Oh Captain My Captain

  I used to think success Was fireworks at night The dark of discontent Extinguished in the light It was burning red and violent blues Victorious celebration A mess of bold and haughty hues Demanding adoration  It was everything you’d ever want  Captured in a flash Dispelling doubts who used to haunt questions you used to ask  It was combusting in an air joy In a burst of sudden power  Emboldened with a courage bought  With your explosive hour  But it’s not Instead Success is quiet footsteps On a dark and winding road Tired circles, weary breaths A symphony of groans It’s the wishing wishing wishing To turn back and go no farther  The quiet resolution To keep climbing ever higher  It's not captured in a flash of chance  But in a series of decisions  To believe that you can enhance The gifts that G-d has given  The journey to the mountain top Is paved with jagged boulders Its falling from a windy peak  With a load upon...

You would love the girl i used to be She was so much kinder and wiser than me But Somewhere along the way she was shot in the heart And it sprung from the carcass; something dark and wrought  So I sit in the desolate mess of my fear Riddled with riddles i'm afraid to go near Like why I stopped striving for things that I want Or why my nights have been stolen by ghosts who dare haunt Every corner of cobwebs and decay in my mind If these riddles have answers they’re beyond me to find The girl before me was so easy to please Give her purpose and worth and she was at ease But the creature she left is a gaping wide hole Needlessly needy in search of a soul  T aking and taking and never satisfied I hate this creature and wish it could die  But it’s latched to my body my mind and my soul Infesting my joy with doubt ill be ever whole Where do we end, this creature and me? Do we begin and will we unbe?  As I sit in shadow of the valley of doubt I fear incompletion and wonder ...

  I suddenly feel much older today Ancient, In a strange way I cannot name Although His title is not mine to say I’ve learned that I am only His to claim   My young summer begins to feel a chill An autumn scent hangs heavy in the air My bones slowly begin to creak and still I know some scars are now beyond repair   It’s strange. I had not felt His hand before In my wild and early days of spring Foolishly thought I was meant for more Now I see He is what my seasons bring   When I was young, forever was all mine Yet I’ve fallen victim to ruthless Time  

  The foolish flower born in May Can have no knowledge of decay With popping petals made to last The endless future that it has While lounging in the fallen dew It knows of only “spring” and “new” Fresh rebirth and young glossy green Stem and leaf linger in sunlit dream And even as the air turns hot  The flower never dreams of rot Only of long and lazy days  What else exists but sunny haze? Yet decay stalks it phantomwise Withered winters hide decayed July’s How Spring forgets that all must die  So lost in golden Genesis 

I found my friend dead under The Apple Tree today His body was so still and cold, yet from what I couldn’t say He lay beneath the branches. Not a breath left in his chest So still and unassuming, it’s as though he is at rest I wonder what he tried to take for death must be the price Wanting the knowledge of the tree cost Eve her very life So what did my friend want from the Apple Tree And was the root of his desire enough to tempt me? We were so alike, he and I And though he failed perhaps I could try- No! Be gone temptation from the darkest corner of my soul I banish you to where my thoughts have no right to go. But as I see him lying there I can not help but think Did he die under The Apple Tree because he was too weak? I am so very strong and not at all like him When I seek to achieve I only start what I can win Perhaps I can be better when I reach for what the fruit Can grant me in prosperity all I have to do is choose To not end up dead and cold beneath the leafy branch If not now...