adhered to the frame

are we all so inebriated
with our self-righteousness,
that we must vindicate
every inaccurate movement
which we construct?

and with what audacity
do we feel the God-like need
to condemn another
concerning their omissive antiquity?

it has been observed,
by the Moral Gaze,
that an alluring, yet prideful lace
has been adhered to the frame
of the contemporary,
and all things to transpire.

the modern bend
of the "arc of time"
proves to be something of ruin.

her smile (an expression of ecstasy)

and with what shall i
compare and name her smile?

with what vein of nature
or meditative session,

can be scaled and likened
to resemble such reputed significance?

if anything could be gathered,
i'd collect it from the sand, and from the pearls:

the newly formed pearls,
only but recently clothed in soft calcium,

being lustrous in sheen, and flawless in texture,
and high in value.

but with what to name it?
what to name this grin of ivory,

this smirk which calms the skin's quiver,
and is tranquil in nearly all senses?

such a smile is arcane;
yes, arcane and esoteric,

being sojourned and attended to
by my loving eye.

but what to name
such an expression of ecstasy,

rather, and expression
of her ecstasy?

comparisons may come easily,
but a name evades when pursued.

perhaps, if given a name,
i'd presume it to be "Arcanum";

a smile possessed by her, yes,
but meant for me.

the understanding of my errancy

i pen this,
with concise veracity,
concerning the waywardness
portrayed by our
initially blase, nefarious minds,
from which we derive
our illogical and absurd motives,
being weaved in and out by
a sin nature.

the passageways of mankind's heart
are caliginous in tone,
and no empty plea for forgiveness
can mitigate its hell-birthed essence.

oh dear God, i've become so
apathetic in my intentions,
and all i desire and long for
is the understanding
of my errancy;
but how far in distance
can i excel,
with nothing by the desire,
and longing for?

for what is progress
minus any conduct?
better yet, what is conduct,
minus progress?

dreaming on a gray scale

i've heard it to be said,
that we dream in black and white,
and whatever form of pensive abstruseness that is,
i fail to concur to it.

i assure myself, and you, dear reader,
that i've seen many vivid hues and brilliant shades
in the small percentage of my brain which fashions illusion.

and, on occasion, i've called myself a lucid dreamer,
and i think that today, i shall call myself such again,
but on separate and infrequent events,
i've found myself under complete constraint
by my dreams.

yet, aside from that, i have reminisced of much sincere color,
some of which being emerald green, sapphire blue,
ruby red, and royal violets...

...and how one man can deduce that another man
dreams on a gray scale,
i'll never figure,
but if i offer my nightly ponderings
to the researchers and the scientists,
then i trust they will
alter this absurd belief.

the air of a new chapter

impatiently, i careened in no definite series,
along a grassy, uneven byway,
which was, respectively, decorated with a weeping willow,
and a few layers of nightfall.
to my left, some artificial body of water was assembled,
shimmering from citylights, like randomly assorted diamonds
on black velvet spreads.
surreptitiously, i captured photographs,
which convened into files like segments fumbling into place.
i gathered myself,
and i gathered my previous thoughts
of our prosperous evening together,
and took in a breath,
which was the air of a new chapter.
and as my solemn, distanced mindset
had disposed of itself,
i took on a new uniform,
in the air of a new chapter.

my inspiration

i gather my inspiration from the people that unsuspectingly amble around, assuming that they are entirely inconspicuous, and that no soul is observing their demeanor, or manners of life and movement. i watch them as they mingle in my observance...

i gather my inspiration from the trees and the grass. their green pigment is the shade of which my heart is scratched in. it's in the birds, the autumn leaves, the haze of dawn, the morning, afternoon and evening skies, and lethargic rainfall to accompany us during the spring...

i gather my inspiration from the kisses they send, whether blown, imagined or experienced. each new chapter to be discovered contrives newly birthed impulse and thought, which becomes my pen's ink. it's in their smiles, and their eyes, the way their hair is invited to dance within the breeze, and their elegant figures in which my eyes find it arduous to no longer attend gaze to. it all is mimicked within my mind, a facsimile put to paper...

i gather my inspiration from the love of God, and His superior creations which complete this earth, His omniscience and His divinity, and His grace. the Word carried down from the ancestry, houses biblical poesy that lit the light of all those who write in rhythmic patterns...

i gather my inspiration from the words which convoy the music of beautiful rumination. the lyrical and the poetic: they reach the ears of the attentive listeners, one of which is me. the presentation of sound, a synonym for release...

i gather my inspiration from these things. now, walk this way to traverse inside my mind...

a smile of his own

how profoundly careful God crafted man
to own the preference of a smile.
its precise build and delicate bearing
is much like a nervous fire,
for the cold hearted, and the numb skinned.

with intricately addressed words,
one could conceive a smile in another,
like luminary ideas on midnight promenades.
and with a silken kiss, celestial bodies become personified,
into the expression of such things mentioned.

