All poems below the cut bc theyre long
help me choose what to perform at my open mic event
My Task
A Sunbeam and Moonbeam
Beneath the Light of Stars
Would You Kiss Me?
Shipwreck Me
My Task
If life is a steaming kettle
That whistles incessantly,
My task is not to meddle;
But to share around my tea.
If kindness is an herb,
Brewed and steeped in heat,
A reassuring word
Is how you make life sweet.
If anger is a weed
Which infiltrates my garden,
Then my prescribed deed
Is not to let hearts harden.
If life is a boiling bot
And we’re all offered a dose,
Then to share out what I’ve got
Is what I’d like the most.
If life is a steaming kettle,
We each have something to give,
Then I simply cannot settle
In isolation to live.
A Sunbeam and Moonbeam
In the early sun I’ll rise
To greet the day with eager eyes
My heart is warmed with bright delight.
The Sun, in all his splendid light
Draws from me a dancing sigh
For all content, I feel, is nigh.
And when the Sun, in wild hues
Retires from the endless blues
I lay my head upon the Earth
To bid farewell with solemn mirth.
Though silent mourning claims its dues,
I know it holds a kinder truth.
When the Moon makes her soft entrance,
My head lifts from among the ants;
Her tender light of loving tells;
Her mild song, like quiet bells.
She takes my hand, and we will dance
Wherever the Night should then chance.
Beneath the Light of Stars
For in the eve, beneath the light of stars
Though bright and lovely do they ever call,
I find my eyes mourn not them from afar;
For, in my gaze, the finest light of all
Is not God’s kindest angels in the sky;
Rather nearer - though, distance has no wound -
In every moment’s truth I know that I
Could ne’er a dearer sight in which be found.
So stranger, pray: do take my hand tonight;
That you and I may lie beneath the stars
And see them not, for in each other’s sight
Needs never come that could take us apart.
Be the sun bright, and the moon shining fair
Still never could their beauty near compare
The state of my mind, when dancing with you,
Or wrestling my heart against love that’s true.
Would You Kiss Me?
If for you my love confessed,
Would you kiss me?
If I once forever left,
Would you miss me?
If I shared my fears with you,
Would you listen?
If my wounds were clear to you,
Would you kiss them?
If I badly needed a friend,
Would you be there?
If my cheer was at an end
Would you still care?
If to you my heart I lent,
Would you break it?
If my love on you was spent
Would you take it?
If I headed far out West,
Would you miss me?
A happily ever after blessed
Would you wish me?
Shipwreck Me
Some days I wish I’d washed up on some distant shore;
that a primal gale down on me bore
and stole my life before that door
could split the night
with blinding light
and I crashed to the floor.
Pale, I clang -
I wailed and sang -
dreamed of tales that rang
with baleful plans
to assail and harangue
the whales in my land
that ruefully swallowed me whole.
Would that my ship
aground was ran
when at my hip
I found your hand,
and at my veins
your fangs attached
and drained my sanguinous need.
If the wind and rain
can mend my pain
or send my brain
away on vacation -
drifting among the krill and crustaceans -
to lose my way in some foreign nation,
I’d chance it any time.
To run and scream and chase the sky;
To look on life with brand new eyes;
To laugh and fight and live and cry;
For all of this, I swear that I
would find again in endless rhyme
the joy for life of long lost time.
The crashing waves could wash me clean;
Smashing graves of fears undreamed;
Harvests ungleaned
grow endlessly
but no matter how I toil,
there’s poison in this soil.
I fear my crops are spoiled,
for my heart is ghastly broiled.
A heavy enough landing might just shake my fears away;
A lonely fearsome stranding maybe wipes my tears astray;
Knock my head on straighter,
nothing greater
than my agitator
senses singing wildly -
ringing mightily -
makes my head spin frightfully.
