Month: January 2017

Balloon

I saw you drifting in a bright blue sky
A green beacon amidst calm waters
You beckon to me as you ascend
I reach and stretch to no avail
Your soft edges playfully hanging aloft
By any other I would have crumbled
Left with head hung low
But I fell victim
To your charm and levity
With impulsive force
I climed buildings and cliffs
Long lost ladders caked in rust
They creak as I chase you
At last I reach the apex
Where you’re in arms reach
I leap
My fingers brush against your form
They are met with the harsh truth
Your skin was not soft and warm
Rather, elastic and synthetic
Inside you were vacuous, save for lies
As I grip you we both begin to descend
Fate’s talons waiting for us both

So I let go
Let you drift away
Facing the pain I have sown
As I watch your colorful form
Fading into the clouds
Your vibrancy is lost
And thus is your substance
The lesson paid for
Is to know that hollow balloons
Are all best left to,
and eventually lost by,
children

-Galwyn

Storm

A storm rages without rhythm
Caring not for animals
Swirling remorseless
Delivering destruction

It swirls not from emotion
Not from wisdom
But from water and warmth
The hand and foot of geography

How can one escape the storm
Only from within
For we are creatures of water and warmth
Bound by our own geography

Come to me when it blusters
For we can be simple animals
Without direction or pacing
Hands waving
Feet stomping
Dancing in the eye of the storm

~Gawyn

Cudgels

I need fresh words to describe you
Not tainted or tarnished over time
Pale imitations end to end
Clear crystals going opaque
Turing to porous gray stone
We throw them around
Chipping them
Cracking them
Every once and a while finding a glimmer inside
And wasting it on unworthy lips
Heavy words
Dense and inky
Diluted and plastered on every wall
On 60 cent greeting cards
And crinkled bills
Love
Trust
Hope
All commodities
Extracting each diamond and selling it is if it were glass
Those with leaking hearts forced to drown in silence
Language is a cudgel
We beat each other with it till it breaks
The only incorruptible tones are inside us
Our lungs pulsing
Our blood rushing though our veins
The momentous visions in our minds
Inexpressible
A field of broken cudgels
A sea of them
Wooden handles splintered
Our stone heads turing to dust

~Galwyn

Runaway

Deviant hearts
In the right place
In the wrong place

Absconding
Over chain link fences
Past concrete walls
And across suburban lawns

Meeting death herself
With suitcases packed for the trip
It is said home is where you lay your head
Be it lifeless in a roadside ditch
Or among the stars miles away

~Galwyn

Honor

The feudal warlord
Clad in fierce crimson robes
Draws no joy from the death of his equal
He weeps for them
Behind walls besieged
For implanted between his ribs
Lies the sharp blade of honor

Respect and compassion for enemies
In all of its self destructive nature
Regardless of whether fate will endow
The pleasures of mortal life
Or regardless of divine prosperity
The man of honor will find true wealth
In the far fields of virtue

~Galwyn