Shooting Star

Second of three poems

From where
Does this journey begin?

Confusion coerced
By the longer lived night
As winter approaches
And brings cold back to life
Maybe the sun’s lost its savor
Earth’s cast it out
To be quick trodden down
Trampled, snuffed out
The crowds are awaiting
Eager to please
The ghost that brings light
To its knees

But alone stands the poet

The last one who sees
That life’s still worth gold
Like the honor-clad days
Of Odysseus of old

But he’s to swim constant upstream
Stand alone on the rocks
And pray
For the struggling seaman
Who flocks
To the danger not knowing
Uninformed and supposing
That the coast remains clear
For the rose garden to grow
But the clouds start to gather
And threaten to strike down on the colors
With sordid white snow

Aiming for the stars
And yet losing sight
As the bullets go bounding
Into the dark cloud of night
Maybe they’ll hit
Who can tell?
But the stars remain silent
Unwilling
To reveal their true self
And the path to achieve them
A silence of lies fall
And who could believe them
If they spoke up at all?

And yet
One cannot forget

They say it’s been done before
By men who bled blood
When the stings of their peers
Pierced into their hearts
Broken like bones
Crushed under the weight
Of pressure to fit in
And be cool like them
A world full of men
In obsession with dark—
Cold depressions converge
And are what they are
For they hold mankind back
From that lost shooting star

So that silent dark ghost
Returns to us now
Sick of the world
And ready to strike out

At the poet himself

Up close and personal
It can taste of his blood
Yes he is mortal like
Odysseus was
Down to the underworld
His body falls faint
And desires to crumble
Yet devoid of complaint
But hunched over his gut
He loses sight of his star
And falls fast in the depths
Of depression once seen from afar
He must find some way to forget
Some way to become
Undercover to lose
That silent dark ghost
And sight
In the heavens resume

A dream comes to mind
Of a shining white castle
From far in the sky
It is but a sparkle
But twinkling bright
And giving off light
Cutting through the darkness
Like a sharp polished knife
Lo! There’s the goal!
And in sleep
It remains within sight
Well within reach
And its touch emanates
The warmth of a mother
The smile of a friend
The kiss of a lover

But its whispers are faint
And faint will remain
Until the sordid white snow
Warms to summery rain

So what holds men back
From being like him?
Discomfort in feeling
And fear to begin
The fiery path
That leads to the dreams
So close yet so far
Its golden gate seems
But one day the greatness
Will rise
Strike up a chord
And surprise
The world
With a newly found fever

All dreams come true
For that man
And rich reward gained
For that journey
Courageously ran

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