A Couple New Poems

FAITH

Some folk believe in fate and destiny

Say it caused all that was and will be

And don’t give God any slice.

It is their general sentiment

We’re all Big Bang and accident,

But the two do not jive.

If you have no God, no Divine,

Everything a freak of time

And nothing guides your life.

No God, no immortal scheme.

No earthly hope or cosmic dream

No reason to be alive.

If you wish to be an Atheist

Then you must forsake every myth

And accept a world of strife

Without reason, without rhyme.

Where human life’s not worth a dime

With no goal for which to strive.

Oh what a pathetic breed

If we are but mutant seed           

Our worthlessness be rife.

I don’t know about destiny and fate

And have no proof on what I await,

But in God I will abide.

Illustration: “Hecate or The Three Fates” by William Blake

IN MY VILLANELLE

I think I am the villain in my villanelle.

I wish I could break out and be free form instead,

But I’d rather stay the rules than languish in Hell.

Of course I want to do my own thing and rebel,

Not count my syllables, my rhythm or my rhyme.

I think I am the villain in my villanelle.

What if I changed the pattern, rambled a spell?

Is anybody counting? Is it such a crime?

But I’d rather stay the rules than languish in Hell.

Over the corpse of rhyme some have rung the knell.

Though it is easier, I’ll not lie in that bed.

I think I am the villain in my villanelle

Because I chafe against what others do compel

And rant of how I suffer to compose each line,

But I’d rather stay the rules than languish in Hell.

So it is the fate of man since Eve and Adam fell,

This struggle with obedience till we drop dead.

I think I am the villain in my villanelle

But I’d rather stay the rules than languish in Hell.

Photo: The author in Lewes, DE, January 2011 taken by Ronald W. Tipton.

ON THE NARROW PATH

Up here no one goes

When it rains, when it snows.

The narrow time, the narrow ledge.

As far as I see

There is I, myself and me

Alone teetering on the edge.

Up is very steep.

Down is steeper still and deep;

The narrow ledge, the narrow time

My mind is alert.

Avoid a fall; avoid the hurt

Teetering alone on my climb.

Cold crawls over me

As if my sins' impurity

Have found me in this hidden place.

I’m swallowed by regret,

By the thoughts I‘m thinking yet.

With my narrow soul face-to-face

Upon this way alone,

Where me myself and I atone

In narrow time on narrow path

And when I meet God.

On this hidden trail of frozen sod,

We both exchange a knowing laugh.

Photo by the author, 2011, “Rocky Run Trail”, Brandywine Creek State Park.

WILD GOOSE FANCY

  

First you hear the call, the cry, no, the cacophony.

It is the trumpet of triumphed recovery from near extinction

That edges up to the sound of a world’s destruction.

How do you turn away? How do you stand against such noise?

Over the hill they come, first in vanguard,

Then canopy of multiple V’s,

Darkening, darkening and it is an awesome sight

And a frightful fright

When the wild goose take flight.

I walk into the woods alone, into the silence of the trees.

The path is rough with ice-encrusted snow, the going slow,

And far behind the circling cloud, the noisome crowd

Is drifting off in searching groups,

Scouting out the water flows beneath our frozen earth.

But I see this no more or hear that roar,

They are there and I am here on my own mission

Finding my own solitude, I no longer listen

To the wild goose take flight.

That pale winter ghost has stolen everything,

Coated it with his seal and slippery trails

Are teasing, taunting my every caution step.

Sister wind blows love songs in my ear

That freeze my heart and soul to the bone.

How dare you, sir, steal into my home

And poke about with your icicle thumb

To gray my days and turn them numb.

When the wild goose take flight

There is beauty everywhere and death.

All the color has been drained away

From tree or cloud or lake or field.

To fall is lost and you’d shiver there

Until the gracious sleep eased the pain

And lifted you upon its frigid wing

Into the last cold dark night,

On the last wild goose flight.

Photo: Over 300 Wild Geese in flight over Alapocas Run State Park. Taken by the author in December 2010.