Saber Forum

Since this is becoming a thing, I figure I ought to put at least some of my prose here in that capacity.  As such, it may not all be specifically SW related, though I will try and keep things that are about things that are about topics that wouldn't be found in SW out.  As such, some of it will seem philosophical, or explorations of personal states of mind, and as such, I feel, could have been created by a person living in the SW universe.  As well, since they are being referenced and utilized as being such, I hope the mods will allow for the explorations.  So, without further preamble;

Thoughts Upon a Frozen Flake

So gently does the snowflake fall
Drifting down, from nothing to ground
In pale delight, crystals tell tales
Though who can yet hear
Has the language gone so locked
When in the field, a child imagines
All the tales, mind unburdened
Who can say the youth can't listen
That in choosing systems
We have given forfeit
To widespread options
Closed our hearts to tales
Spoken as footfalls crunch
Streams trickle and rivers roar
Yet still who can listen
Hear those tales pounding
Along the shore?

Yay, I was hoping you'd do this! ;D

The loss of a sense of mystery in the world as one learns scientific facts and as one gets older posed against the innovative creative mind of a child that could come up with a million stories for that snow flake...or that's what I get out of it...still I like the ending the flake has its own story away from the observer becoming a stream. Awesome poem.

I have a feeling I might get as much enjoyment from the various interpretations as you all at getting the poems. ;)

Swirling

Racing

Ramming

Screaming

Demeaning

Berating

Intimidating

Words that race from voices

Deep echoes in my mind

Never my voice

Yet known all the same

My demons

Scratching

Clawing

Biting

Gnawing

Punching

Kicking

Beating

Illyiss, I'm loving this!  :-)  Thank you!

THIS





Fantastic!  What wonderful prose to have at hand!  Thanks for this Illyiss!

Special thanks to LSG: the man who got the ball rolling!

Meditations on Time


Each second
Every moment
Spaced uneven
Yet strong
Time experienced
From within
Beats of heart
Defining tempo
Meter, time
All of experience
At a hundred beats
Hammer staccato
While at a turn
Thought and experience
Stretch between
Calm rests
Hard beats
An eternity
Stretched between
Compress and relax
So it is to live
One beat
Until next
So too
Pulse of stars
Rest of space
Nebula in urgency
Black hole draw in
Adrift in life
We are each
Yet another
Untamed galaxy

Nice, the connection between the beats of the heart to the beats of the universe in terms of cosmic phenomena and in underlying concept of the nature of time, like how do you measure the amount of time between moments, is it infinite in some measure, like if you only travel halfway between two points you will never reach the other side.


We are Each/ yet another / untamed galaxy

Wow so much to unpack in that, reminds me of some Indian esoteric concepts of being a universe within our selves, or having universes within ourselves in both a physical and metaphysical sense. You have a way with the simplicity of what you write that is amazing, so few words barely a paragraph if you add it all up...but deep really deep - One of my favorite poets is Byron but he can tend to the verbose at times, the simplicity of this is refreshing  -less is more, and in this case less is a galaxy of meaning.

Thank you, good sir.  And yes, Byron does tend to be long winded, though worth it, when one is in the right mind to chew through.  I will admit, there is a lot of microcosm/macrocosm in parts of this, and how time is an arbitrary construct, that recently science has proven that time as we measure it is not always constant.  The only true measure we have, as perspective based experience machines, is the beat of our heart, the rhythm of our breath.  There is so much that came from this, which admittedly, started with a short mindfulness meditation to calm my nerves.

Indeed, a deep question might be does time exist if there is no organism (carbon based or otherwise) with the capacity to observe it / relies upon a chain of sequential chemical reactions (which is the essence of time in a biological sense)? Micro/MAcrosm comparisons always intrigue me, the can make one feel both indispensable and insignificant all at once.

Interesting. Though I love poetry, I very rarely read it (and even rarer write it) but like most art, I thoroughly enjoy it. Also this one touched on something that I have been giving a lot of thought to recently. The concept of Time. I have been in to concepts of late, Time, Reality, Value, etc. I just find something incredibly interesting about the abstract vagueness of them, yet every person thinks they know what they mean. Anyways, stories for a different area. Still, I love that you are keeping these "Works" going. It will be interesting to see if I can work any of them into my own stories.

I LOVE this piece; it touches on not only the Soul but also Quantum Physics and brings them together.  And not just as Art, but also as a biological function, and a natural phenomenon.

Eloquent, simple (but not simplistic), and...I'll say it again: sublime  :)

Thank you for sharing this Illyiss!

Illyiss, I love it.  I had to read it over a few times to let it sink in.  I'm still not sure I really get it.

But I like it! 

