No JustificationBy Colin Shea-Blymyer

LightI traveled north through India

Where mountains meet the sky.

And here I’ve met a man with wings

And feathers fit to fly.

The golden ring above his head

Compels him not to lie.

And with harsh kindness my gut retreats

When we meet eye-to-eye.

The author of the Armageddon

Beckoned me to near.

What he imparted, silently,

I never dreamed to hear.

And while he whispered all I want

To beat the drums within my ear,

I noticed, vague, above my groin,

A feeling I have learned as fear.

Anger welled within my head

As the wing’d man turned to fly

And as my breach’d soul did depart

My body, lone, did cry.

To have my secrets torn apart

And told so eye-to-eye –

Such misery, so caused, is art,

And fit to see me die.

But as my astral soul ascends,

I suffer less; I rise.

Though shattered, there, my secrets rest,

My ego, there, too, lies.

Unshackled, now, from earthly wants

My spirit soars the skies.

And from the clouds I gaze upon

My dead and empty eyes.

EchoLike hammers rung on forging steel

Striking hot, the air is seared

A faint mirage upon the air

A ghost, but brief, a soul once there.

The steel is cold.

The flame is dead.

The ghost is old.

The home, your head.

-And so you heed

Its dying need-

-You give it life,

You end its strife-

-Keep it close,

The loving host-

-And soon you’ll find

Your wills entwined-

With every note the ghost emotes,

Its soul, it floats, though dusty motes.

The sound elopes from opened throats

Endowing hope on those encloaked.

Dark Horizon, Light HorizonChange is a storm.

We luxuriate in the spring breezes of contentment

or suffer in the August heat of endless toil.

The longer we cling to these climates

the stronger the front

boiling on the horizon becomes.

The proverbial winds of change

rush down from the hills

and the anvil clouds

we've been eying apprehensively

assault us with cold, new wetness.

Stripped of our comfort

we run for cover,

for our friends

and for our family,

leaving the homeless,

the friendless,

in solitude.

Sometimes, however,

they are joined by the puddle-jumpers,

the spring-rain-dancers,

who dare the lightning

and sing four part harmonies

with the rain, wind and thunder.

Then the front is behind us.

We venture forth from shelter

and wander the new landscape,

where rivulets have carved inch-deep canyons

and raindrops form great glass domes on every sovereign leaf.

Confused at this newness,

with which the wet are acquainted,

we tell stories of giant dead inch-worms

stranded

on vast plains of asphalt

and great swamps of mud

where once a mountainous molehill stood.

The air itself is new,

no longer the coolness of spring

or the heat of August.

Now the air is cool

where once it was hot,

or damp

where once it was dry.

Now the clouds give way to blue sky,

and now the canyons seem small,

not so small as to be nothing,

but not a thing so big as to be frightening.

With time the new becomes old,

and we find comfort in the cold

when once we found rest in the heat.

The inch-worms,

rain drops

and rivulets

dry

and this is paid no mind.

Routine is made

and our human wheels

move to a newly worn clock.

We suffer in the summer humidity

or luxuriate in the crisp September air of harvest.

Before long

we see our hundredth morning,

but take warning,

the sky has risen red.

Solstice SolaceA celebration lost in time,

Anointed now by name,

An amalgam of season’s rhyme,

All difference, now, self-same.

A dozen days of opulence,

Eight bright nights of writ,

A holiday of innocence,

A season swelled with gifts.

A month of new-found charity

Born of the ash of dreams.

And from our joyous reverie,

Burns darkness at the seams.

But hark! The bells ring merry!

And spice and pine run rife!

And snow and jolly magics

Guard us from longest nights.

Let old myths be forgotten

Now, remember warmth and light,

Let’s forge anew the holiday

And make the season bright!

PaperboundI dance this wild dance

Always looking

Always hoping

That there’s more to meet the eye.

I covet adventure’s gates

But locked to me they shall remain

For as I look beyond

Their iron chains

I can see the fates conspire.

I dream of Draco and Orion,

Take to the skies,

I dream of flying.

Cross the oceans, dive through fog,

To Baskerville or fight off Smaug.

Further east in hapless dream,

I fly upon a midnight scene,

Of monks in meditation locked

As others trade a monkey’s paw.

