Tag Archives: poems

Do You Believe In Magic?

Arthur C. Clarke once said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” We’re on the cusp of an era where people will no longer understand the technologies we have built from the ground up. They are now so complex that were you to ask a child today how a cellphone works, they might simply have no explanation other than that of magic. My generation may be the last to understand technology’s inner workings in any meaningful way, now giving rise to a society that is full of sorcerers rather than scientists. Imagine a world of science fiction. One where we fly on great space arks and control every aspect of reality simply by thinking. No one will know who built these machines or how they operate, just that they continue, always. You will find yourself surrounded by magic and splendor, finding no difference between the former and science any longer. Any notion of us having built these hulking, self-maintenancing, incredible wonders will have disappeared. We may become little more than medieval peasants worshipping great mechanical beasts that do the bidding of those savvy enough to claim their operation, though ignorant to the internal machinations all the same. None of us will live to see this potential future, but we are getting closer.

Transistor

It’s magic.

Don’t you know?

Every little arc and spark

Coursing through the board

Can’t help but find

Inside the mind

A billion little arks

Sailing through the dark

So complex

Are these effects

None of us remember

How it is they render

Those little magic words

Heart of Stone, Breast of Glass

So you’ve looked upon the very thing I spoke of before? So you’ve made the effort? You’ve seen this heart of stone and found it wanting? Wanting what? Where’s your answer? Where’s mine? I can’t tell you the right one, but I’ll certainly tell you one:

Alchemist

Songs float around my head

Think of words they’ve said

Lying wide awake

Transmute gold from lead

Many times you are warned

Many times we are torn

Pricking simple sentences

From the base of a thorn

From the heart, a sliver shorn

Ein Herz aus Stein

A heart of stone

Final patch’s been sewn

To hide away the chiseled heart so far from home

Sing your somber songs

Pray upon the peddled pillory

Climb inside the cold confessional

Not so private… not so safe

Between you and He

A bet you’re willing to make?

Challenge must you undertake.

If It Wasn’t For The Mist…

Good morning! I have a poem today that was inspired by something very dear to me. The one thing that may in fact be responsible for my accession to the title of “Writer”. Fee free to throw out guesses in the comments as to what I’m referencing. I read every one. Without further ado:

The Rite

Ticking tock

Countenance of the clock

In your hands a mirror

In your eyes, a watch

Sitting there

Something queer

What’s that? Just off the pier?

See so far away the light

Never sure in black of night

Whether you or vision’s right

Can’t tell

So overpowering, the smell

Coming from the swell

Pardon me

That’s just the sea

Though still you’ll have to pay the fee

Do you know the price?

Did you roll the dice?

Asking, asking… Not very nice…

To fear a feeling felt so foul

Makes you think to throw the towel

Please just now, secure the dowel

Composed before some ghastly sight

Hide yourself from trick and slight

Gather your things, prepare the rite

You Forgot To Remember

Good afternoon. I’ve forgotten something but I can’t remember what it was. Gone and forgotten. Dust and sand blow over the ruins of ancient ruins, ancient kingdoms. Jewels of the west, of the east, of the north, of the south. Petrified fossils of trees the only remnants of great forests where emperors hunted plentiful game. Where paramours sat by long-forgotten sparkling waters, lakes now hidden by the changing of dunes whose phantom iridescence eludes even the most dedicated explorers, so far removed from water these old bones now lie. I like to think that if I dig down far enough, I’d find those nobles hunting great game in their beautiful forests. I’d find those bustling cities overflowing with goods and frenzied merchants. Perhaps I’d even find those lovers still embracing on the banks of that crystalline lake.

Callback

So far, so well

Come and gone

Numb at the base

Tell me again

about the test case?

Today a day like any other

Today a day, just another

Upset your mother

Unseat your brother

How the tides of war shape you

Someday you’ll understand too

Fare thee well

Peer again into the swell

Find a gleaming agate still

Remember those pretty little stones

How those little hands held them

How those shining eyes beheld them

History forgets

But I remember

Every memory a painting

To each beloved, a sainting

Frère Jacques

Dormez-vous?

Sonnez les matines…

Wake up!

It is time to feed the machine.

Robinson Crusoe

Afternoon. Oftentimes I dream of the high seas. I am an adventurous spirit, an ambitious man. I sometimes forget how easy it is, how common it is, to be lost at sea. To be lost and never find your way again in that wide blue expanse. I grew up on stories of the Bermuda Triangle, Amelia Earhart, Captain Cook, etc. Adventurers and pioneers and even just regular old people losing their way and never being found again. What adventures they had. Having been lost myself, albeit in a more metaphorical sense, I have come to appreciate the ones who got lost even moreso. They take a path we don’t need to. Trailblazers one and all. Some day I think all those lost ones will be found again. No one is ever truly lost forever. Only waiting to be found.

Sacred Isle

Castaway

Shorn, torn apart and scorned

Tatters and rags

Beggars and dregs

Richest man on the island

Though the poorest so too

See how the stars aline

Blood omens line the sky

So allein, a sign!

Hoping to yourself it’s not a lie

Hereafter, maybe a beer after?

Hearing echoes in your laughter

Of your laughter

Bats and bugs hang from the rafter

Fair seas and fair winds

They’ve gone rusty, all your tins

Your hair’s getting long, friend

“Who’s speaking? Who’s that?”

“Oh.”

Just my head again

Little bug, little bug

How you run away…