The Dormant Soul

 
Nothing stirs within
In the hours I depart
Thoughtlessly roving

Among
Patches of green
Cradling
Their newborn
Springtime shades

I am boxed in
Bound to eternal grey
Trudging through
Its lifeless and hollow refrain

How I yearn to be winded
Truly, devoid of words
To be fully engulfed
By the agony of raw emotion

I must
Reclaim exhilaration
Or wither
Starved, frail, and forgotten

Ragtime Anthems

 
I revel in the fond gusts
Of cherished refrains
Penned long ago

As the notes flare
And soar to their prime
Meeting the fervor
Of decades lost

My mind toils peacefully
Beneath the waterline
Of ragtime anthems

My mind trudges assured
And sparks a frenzy
Inside my quiet marrow

Day's Spent Floundering

Beneath snow-capped ranges
Upturned and forgotten
By daybreak we meet
With the same desolate glare

I stir unfulfilled
As a waning sliver of youth
A disheveled wanderer
Marooned, to the contours of home

Where voices rage
Like iron-clad beasts
Trading the horrors
That fester violently within

Words arch hatefully
As I wade for hopeful shores
From the river’s eternal chorus
Where I flounder
Time after time

Man of the Heart

 Through the broadened day
He wanes
Defiled by downward gazes
Seemingly high
But, lowly in the sharp eyes of truth

Even in its hateful midst
The heart of him,toils onward
Feasting upon the treasures
That gracefully trickle out of his mind

He is the prisoner of sensation
Shrouded in relief
And elated in its presence
He is the scholar of the mad
Searing beneath his bones
With a motive of deathly erosion

But one fine day
He will brandish victory
Buried beneath his arm
And carted to the soil he has dubbed home

Fit in his own form
He'll display his spectrum of emotion
For he is the man of the heart
Detested by many
And treasured by far too few