Now to the moon, in rockets, fly,

I brush the stars and taste the sky.

The dust of moon,

Or rust of mars,

Rogue robots and flying cars.

But the gravity of earth begins

To pull me in

My dreams rescind.

In reverse I see my flight,

A fall from moon,

From stars,

From sky.

I lose the art of monk in battle.

I place my steel in dragon’s castle.

I tumble back across the sea,

But my dream has brought to me

This head of tales and thoughts that speak

Of lands that none will ever see.

Though I may wish to live in dreams,

My here will last eternally.

One-Mississippi, Two-MississippiThere’s always a storm that’s brewing, love.

I thought you’d know by now.

The weather will not change for you,

It will not cease somehow.

And when it starts to rain, my love,

When maelstrom fills the sky,

When lightning threatens life and limb,

Do not begin to cry.

Know this first, and well, my love,

However strong the storm,

The clouds, the winds and you and I,

Are part of one same form.

So when you are to die, my love,

Do not a-fear death’s mask,

For you will be in every storm,

And every day to pass.

3rd

We exist without existing

On a planet not worth listing

Beyond the fact that we are listening

To the ever deepening void.

The stars above are glistening

With power beyond resisting

As we set about rechristening

The way we live our lives.

At this moment we are flinging

Further yet into the deepening

And but yet we here are clinging

To our earth restricted ways.

We aim at comprehending

The great universe unending,

Still we argue of the ceasing

Of murder, famine, war.

Unless we are more quickly

Rising far above this human squabbling

Then we cannot be expecting

To be listed sometime soon.

PauseI am; not was, not will.

I change, never the same.

I am defined by my current state,

Not by how I affect the world

Nor how I have yet to shape it.

I am who I am at the moment of being.

All else is speculation,

And prediction.

There is

Only now.

No after

And no before.

I plan for a future

Without becoming entangled

In what is not yet so.

I look on the past

As instruction,

But not as truth.

Truth lies

Alone,

In being,

Not in remembering,

Nor in predicting

Tomorrow, the sun may not rise,

And yesterday is a figment

Of many imaginations.

Thoughts Before the FormI dress my words in niceties

In hopes that you may hear

The truth in love I have for you,

Your life that I hold dear.

I arm my speech in meter,

In rhythm and in rhyme,

That they may better down your walls

And infiltrate your mind.

I speak the truth, in form of lies,

No foul, nor a crime,

As I can see the truth in bloom

Deep behind your eyes.

I tug on strings inside your head,

A helpful puppeteer,

To bring to level yours and mine,

That we may think as peers.

I twist my thoughts to fit the page

That you may read my mind

As sharing thoughts builds closer ties

And close ties often bind.

I strip my ego, bare and thin

An lay me at your feet,

And as you probe my beating heart,

My words admit defeat.

A Reason in the SunPerhaps it’s true, what nihilists say,

There is no right, there is but gray.

Perhaps reduction follows through,

There is no will, no right to choose.

Perhaps there is no inherent worth,

No truth to love, to fear or mirth.

But still we live, we breathe and are.

With brains that think and skins that scar.

Our consciousness records our days,

With feelings, instinct, thoughtful forays.

That we can comprehend and see,

Is all of life’s validity.

Harm’s WayYou’re walking down a lonely road,

Some claim that it’s Harm’s Way,

And all the while you piss and rant

Of the horrors of the fray.

You speak of inequality

And motivation with disdain,

And deride those who receive help

While you waste it on the way.

And though you’re given every right

To be angry and upset

Can you tell me, even once,

When this hate has helped you yet?

Apollo’s DestroyerBoiling fire.

Crucible of light.

Celestial heat.

Tongues of flame,

Leaping miles high.

Fundamental matter,

Smashed, annihilates.

Releasing radiation,

Burning, warps.

Aura; charring gas.

Photons rampant,

Neutrons bombard,

Electric storms,

Aurora wavers.

Bombs to fit on pints.

Explosive light

Destined to engulf,

Radiation assaults,

How violent

Is all life’s source.

No. 2I do all I do to appease my professors,

They don’t trust we learn

So they feel they must test us.

In testing they drain us,

Confine and restrain us,

From pursuing the aspects

We feel pertain to us.