the smile is a gift
which relieves any ire or irritance
to have become fermented in the spirit.
its demeanor, even if rare, creates in the parallel man
a smile of his own.

what is age

what is age,
but a number that defines us ?
and what is more puerile than a definition
of age anyways?

how insentient of biased minds are,
to have placed a fabricated label upon the backs
of the young and the old, restricting privilege,
and broadening it also, for others.

they say,
"surely, you're too young for such a conscience
and enhanced personal lexicon...",
but God, nor blessed ancient ancestry,
proposed the overlooking of youthful will.

and just the same, some might add,
"this man is undoubtedly far in his years;
too far for the completion of any form
of any plausible task."

yet he plows his fields and prepares
for the seasonal transitions
of spring, summer, fall and winter,
just like any priming man would.

even more so, one might prominently exclaim,
"see this man, he is ripe in his years!
he has unmatched endurance and strongwill,
which will assuredly grant him great success!"

but what of the boy
and what of the elderly one?
what of them?
i ask you a third time, what of them?

i insist, that man is rightfully just as equal
as Lincoln proclaimed him to be;
and to the Father,
age and time exist not with him.

placed before the ballad

the abrogated playback of the mind's turntable
is nullified by the convening of slideshow melodies.
the needle's containment of the circling record,
and its behavior to cycle and recite,
is halted by the minutes of recognition-
a threnody scripted by lamenting hands,
for all pitiable forms of deploring to apprehend.
in eye-widening awareness,
we molt out hypnotized playback,
as our deduction is placed before the ballad.

the wind and the mist contort to fit
into the crevices of some ill-expressioned face,
who among the majority, pens the most lyrical of words,
molded to arrange into the holes of a flute.
its grimace appalls Arcadia,
but the depth of the quotes erects a home-
a home of frequent tranquility,
but still intermittent.
and so, the turntable operates again,
abrading the needle's tip, once more.

the effigy

God, i know you're real;
i feel the substance of such beliefs
in the myriad of subjected creatures
which appear to possess an interest in my form.
the single discovery of the complexity in the human eye
(and/or the animal's) is the fine,
unfaltered artwork of the True Artist,
Who gave the earthen artists their proficiency
and their brush,
and Whose art super-exceeds that of any
which mankind has dreamt of.
the brush stroke nature of the cirrus clouds
and the clay model texture of ocean waves
(as well as the infinite collection of painted scenery,
sculpted mountain sides, perfumed beaches
and sheer intelligent designs)
uplifts a praise to the heavens,
in which Your omniscience reigns.
oh but God, we feel so insignificant in Your cast gaze,
yet You insist upon the parallel...
we are Your highest earthly creation,
we are Your servants of choice ("of the Most High God")
we are the image of the Godhead;
the image of You, Lord, Father, Redeemer;
we are formed in the effigy, in the likeness, of You, Abba.

from the retrospect to the modern

do you remember my smile?
do you remember the scarcity of its meek exposure?
each time a smirk is shed i feel fragments of you.
have you recalled my shy attitude and secluded manner?
have you forgotten the kisses i sealed to each spoken word,
or has it all replayed in your dreams like it has mine?
(surely though, i doubt it has)
the lackadaisical segments conclude nebulous
like slow movements from the clock's two slender arms.
do you remember those poems which i used to pen,
so crudely and foolishly scribbled in dedication to you?
well, i've read over them in simple study,
each one seeming so...inane, in context, i suppose.
(which isn't to say that in the context of you all is inane,
but rather stating that the approaches made infer to such)
do you remember when i concurred to love?
i remember your nearly exact words on the matter:
"nathan, i can honestly say that i love you".
i still, on occasion, relive the momentary chill
from the retrospect to the modern.
and lastly, do you remember my fumbling departure,
and how i avariciously attempted to regain you?

i remember it all.

upon the night of the longest hour

i had a dream upon the night of the longest hour.
its display was livid and color faded,
like that of a 1940s mystery.
the moon had lost its defaulted silver shade
and had been substituted by a pale, dull white.
bats made their evening chirps, as the sparrows of night
fluttered about the buildings and the avenues.
street lights dotted the roads
burning in ostentatious white tones, signaling loneliness.
i felt my senses become blunt and unsharpened,
like a kiss from a mannequin.
the dismal boulevards contrived open mouths
which swallowed my attention with dire eloquence.
the sky (which was the least captivating)
was littered with white specks and was
(what looked like) shaded by charcoal.
not one midnight adventurist journeyed in my proximity,
but instead the night rendered me forlorn.
the silence became haunting, then aching;
i cried out, "who can manage this desolate quiet?!"
i hear no responsive articulation,
only the nighttime sparrows made noise.
i pulled at my hair and gritted my teeth,
but i knew, somehow, that this was where i wanted to be.

