Monthly Archives: February 2016

Bikini Atoll, July 1946

The verdant waves of oceans green
Break cross the rolling golden dunes,
And every star, dreaming to be seen
Arrives to break the evening’s gloom.

The salty fragrance of the sea,
Finer than any censer scented
To raise up thoughts, to never be,
To never dance with discontentment.

To float across the whole wide ocean,
A million sunsets passing by;
How joyous to be in perpetual motion,
Subject to only the whims of the tide.

As the rainbow fractures on the water,
And the splintered colors bleed into one,
Heaven’s light passes from father to daughter
Who could ever cry for a setting sun?

Oh luminous Luna! must you always leave
So soon? In this the most beautiful season,
Which grants to the weary a moment’s reprieve,
From the restless restraints of faulted reason.

The sparkling fairies who attend their queen,
And paint her fancies across the sky,
Though by day they are as dreams unseen,
But never far from my mind’s eye.

Once, awoken from a serene sleep,
I found I’d washed up on an isle,
And soon had deemed that I should keep
This place to make my home for awhile.

At night my heart beats with the rhythmic tide,
And in unison sings with the luscious moon,
Like a silver crystal dancing in the sky,
Whose beauty can cause any man to swoon.

Now this island, but scarcely a mile wide,
Was ringed round with sand, but past the beach
The trees grew so dense that the rolling tide,
Their silent perimeter never could breach.

One day I decided to speak with the sky,
Though speckled with clouds, I began to climb
Past the canopy ‘til I could finally spy,
Out past the reaches of powerless time.

In every direction, the tangerine sea
Spread slow without end, for a minute I waned,
As the world did in turn, and with me did breathe;
For a while we kept up our silent refrain.

Then lying down on the vibrant leaves,
To wait for my love (dear Luna) to fill
Once more my eyes, on this carpet of trees,
I wait though she tests all the strength of my will.

But as evening came on, instead of the moon,
The sun seemed to burst in the violet sky,
And the world turned to white – much too fast – much too soon,
And across all the ocean I could hear their cries.

I watched as fair Eden withered away,
As the golden sand became black and fell,
All the dreams of my life disappeared in a day,
I watched my Eden transformed into Hell.

Perhaps we are bound to eternal return,
And to following life’s inexorable thrust,
But as Luna and Eden and I came to learn,
All the beauty in life turns to naught but dust.

Full of Tears

In my life I have seen but never known,
Those people who seem to have forgotten
How to cry and weep and still be grown,
For such a sin it would be to have shown;
A sin against what? False masculine pride
Has broken the lost son who wished to cry,
For behind that fair visage of joy and cheer,
Don’t you know that that man is full of tears?

Everyday I keep bottled in my chest,
A scream and a wail: for what, I can’t say;
For all I’ve been left with since you’ve been gone:
A handful of memories to pass along,
And a bucket or box of rain for keeps,
The shattered pictures of tomorrow weep,
Gazing in the mirror, nothing is clear,
The wellspring of my heart is full of tears.

Is it as with the most acidic rain?
Would it burn the ground where stumbling, my feet
Thoughtlessly go and patter a refrain,
Drown out the ceaseless echoes of my brain;
For what type of man should I wish to be?
One whom it is never said to be seen,
As one who has known the hopes and the fears
Of mortal men, so weak and full of tears.

So alone I walk, afraid to project:
I saw a man with the face of a god,
Head held high, as if he had to protect,
Each and every rag that covered his neck;
I’ve never been one to self-actualize,
And I’ve never been one to wear a disguise;
His eyes flit away as soon as they draw near,
Afraid to recall the blessing of tears.

I watch my screen pixelate; afraid to
Release and let the dam be broken; the
Pressure builds and builds, I can feel it, too,
In the speckled starry skylines where blew,
The astral dust of dreams now forgotten,
I never thought this could really happen,
I don’t remember before; now I fear,
I’ll never be free of these cursed tears.

Across the auld wide ocean, where the rain-
Bows are fractured by the cresting brine, and
The turquoise sky waits for pale night to wane,
The tide always keeps its boundless refrain,
In the grotto where dwelling, I try to
Escape in the passage of time, I pool
Up the blind hours spent toiling for fear
That no god left us this ocean of tears.

Escaping I find, in the void unbound
That each star that I visit has its own song,
And though no ears will ever hear a sound,
In the endless vacuum of space I’ve found,
The company meant for those who alone
Through life have wandered and finally outgrown,
The broken armor which long trapped them here,
Whose eyes can no longer make any tears.