Now is the world
In which we live
Where safe applies
No longer

Once we thought
I am safe
That only happens
Over there
Far away
Other places

Now in our homes
We question the mail
Did we order that
Is it safe
To open and see

Avoid the right
That lane could be
Unsafe
Is that a wire
Or just a stick

Never will the world
Be what once was
We have joined
The rest of Earth
Danger came home
Safe isn't safe
Anymore.

Ode to Austin... 

They cried "Peace! Peace!" but there is no peace...

Austin, and the nation as a whole.  Sadly, we can't think of this in terms of "there".  We have to start accepting that this is a national reality, and train ourselves to believe that this can happen anywhere.  I'd have to imagine this is how the people of Naboo, and then Republic felt...  And yes, relating things to music and fiction is one of my coping methods.

Not only is this incredibly timely but also pertinent to SO much of our collective mentality.  I applaud you for not only the content but also striking RIGHT at the heart of the matter.  Well done, sir, well done.

JUST like Illyiss: this rings SO true given the national pulse.  Kudos Karm.

Thank you.  It needed to come out, to be written, in the environment of the last several days, and some of the conversations I have seen since yesterday.  I am glad it conveys what I hoped.

Another good one Illyiss, very topical. A strange shock to it, but when you reflect on other things like school shootings, high murder rates in impoverished areas I wonder who the speaker is, who was it that ever though they were safe to begin with...its almost a realisation of reality, and that is the real shock, to have to admit you are not immune...but give it a few weeks like after each school shooting or terrorist attack and people go back to how it was before...only those directly effected tend to linger on it...until something else happens and the cycle repeats.

Believe it or not, there are STILL a lot of people with their heads in the sand on this, that think things like, "It won't happen here", or "That only happens in Europe or the Middle East", or that believe this is isolated, won't reach them, and feel safe when they are told it's not terrorism.  But I'm gonna suggest we not delve to much, as this gets real close to politics. 

It's also a plea, a hope that people will accept that they shouldn't just let it fade.

I'd posit its more psychology than political, its a defence mechanism, to assume you are safe otherwise you end up with huge anxiety problems, forgetting and ignoring is protective in that sense, possibly an evolutionary mechanism...doesn't always work of course but interesting to consider...a reminder like these events could trigger a dissonance that needs to be purged by grief, some kind of temporary activism...but it can't last or it becomes damaging...

Much to consider either way...might be a concept I'll include in a future chapter/interlude. 

When will the words
Mean what they meant
Not change each time
An agenda is brought
Twisting and inferring
Or is it supporting
One can hardly tell
Since the fashion
Follows the rage
This season it's us
Next fall all them
No one holds
Things close esteemed
Because making words
Say what you want
Is so much
More vogue
Than meaning
What is said.

hmmm...no words or texts are communicated out of a particular context nor are they received by another outside of their particular context, if meaning shifts between these contexts is it intentional, or the inevitable result of the difference between I and You, or Then and Now.  Anyways makes me think about how history of countries/cultures is so often seen in different lights at different times as to what drove particular actions, was it great leader/men o whats it the impact of economics/social change, what is an important event...what was Aristole or Kant trying to tell us, can their words retain the same intention they had writing them in a different culture? bit of a tangent I know but might act as an example of what you are trying to get at.  As always most thought provoking Illyiss.

Thank you.  I am very glad that my works promote thinking, it's one of my biggest hopes!

I'm reminded of the book "1984" and "Newspeak"   One moment it's Oceania in a war against Eurasia (and has always been so) but then later Oceania is fighting Eastasia (and has always been) and everyone knows the lies are falsehoods but no one says anything...

This poem is evocative of that for me.  There's always some spin, some sidestep, some other interpretation.

Bravo Illyiss; truly well done.  

Thank you, good sir.

I get the sense of the way the language has changed over the past years. From one generation to the next. I can even see it from when I was younger to now. People do not have as precise a vocabulary as they used to. This may not be anything about what you are getting at with this one, but that is how I interpret it. Almost as if a man is looking back at his early years of life, and comparing it to the society of today's world, and using an example as simple as language, so it can easily be understood. This is obvious in the passages "When will the words -- Mean what they meant" and "Because making words -- Say what you want -- Is so much -- More vogue -- Than meaning -- What is said."

Very interesting how we all see something different in this one poem, most likely due to our differing perspectives on life itself. It shows a true mastery. Well done.

Turning
Spinning on and on
The word goes around
While upon it live people
Who think it will never stop
Which gives them space
To ponder the small things
Lament that their problems
Are like the end of the world
Though they are not
Not nearly so much
As the world ending
Would be, if it stopped
For what seems the end
To each single mind
Is only the passing of a moment
Limited in scope
Touching only a few
For a short, short time
While the world
Spinning on and on
Is the foundation
For everyone
For all that time.

VERY poignant Illyiss.