displays of the lowermost amusement

in the proper hour, the curtains are drawn back.
a rich, illuminated stage replaces
the previously blank theater curtains.
light centers upon the soft-faced actress
as she leisurely makes way to front and center stage.
(a soft applaud makes no hesitation, then soon diminishes)
the spotlight creates a luminous circle
around her experienced formation,
contriving a sparkle in her eye.
(the other is fashionably hidden by pinned-over, copper-red bangs)
inwardly presenting displays of the lowermost amusement,
she shies a coy gesture (rather inconspicuously, i have to say),
while still acting cordially for her attentive audience.
not one soul detects the morosity,
instead, all attention rests upon her given recital.
iterating her well-rehearsed lines,
she compiles emotion and intimacy into her performance.
i guess you could (casually) say
that the only emotion excluded is the one she truly experiences,
while those employed are fraudulent in nature.
her concealed ire ferments in her chest,
yet remains under discreet control by her act.
in the time which orders her exhibition complete,
a dozen rounds of cheers, applause, laughter and joy
are set forth through the auditorium, sounding out abroad.
she forges a copy of the smile she used to have
and sweetly blows a kiss to the patrons;
momentarily applying a lady-like curtsy to her close.
roses then are tossed upon the stage;
she lifts one as to claim it her own.
the fair-skinned actress reverts backstage
ambling behind the surreptitious curtains
as they come to a draw.
the well-loved performer fashions a linear path
toward her reclusive dressing room.
set in front of her mirror's reversed, mimicking face,
she emits heartfelt tears as her
mascara courses down her high cheeks.
she knows she can't act away her sadness when alone;
she wallows in her unmentioned disheartenment.
she molts the actress and blooms the girl,
whom she fears to call herself.

sketched in its path

i've awoken to a morning of haze and somber songs,
each bitter, retrospective lyric coursing my memory.
i reiterate phrases at random like a poetic recital,
but more popularly i repeat the motto "time is all we know."
sadly, we cross the other in perpendicular tones,
meeting once at a point of felicity,
yet dividing relationship in the direction of an arrow.
i've let my sorrowful candle burn with luster,
and i've questioned more than once
if your attention has been sketched in its path.
can you see, my dear, the inane flicker,
which cuts a slit in the vast pitch,
like street lights sewn to the avenues,
mimicking lanterns held by worked hands?
and can you see, this lethargic film, which blankets my moist eyes,
like satin sheets and lively bed spreads
over every recumbent dreamer, who dreams of release?
if your attention is sketched in their paths,
then you've noted much... you have noted much.
swayed and staggered i've become,
gesturing with familiar hands, the inchoate formation
of a face i've not laid eyes upon in months.
and through my morning's premature awareness,
i spoke in tones i'd never attended by ear.

a naked loneliness becoming personified,
sketching a path to the picturesque world.

she left love notes

she walked the beach
and strung her pearls.
the waves moved in motion
to the moon's gravity.
the sands are countless,
matching the skyline's
infinite origin.
she blinked,
and time was made to stand still.

she left love notes
in her footprints.
each one signed
by the ball of her heel.
her face is a poem
written in epidermic tones,
so pale and exquisite,
done by the pens
of eternal ink.

she dressed herself
in soft sunlight;
a band of clouds
concealing her breasts,
and a breeze of spring
emitting from her lungs.
her string of pearls around her neck,
and cobalt waves cascading in her irises-
she has eyes of the ocean.

she has effervescent strands of hair,
like unwound twine,
in gentle shades of neutrality,
borrowed from the simplest of things.
the concave of her neck and collarbone
house the most colorful of fish
in minute ponds of collected rain water.
her slim fingers are crags from deciduous trees,
being a perch for the small finches in need of rest.

she speaks words
in syllables and certain pronunciations
that no mortal ear
has ever tuned in to.
her siblings sleep with the stars
and fly with falcons at such immense heights
that city skyscrapers only touch their hems,
which belong to cloaks
comprised of nightfall.

she directs symphonies
composed of orchestral fantasies,
reciting hymns through instrument and vocal
on the stage which introduces the heavens.
a step below the angels,
yet a step above the mortals;
she is a median of unseen perfection:
a song enunciated by the heavenly host
and by the earthen sparrows.

she's been deified,
and easily been called a deity by some,
but she's no more dissimilar
then an overly-dreamt dream,
or a thought contrived on a lonely walk
down a black and white hallway.
it's the talk of her pretentious sublimity
that builds a utopia in man's wishful mind,
later conducting him to somber, dismantled expectations.

she is my "perfect love",
but remotely stands without a name.
i think of her everyday,
but the mystery of her existence
is sadly, the only remains.
i see her in books and in stories, etc.,
but she has a waist that
my longing arms struggle
finding their way around.

she left love notes in the sand by the sea,
but truly, those love notes were not yet meant for me.