Of course those that don’t work

Don’t think and don’t learn,

Must spoil it all,

And we’re all, therefore, spurned.

Imagine a world where teachers could teach us,

Not test us, not pest us, not catch or arrest us.

We’d show what we learned by applying our skills

To society’s ills, little red pills, with learning, be filled.

Away with the testing and poking and prodding,

Teach us, don’t breach us,

Allow us to grow,

And with us you’ll see this old blue world glow.

EtherealThe vapor of breath clings to the air of eternity

Bringing me happiness, love and fraternity,

Though the world’s eyes shift quickly I retain security

For the love that I’ve given, received, embraces eternally.

Real LearEverything changes,

Nothing’s the same,

We block it all out,

Or we’d all go insane.

The truth, however, is floating in time,

The past, though is gone,

Is never behind.

We travel along a predestined path,

That’s studied so briefly in parametric math,

But what is the fun of knowing what will occur,

We’d either prevent or be found without power.

So look to the future with adventure in your eyes,

For, to us, the future is always surprise.

Life EnoughI want to live six billion lives,

Breathe many breaths,

A million sighs,

I want to know each child’s face,

I want to live in every place.

I wish to know each person’s story

Say hello’s and sob out sorry’s.

I want to love all

And I want to live six billion lives.

Cloud BreakLife, it seems, is made of dreams

Illusions and of lies,

But what you see will carry thee

To truths in clear blue skies

I Am AI am a thinker, A be-er,

A changer, A see-er.

I see stars, And grass,

Faces And places,

I travel a mind-scape,

A cloud-scape,

A land-scape,

But never,

Should ever,

One try just to e-scape.

I accept what’s been done

And reject what has not,

Forming clay before it hardens,

Expeting the mess.

I am part of a whole that has infinite parts,

A puzzle,

Unsolvable,

Except at the start.

I’m moving a grain

In the desert of time,

Enough to imprint me

In the cosmos’s tide.

Early MourningDo not cry for me, my friend

So early in the morn.

The sun has barely yet to rise

And night will fall when borne.

This morning’s only briefly old,

The dew still wets my feet.

I smile, friend, and yet, it seems,

That tears still wet your cheeks.

Though I shall pass when darkness falls,

Do not berate the night.

Sing and dance and play with me,

As long as we have light.

February FortnightWarm red roses bud within the cheeks

Of a young boy, doting, abashed,

He follows her, watches her, hoping.

Hoping to catch her watching him.

In all innocence he hopes,

He hopes that she knows him,

He hopes that she accepts him,

Most of all is that secret wish,

He hopes that she might love him.

Foggy Frosty FridayThe snow sits, silent, serene,

In warmer winter winds.

The fog fills the far fields

The moon mellows the melancholy marches

Of lonely late wanderers, lost in the snow.

Winter WindThe cold bites at my face and hands.

It does not hate me, it tests,

Unfeeling, it pours into my lungs.

With a grin of relief, I release it, warmed.

With every bite I know I am alive.

With every breath, I change the world.

My future lit by the fires of my passion

MY past, a teacher, but cold and dead.

Now, each breath, steam puncturing the crisp air,

Reminds me, I am here,

I am now

I am alive.

In His ImageLook in the mirror

And meet your god.

Don’t you think

It’s rather odd,

That all those prayers

Sent on knee

Were to the mirrored

You now see?

PearlsMy life, a cord of people’s faces,

Events and places,

A single chord to rally graces,

Make the paces,

Round the bases.

Everyone who’s given grief,

And those who’ve hated,

Not reciprocated

Only compassion emancipated.

UntitledA hunger without appetite,

A rest without respite,

Tired but not sleepy,

A moon without a night.

A candle lit in mid-day sun,

An apple gone to rot,

Nothing in a vacuum breathes,

Its breath, though, soon forgot.

A book without a reader,

A fallen tree without a sound,

A clock without a time to keep,

An earth that’s missing ground.

Of all the things gone wasted,

All the things, unneeded, done,

Do not take so lightly, friend

The love I’ve given on.

My Kingdom for an EarI’ve got too many thoughts to share,

And more I wish to hear,

Yet will no one stop to speak,

Or lend a thoughtful ear?

