More Poems, Because I'm Lazy

The first poem was a cool thing Mike told me about. You pick six words, and create six regular stanzas, where each line ends with one of those words. The last word of the final line becomes the last word of the first line of the next stanza, until you go through all of them. The final stanza has two of the words per line, one in the middle and one at the end.

The second poem is perhaps the most complex of any poem I've ever written. It can be read left to right, as usual, and you can also read it from top to bottom of each row. Snazzy, isn't it? It's also the poem that took me the longest to write, taking an entire class period in high school (which is about an hour and a half long).

Death, Love, Pain, Hope: To Burn

All we have for all eternity is love,

At least until we have seen death,

But even then we yearn and hope

For something to end this pain;

For something to make the memories burn

Into something we can cling to.

Somehow we end up going back and forth, to

And fro, trying to start or end our love.

We try to keep the flame or stop the burn

For the accomplishment of either deters death

And brings a way to extinguish pain.

This, it seems, is the foundation of hope.

Yet to have anything resembling hope

Makes it that much more likely to

Have this feeling we call pain.

It is caused by, and ended by, love.

The lure of emotion makes us feel invisible to death

When all it achieves is bringing us to Hell to burn.

Many argue that we do not burn

Because they see their feelings as a hope

For something beyond life and death.

They yearn for Heaven and here on earth seem to

Have and receive this thing called love

And do not see that from it springs pain.

Is it worth it, this pain?

It scratches, it stings, it stabs, it creates a burn

That makes me feel that love

Is not something for which to hope.

And yet, without it, there would be nothing to

Treasure and value at the time of death.

So, in conclusion, this death,

Both a way to end and create pain,

Serves as the only thing to

Prove that there is a reason to burn,

A reason to hope,

A reason to bear this horrible thing called love.

And so we learn to see that with death

There is love for something despite the pain

And we adore the burn that means we hope.

St. Croix

Gone-

All that's left behind

Is nothing that really

Matters.

To another place that

Goes beyond him and me

At least that's how it seems,

Will drive him farther until he is

Truly gone?

Forgotten, forgiven, forgetting, forgiving

Or maybe not at all.

For the truth of feelings is not true.

Perhaps it never really mattered

Perhaps this end is for the best

Because he never cared;

Though if an end it be

This truth of heart cannot be denied, yet

What an end to such bliss.

If such a lie as feelings

To believe is perfidy and

Kill the soul

Of this heart inside my chest,

Then there is nothing.

It is dead.