Home » Weekly Poems from Poems for Free: A Name Poem and More

Reprint

MADELINE VIOLET

Madeline Violet has come down to Earth,
A pinpoint of passion possessed by her need,
Destined to be the sweet husk of a seed
Eternally living through birth after birth.
Love her – this angel that innocent came
Into the world, though not by her will!
Now in the grasp of your wisdom and skill,
Enduring her first tastes of beauty and pain.
Vested in you is a trust none can keep,
Immense as a universe, vast as a quark,
Of the bonfire of being, one brief, playful spark,
Lovely with longing so frail one must weep.
Even as you vow more love than you know,
The angel is dancing to music below.

HAPPINESS HAS MUCH TO RECOMMEND IT

Happiness has much to recommend it,
A choice, though hard, that often satisfies.
Passing joys, pursued, bid fair to end it,
Perhaps because their truths turn into lies.
Yet one may choose a life of faith and love,
Even dogged by doubt and ripe with lust,
Ample as a river on the move
Singing down the balustrades of dust.
To love is to step forward into light,
Embracing what would else return to night,
Redeemed, redeeming by this act of trust.

I GUESS YOU JUST DON'T KNOW HOW MUCH IT HURTS

I guess you just don't know how much it hurts.
I cannot think you know and just don't care.
Destiny provides one's just deserts
By turning out one just as would be fair.
Just as a child learns to its delight
That lying sets one fabulously free,
So you say "love" to get the rapture right,
Getting so the most you can from me.
And then, of course, you tire of your pleasure,
As those who seek but pleasure often do,
And sacrifice by far the greater treasure
Upon the altar where you worship you.
Justice would demand you be the fool,
But you are far more ignorant than cruel.

HERE WE HAVE A STORY FOR THE WORLD

Here we have a story for the world,
A tale of justice served and freedom won,
Principles of goodness, universal,
Printed out on stone by God's own hand.
Yes, the past was bloody, and the old
Promise was by faithlessness undone.
And wonders ceased, memories turned brittle,
Shadows fell, and love turned into land.
Still, the story breathes the air of words
Old and new, a tale not writ in stone,
Vast as the hard history of a people
Ever changing, ever one, a grand
Recital running through time's glass like sand.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY, DEAR DAUGHTER

Happy Mother's Day, dear daughter!
All my love to you!
Praised be those who give themselves,
Poised to part the sea!
Years of loving need no quarter,
Making passion do,
Offering a trove of selves,
Though vicariously.
How beautiful the gift of giving
Each the unspent whole,
Returning, turning, like a tide,
'Ere the moment wanes!
So beautiful, the act of living
Densely through a soul
Alight with wonder at the ride,
Yet soon to take the reins!

LET OTHERS SPEAK OF HELL – I SPEAK OF COURAGE

Let others speak of Hell -- I speak of courage:
In one there's inspiration for the other.
Nor need despair of Heaven one's life ravage:
Demand enough of Hell, and it rolls over.
All I suffered was what I endured,
For me a source of pride as well as pain.
Restored by love, I never could be cured:
Ill for life, but not alive in vain.
Enter bravely into my delight,
Dreadful though might be my manic mind.
More is known by feeling than by sight
As even darkness has its own sweet light;
Nor did I die but by my own design.

IN MEMORY OF THOSE WHO DIED

In memory of those who died
We weep and walk away.
Tears run into swollen streams.
No trace of us remains.

Even those who grieve are gone,
And those that grieve who grieve,
And those whose lives are ravaged by
A frantic urge to be,

And those who wander silently
Among the empty rooms:
Immortality is theirs,
Though they must vanish, too.

We bear astonished witness to
The passage of the soul.
No bridge exists that can connect
Our passion to the whole.