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The Web Poetry Corner

Marvin Warren

of

Poughkeepsie, NY, US

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Focus

by

Marvin Warren

The need to bring it all in
My scattered thoughts gone forth
and absent until they choose again to circle and
confuse my head. Why did you leave me
here alone, never mine to love but precious
And all but your memory gone.

Don't think of me, I'm not able
and therefore no one else will
Know the love that remains
trapped at my throat, choking the life out of
heedless limbs that never did anything
Good until just recently, too late for you to know.

So now my mind runs wild
in your vineyard long since tended to
and no one gives a damn about it
or the forest of brilliant leaves falling
like my mind, seemingly never to rise
again, but I will rise and fall like the tides until

I am finally carried away
to a higher place where I have learned
all I need to bring you back
To the point I will have learned how to make
and to stick to; my plan, and my focus
to draw your essence to me

Mornings After

by

Marvin Warren

The morning after sadness
Ardent sunlight in my face
Insists that I awake to face the day

No suicide, no more death with
No hope to take its place
I'm soaking in the light of the sun's rays

Up at last to clothe myself, no appetite today
My only hunger is to understand
I set out very early to escape these prison walls
And become a roving blight upon the land.

The breeze off of the river
Only makes me feel
I'll never get to share this lovely place

The consummate of beauty
Cannot fully be seen
Alone in this dead, living, hollow space

I seek my friend, my lover, but no one comforts me
I bid them both farewell and turn for home
I strip off my layers against the cold
And eat like one who's been dead

Perhaps I still am, but all I can think as I turn to my nightmarish sleep...

The second morning after sadness
And I'll be back in school.

It wasn't like this before...

by

Marvin Warren

It wasn't like this before
A cold wind comes through the wide open window
Faded curtains flutter in the breeze.
The high bed is neatly made, its headboard to the wall
It is empty here
The color has left it, as quickly as clouds rolled in
No rain, but days of gloom
The only color is without
Flashes of brilliance over the rippling hills

The garden is nearly pitch black
Over the wall and through the chinks
Are two gravestones, marked by small stones
Never untended, never forgotten
Never alone.
Like me in the garden,
I escape through the gate onto the sloping hill
Running, flying till I hear a cry at the woods' eaves

The new child and his mother, just above
The one crying in the cold, the other warm to greet me
And the first drops of rain to fall in eight days
Bring down the dried orange leaves

Answer an Anonymous Poem

by

Marvin Warren

Unspecial someone, not ignoble
Yet love buried remains unseen
Not all are caring, but those who do
May pass, the wise as the fool
I the latter, unaware of peril
Still that is my power
That keeps me singing
Despite being beaten time and again
My mind is clear but not yet empty
And my heart goes out to the world.
Forever must the miles be walked
Else we remain unchanged
And change
No other 'til the grey world swallows us up.
Instead let the green path be taken, and
Thorns give us joy, the warmth of
Free-given blood in their bellies
And find us unscathed.

Digress

by

Marvin Warren

Your caress, my love is ecstacy
And your kiss is all-consuming
A glance could crumple me at your feet
For pout of your nose I would hold you 'til dawning

But there are things I will not give up
The sunrise and wind in the mountains
For you or for any I will not be moved
Though I march alone through my pains

For what is the world without sorrow?
Founts accompany graveyards
I will walk places trodden and those without paths
Never wait until the morrow

There are places to meet and people to learn
Unconfined by legnth of day
In blackest night I'll meet blackest soul
Unpredictabe, still, not fey

I belong to forests of many lands
Bright colourful waterfall autumns
A rambling spitit is not something that
You can hold in your beautiful hands

I would have you come with me, share what we can
But you chain yourself in to a path you know well
I will not be tied, by another's ties held
Soon, sadly, I'll bid you farewell

This he thought as he gazed into
her perfect eyes; and somehow he knew
That none of it was the truth

Omni Temporale

by

Marvin Warren

What is my wandering spirit within
Avenues of my floating memory?
Through all the feelings I have ever been,
The places I have been is what I see.
Yet waking life, and not only in dream,
Not nothing nor Oneiros’ work as well,
The time being does every moment seem--
All this I see in truth by time unquell'd.
Now wide-eyed woe, beauty of snow that fell,
Unfetterèd, the truth pours forth like wine;
Draughts pass lips, waterfall streams mountain melt,
Intoxicate, unspoken, mind to mind
When highest language first the soul attains,
Breathless silence that permeates, remains.

Unretouched

by

Marvin Warren

What if the lenses of our perception were not,

as Blake suggested, cleansed
But smashed?
What harsh light would rush forth
in bipolar black & white
to expose our underdeveloped minds?

does an understanding we're unready for

not destroy us?
A shock like shattered glass
freezing from the insides out

for enlightenment

to end all suffering

so the show can go on
Leave it be

this you cannot touch

this you cannot taste

this you cannot see

Don't try to fix it.

