold, a ladder set up on the earth,
and the top of it reached to heaven;
and behold the Angels of God
ascending and descending on it.”

~Genesis 28:12



An adolescent fool, I made mistakes
and, each time, thought that I was the inventor.
A talent for disaster’s all it takes
to gather damage fore and aft of center.

I suffer with the best. My broken heart
is permanent. With each new scar I crow,
“I hurt, therefore I am”… not quite Descartes,
but accurate enough as slogans go.

I’m older now, and wear my scars with pride,
they represent a mortal Jacob’s ladder.
No Angel, I ascend, eyes open wide
and choose to be the wiser not the sadder.

The sum of all those scars stands, strong, before you.
So, “shrink” me if you must, I’ll just ignore you.


© 2003 W.D. Neighbors

The Music

Poetry's the music
that was playing in my heart
right at the beginning
of the ending from the start,

long, cascading verses
to express a single thought,
freely given secrets for which,
once, I would have fought...

philosophizing, prophesizing,
boldly telling lies,
romantic inspirations
wrapped in wishes sealed with sighs,

memories of miseries,
imaginary love,
wanderings and wonderings
and magic from above,

prejudices, urgent kisses,
honesty and myth,
pain and pretty, joy and ugly
whipped until they're stiff.

Poetry is equal parts of joy
and primal fears,
half completed verses
seen through veils of poets tears,

brightly painted shadows
from the dungeon known as me,
imaginary imagery
that's absolutely free.

Echo

He lives within the shadow of a dream
and hides when a reality comes near.
But shadows aren’t as harmless as they seem
for deep within the darkness lives the fear
that ghosts can be of substance in the soul,
that dreams can turn to nightmares on demand.

To bolster his imaginary role,
with manufactured bravery he'll stand
to shout his sweetest nothings to the wind,
as if to test his non-existent bond.
Although he knows her life will never end,
he’s so afraid his love will not respond...

he shouts “I love you” just for the reply
and hopes the echo doesn’t reckon why.

I Dream

I dream in iambic
I mumble in verse
for Will was my teacher
and Em was my nurse.

My quill dips in fountains
of eloquent ink
and beautiful etchings
for Poe was my shrink.

I farmed with my Tennyson
planting the seed,
I studied my Cummings
(old e.e.), indeed…

“anyone lived” is a
poetry force…
and as for my Kipling,
I’ve kipled, of course.

I’ve mingled and mangled
with many a bard,
I will be a poet
it can’t be that hard.

WIllows

I hope this isn't too cryptic for everyone but me.... When first I conjured magic with my tongue, for Wednesday morning rain and afternoon, I tried to save their innocence. But, young, the words confused as ears were out of tune. I warned of hidden dangers and, in truth, I preached from under trepidation’s veil, that blame may get a pardon while in youth then, older, serve a term in private hell. The worst was this, my crystal, clear and true, would prove to be a seer lagging none. And, yet, with final curtain now in view my truths seem little matter, lacking one, as sure as willows bow in troubled wind… I've loved my children well from end to end.

1-8-04

Watermarks

this is what happens to me when I am having trouble coming up with things to write about...... I get all crazy and turn out stuff like this...

So blocked you are again a fool,
personifying down.
A graduate of nothing school;
a makeup without clown.

So write what down inside you lives,
though hard it is to do.
Write verses your behind you gives,
a little past of you.

If share you do your broken dreams,
a healing you will know.
Much better pain not hidden seems,
be not afraid to show.

Release emotions from your head,
like pistons from a steam.
Escape they will if held instead,
like poets from a scream.

Write backwards if it calms the rage,
face gallantry with fears.
The watermarks upon this page,
they be the poet's tears.

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.

For 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.

Tugs At My Heart

I write a manifest, a boatswain's list,
a log of all the promises I've made
to no one but myself. I raise a fist
defiantly to life. But I'm afraid

of weighing anchor, getting underway,
of challenging Posiedon under sail
of running with a squall at break of day
while praying that the rudder doesn't fail.

Yet, I will use the navigator's art
to plot a course through islands of despair,
and I will trust the compass of my heart
to choose a heading caution wouldn't dare.

The promise of a voyage yet to be
will tug the weary sailor out to sea.