I’ve searched and found 500 friends,

Yet none of them will stay

For a life of love, of toil,

Sweat, or wisdom,

Light or play.

If you are one to speak aloud

In hopes that one may hear,

Please call on me to share a life

Or second, long and dear.

Friends are forged when thoughts are shared

But love is made anew

When new thoughts bind two wandering souls

To help them on life through.

AwayIs it worth the running if you know it won’t last?

If you know nothing’s gained?

I say stand your ground,

Stare fear in the face.

If you fear the darkness you’ll never love the stars.

If you fear love you’ll never feel alive.

Humans aren’t rocks,

Or islands washed with waves.

We cannot learn when rushing by

To miss what we can’t stand.

We must be made to walk and stop

And smile, despite what lies ahead.

Flash, Click, ShutterI find myself in the middle of a road,

Cars moving too fast on either side

To let me find solace among the discarded rubbish on the curb.

Instead, I wait, not knowing what I’m waiting for.

Then I see it,

A bloom of life,

Perhaps,

Or a ribbon of lightning.

A thing seen only by myself,

An attentive child in a car’s backseat,

An old man, attentive to the life he’s missed,

And then, without moving, I am free.

Eternal SpontaneityWe are set upon a midnight train,

A freight to no tomorrow.

To land where life is lived at ease,

And happiness will follow.

Where rain is sweet and sorrows, short,

And new youth, long, is borrowed,

For in this land love easy comes,

And hate melts off like tallow.

Yet in this pen of happiness,

But in this cage of light,

You risk to lose virility,

Sanity or might.

For in this land of happiness

None question what is right,

None fear the reaper’s mortal scythe

Nor fight the dark for light.

Though pleasant is this sleepy land

Inhuman is the sight

Of men that make no more mistakes

And thus cannot make right.

Immoral is the lack thereof

Where left is always right

For what is goodness without bad?

Or darkness without light?

Pardon MePardon me, miss, what do you remember?

Of eighth grade geography, English or geometry?

Excuse me, sir, what have you leaned?

From circling letters, a, b, c, or d?

Sorry ma’am, what do you aim to teach us?

By asking us what we have learned?

Please, principal, do you really fail to notice?

All the failing grades awarded next to A’s?

I only stop to ask these things,

To waste your precious time,

In order to, but, bring to light,

How you have wasted mine.

Sugar GlassLife’s viewed through a window pane

In many more ways than one

A vista of a grassy plane

The fiery rising sun.

The light of eyes in front of brain

The creation of a pun,

All the day the clock hands strain,

Outside the world moves on.

An ocean view or parking lot

It does not matter where,

A starlit night or garbage-rot,

It matters that you’re there.

And if you think that all is naught,

The world just doesn’t care,

Then sit, my friend, you have forgot,

It’s just a window there.

Outside the squalor rages yet,

Inside the world is still.

For only you control the climes

All others’ say is nil.

Your mind perceives what you permit,

Permit it what you will,

But happiness is all you get

If only it you till.

Life Not LeftTo live and not be happy

Is to love and not laugh

Is to know and not understand

Is to listen and not hear

Is to look and not see

Is to seek and not find

Is to move and not go

Is to exist and not be.

That is,

You’re doing it wrong.

Hallelujah“Hallelujah” cried the prophet,

“Hallelujah” cried the mass.

“Hallelujah” yelled the martyr

Over concussion, bomb and blast.

“Hallelujah” praised the righteous priest,

“Hallelujah” whispered girl,

“Hallelujah” scoffed the student

When the school bell chimed release.

“Hallelujah” said the living,

Nothing, said the dead.

“Hallelujah” pressed the exorcist,

“Hallelujah” gave his friend.

“Hallelujah” proclaimed politician

To bring his party fame.

“Hallelujah” raved the crazy man,

“Hallelujah” raved the saint.

“Hallelujah” chanted congregation

At some miracle, ordained.

“Hallelujah” sang the singer,

“Hallelujah” balled her fans.

“Hallelujah” mumbled husband,

“Hallelujah” garbled wife,

As each set upon their animal

With, each, a sharpened knife.

And as the eons trickled by,

The word no more than sigh,

Did religion play its epic role

In how the years go by.