Follow

by

Marvin Warren

Follow
through the frosted breath
meteor trail, the eye
follows
ridges
beyond the reach of air
and of the elements
you drink; the streams you
follow
Within the wilderness

of the mind

no thoughts, but
Cries! the instinct:
To follow.
notwithstanding
the journey continued
the fires that soothe in company
of vagabonds, your
fellows
See, the road is lost
the gale rises, moonshadows call

step now in darkened faith

as the watchtowers stand in vague silhouette

Untitled

by

Marvin Warren

When the Zen teacher Pao-che of Ma-ku was fanning himself, a monk asked him, "The nature of wind is permanent, and there is no place it does not reach. Why then do you fan yourself?"

Pao-che said, "You only know that the nature of wind is permanent. You don't yet know the meaning of its reaching every place."

The monk asked, "What is the meaning of its reaching every place?"

Pao-che only fanned himself. The monk bowed deeply.

Blowing on the ashes
of a long-dead fire
Attempting to awaken an ember
that no natural wind could fan
No-dust rises; a powder fills the air
All life remains choked and confined
Dry without heat
Words with no hope
Launching bits of wood into the air
to breathe them in before
sending everywhichway again.

Cold, wet, confined to daylight
surrounded by howling that warms no one
Even the trees shriek agony
Bedouin wails for the dead that have fallen
and threaten still to do so
Eternity.
surrounds a single point
of thorns
and trunks as twisted
from not knowing their time
Ridges and precipices recede from such sights

A lone coal glows
in the calm before the storm
and none question
its permanence.

Simile

by

Marvin Warren

Standing in last night's puke
I think of you
your calm collected cool
your take control
your stand alone act like a fool
Many things I admire in you.
Walking through last week's puke, and the weeks' before, I look up
at a sign that says "who's on E?"
not me
the only ecstasy I've ever experienced was when the universe and me
seemed to agree
that all this violence is unnecessary
and we don't need to feed
ourselves or this society of cancerous greed
I won't
can't eat anymore, so sick I have to retch
just like everyone who drank last night to forget
the pain they couldn't evade--just like
having sex before you're ready because you're afraid
that there's nothing really inside and soon you're yesterday--just like
my friend's roommate who was carried away on a stretcher:
most likely aderol, the drug used to
"treat"
the medical condition
I'm supposed to have.
I don't place belief in the system
or revolutionary movements, either
they leave me disillusioned
more used to ideals and dreams than humans
I have to be self-reflexive
I want to live, awake
I want to shake
everyone from their personal comas and tell them they're ALIVE
that there's something to live for
And that it doesn't matter what that is.

But I can't

I wanna cry
'cause everything I've believed in
I've watched die.
there's no need to tell me it'll be alright
goodnight
bye bye
'Cause it won't be fine
Just like the woman who's afraid of being raped
won't feel safe
no matter how many self-defense courses she takes.

Look at me standing here with my bottle of wine
Trying to seem sophisticated, toasting my own demise
and for this people call me wise
when just like all of you I chart my course
from starless skies
long ago we traded our guides, for a feeling of security.
Fearing the darkness of our own obscurity
our own destructive tenancy
So we gave up our power and responsibility
to people who use it against us
toss us cheap beer, unfulfilled promises
cigarette tax, and 10 C off your gas on Tuesdays
listen: they no longer recycle your cans.
You think that's bad?
it's only cause it's too much work
to cleanup after the spent corpses of butts dropped by
the moral majority.
Why do you think the landfills are closing?
What do you throw out most?
We're choking to death under filters and paper plates
the last forests are dying at obscene rates
To busy to wash our dishes
& so bored we won't get out of bed.
Besides, that's no fun!
Life's a party:
'Welcome aboard! have a bud, here's another for when that one's done'
Let's not fool ourselves
As long as the rule is "you must have alcohol in your hand at all
times"
Eat, shit, drink, fuck & believe that crud
We will keep waking up in our own puke

and blood.

Helpless

by

Marvin Warren

Maybe only love turns you on

but I'm a lot easier

and it's hard

to hide an erection pressed against

your affection, to deny

what you want, what is ultimately

so easy and joyful to give.
I want you.

Now more than ever

with our relative troubles

I need to hold you, tell you
in some way to convince myself that it will be alright.
I want you.

I have seen every potential through the past

dug through the rubble

in my room & on the road
I want you

to know that I

want you to know

that you do know

and

Your playing dumb frustrates me

when the capital t Truth is less elusive

than sunlight in your hair

When you bring your mind to bear.

Someday

by

Marvin Warren

someday I'll remember how to fly
someday it will become obvious that gravity isn't a law
at most, a good suggestion sometimes
someday we'll understand that day is not masculine
night is not feminine
and neither are males and females

someday I'll own the fire, just to put it out,
just to know what the world is like without the frenetic desire
and what it's like to rekindle what is forgotten
or never existed,
someday
I will and it's enough
someday we will all know our own power

someday I'll will put down roots and nourish the soil
no longer name it and wash it off my hands
something, my bones perhaps, tell me my time has not come
but someday the sharing will be as rich as this compost
someday, in my hands, what is in my mind

there are those who do not believe
in someday
but it will fall to us or pass us by
someday the pull will carry me away
floating in the violent bosom of inevitability
someday I'll stop promising to return

someday

when I stop thinking my way is best