Without

3/1985

Love without love is a clouded glass
is a childhood dream, is an adult fear.
Love without love is a pleasurable state
without the problems and pain of love.

Life without life is depressing and cold
violent and sad, brought on by lonliness.
Life without life is a troublesome trap
never escaping, just going in circles.

Hate without hate is an envious state
is a lover’s thorn, is a broken date
is an evil state. Hate without hate
is a motive to kill when love is at stake.

Death without death is a obsession with grief
is a sad response to a lost dear one.
Death without death is pain enough.
Let go of the grief, you’ve suffered enough.

———————————————-

The original poem had one more stanza which I’ll reproduce below, but now (20 something years later) I think it makes it a little too obvious.

So the last stanza is:

Love without love is sex.
Life without life is depression.
Hate without hate is jealousy.
Death without death is mourning.

So, your thoughts? I think leaving out the last stanza is fine, but are the points obvious above without it? Curious to know what you think…

Winter is Gone

3/1984

Winter is gone
and life has not returned
replacing empty forests.

Memory is gone,
and emotions have run dry
leaving empty streams.

And empty streams and empty forests
give the world a pause for breath
before the sudden birth of spring.

Opinions

11/1984

Opinions have a way
of hurting those they touch
for never is a true
opinion kind, with love

For I may say, “I like it,”
but deep inside you know
that what I really mean
is that “It doesn’t go”.

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Another busy week getting ready for the school year to start again, and so no time to sit and write. I miss it!!! I hope to get back to writing this week, but in the meantime here is a little ditty about the position none of us love to be in: “So tell me, how does this look on me? Do you like it?”

Global Winds

7/11/1986

Here I sit on a rolling hill
as the global winds rush past me,
with an eagle’s view and an iron will
and the news that will not last me,
and I see the sound and I hear the sight
of a world that is in trouble,
for a single bomb and a nuclear night
will leave this world in rubble.

---

Ahhh… for the days when all a teenager need worry about was the end of the world in some kind of nuclear conflagration. So, wait, has anything really changed?

Not my best poetic effort by far (I like the first four lines much better than the last four), but not bad for a 16 year old.

“Give Me Strength” – More Song Lyrics

In honor of this week’s Poetry Thursday theme, I went back and dug up some song lyrics from “DEBE and the Unshakables” Greatest Hits (that never were). There is a sweet little tune that goes along with this one too.

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CHORUS
Give me strength, give me hope,
Give me something to hold on to.
Give me life, give me love,
Give me the stars above.

Seems I looked so far for you,
You were the only one I looked for.
And I knew you would be true,
You were the one for me.
Yeah, we had a perfect love,
It was the kind that others dream of,
We both thought that we’d go on
Loving forever

CHORUS
Give me strength…

Then we had a lot of fights,
Couldn’t see us both together,
Didn’t try to work it out,
Now we’re both all alone.
And so now, my separate love,
Love for you that won’t surrender
Is just trying to get through,
Through to your lonesome heart.

CHORUS
I’ll give you strength…

So now if these words of mine
Hit a secret hidden feeling,
Then you’ll know that in your mind
There is still love for me.
And if there’s something in your heart,
Something that still wants to hold me
Tell me that we’ll never part
Tell me that you’ll give…

CHORUS
You’ll give me strength…

Have You Ever?

11/14/1985 (revised and updated 8/1/2006)

Have you ever doused the lights
and really tried to see?
Have you ever just reached out,
and touching nothing, felt?

Have you ever tried to find
yourself among the lost?
Have you ever lived a lifetime
without a moment passing?

Can you find a place between
this moment and the next?
An empty space to fill
with stinging confidence?

Or are we doomed to fail
the passing test of time?
By passing through our day
immune to hidden moments?

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I have been away for a long time… Just haven’t had that much to say… But hopefully I’m back now…

Andrew, I miss you.

Questions

3/31/1983 (added stanzas 11/16/05)

I walk through the fields of your mind –
I live in the questions of your brain –
I fly over eternal clouds of knowledge –
I fall in the crystal of the rain.

I ride on the waves of many oceans –
I live on the salt in the sea –
I am every unanswered question –
in the unequal equality.

I feed on the embers burning lower –
I drink in the liquid of your tears –
I feast on the hunger of affliction –
I share in your hopes and darkest fears.

I shout when the agony and horror
I witness, become too much to see –
I am every unanswered question –
in the unequal equality.

I wait for the challenge of your question –
I thrill for the piercing of your doubt –
I answer with languid flowing rivers –
I withhold so you can go without –

I fashion the passing of the seasons –
I paint with the shadow of the tree –
I am every unanswered question –
in the unequal equality.

You wonder what maker winds the timepiece –
You ponder what power set the stars –
You question the nature of forgiveness –
You struggle, and thus you wear the scars –

Of those who would seek to know the answers –
To questions they cannot see to see.
I am every unanswered question
in the unequal equality.

When Life and Laughter Merge

4/1985

When life and laughter merge,
and lights and curtain rise,
the real world is put away
(and all is fantasized),

then comes the thrill and pleasure
of being on the stage,
and with them comes the treasure
of hearing the applause.

Then when the show is over
and curtain-call is done,
when off comes costume, make-up,
(and with them goes the fun

of pretending to be another),
and on goes real life.
But an actor never leaves it.
The theater is his life.

Red

6/1984

Roses blooming,
everywhere life flows
spreading a red light
over the earth.

Anger mounts,
cold scarlet rage
spreading a red light
over the earth.

Alarms ring,
the blush of panic on faces
spreading a red light
over the earth.

Crimson carnage,
bleeding on an open field
spreading a red light
over the earth.

Sunset, sunrise,
rosy in its deathly splendor
spreading a red light
over the earth.

Oppression

7/11/1986

I am seared by the heat,
I am chained to the street,
as the English walk on by.

I am down on my knees,
I am begging, “Please”,
but no English hear my cry.

I am dark, Indian
and for that I can’t win,
but a change comes soon, I spy.

And now those of this land
once oppressed will soon stand
and we’ll crush this hard English lie.

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Written about the British occupation of India and the toppling of the provincial government. This was an exercise written for a summer academic program called Governor’s School in Charleston, South Carolina (held on the grounds of the College of Charleston), which I attended the summer between my Junior and Senior years of High School (in 1986). I attended Wando High School in Mt. Pleasant, SC, so the C of C wasn’t far out of the way for me, but I grew so much that summer…