I'm reminded of something that General Colon Powell said:  "Go to sleep and deal with it in the morning.  It ain't as bad as you think."

I've been struggling with a lot lately, and need to keep reminding myself that my problems are not the end of the world, and then the words, well, they just fell onto the page. ;)  I am glad you like it.

Everyone is the centre of their own universe.  Yet sometimes not the main character for all that...as always so much to contemplate sometimes in the small scale of a life the world does end...but it's usually a world based on social bonds and emotions rather than the indifferent physical geology...yet that too can collapse e.g how many cities have been abandoned as Rivera change course etc...we inhabit one physical world perhaps...but dozens of conceptual ones each played on the true globe, but their collapse is no less impactful for the person experiencing it.

Spring

In the Springtime
When the flowers bloom
Green returns
To warm accolades
Breezes that carry
Life anew
Thunder roars
Calling sleeping lives
Come out from within
Your dens, holes, homes
Time has turned
As it always does
Once again
To signal return
Fertility in bloom
Cycles renew
Life rising up
From beyond pale death
Leaving behind
Cold claws, decay
As lust takes root
With months to grow
Warm is the womb
That is the world
As Spring thrusts
The trumpet forth
For flowers to form
Seeds for cycles
Ever to reform

I really did.  Point of fact: when I first read that Colon Powell quote I'd been involved in (what I considered at the time) the worst of events.  The advice was as helpful and true then as now; your latest work, more so.  I have to say Illyiss, you've given me a new appreciation for free-form.  Poignant, exemplary, relevant.

Thank you sir  :)

You are welcome, and I thank you, for your words on them.  I am truly glad they are enjoyed, and more so that they help anyone in any way!

One day,
(May it be many years away)
When I must be read last rights,
(Having lived and loved fully)
Read me not the words of passing,
(For the living hear them too often)
But read me poetry that I have not yet known.

Oh, I like the imagery of this...   Fly away on the wings of newly-known beauty...

Very poignant...two ways to read this... ignore the brackets and it's quite a simple request...but with them...what are they infact things that are wanted things that are feared will not happen, or hoped yet to happen between now and then..those tiny brackets in my reading give it such a indecipherable edge...they break in to the main poem and yet are essential to it...very compelling.

This reminds me of a Japanese death poem that I can vaguely recall from my childhood...but with the added intrepidity of a "Western hopefulness" that not only brings balance but, indeed, profundity with your deliberate set up!  I am humbled sir by your talents  :)

I long for open spaces
Places where others are not
Where there are no concerns
About this and that
Somewhere I can connect
With the core of what is
Find the center in me
Refill it from the center
Reflect on my surroundings
Be they grass or trees or beach
Even places left behind
By others in their rush
To keep up with some others
Filling up their outsides
While I lament
Draining of my center
Unable to connect
Among all these actors
To the center of us all

Like many people I work 5 days in an office, financial and data analysis stuff - all numbers and concepts nothing to touch or real to make, in air conditioned comfort (to be fair that's a good thing in Australia n summers!) Anyway point is I really get what you mean wanting open spaces to connect with what IS as opposed to the artificial edifice I work in (well sometime work sometime punch out chapters....) What have deadlines and numbers to do with the real world of rocks, geology, plants, fauna ecosystems that we evolved to exist in...those things will still be here long after our false world's have gone.

Yet again insightful and thought provoking Illyiss.

Like LSG, I get the longing for separation, and lucky for me, I live in a place where I can have it. Sadly though, as much as we want to be separated from the rest of the world, we do need people in our lives.

Oh indeed, but the longing to get away, at least for a time to recharge and reconnect...  Oh how I miss it.  As well, I am tethered to where I can sleep; has to have power.

Alone
In the dark
No company but my thoughts
Screaming deep inside
Alone
Nothing to see
To distract me from me
Breaking down again
Alone
Sense of worth
Slipping like tires on ice
Dragging me deeper
Alone
Red eyes raw
Echoes of an empty life
Dreams stolen away
Alone
Spinning into nothing
Void a chasm opens wide
Welcome me back
Alone

One of the best places I've visited is New Mexico; its ambience, connection to nature, and spirituality are a salve for the longing that I get.  Being away from the "actors" that I sometimes work around is sacrosanct, never to be taken to granted.  Superb eloquence Illyiss   :)

My lord this was me in my late teens and early 20s.  Somehow, despite my youth and inexperience, I met my wife, having the maturity and wherewithal to NOT screw up, and I kept her.  And because of her, she banished this poems contents from me.

This poem is so evocative of that time...haunting.  You sir are incredible.

Indeed. It is good to get away for a time.


And this. I don't experience it, yet still, it (in a way) is scary. Not sure why, but it probably has something to do with what we were talking about above. We NEED others, even if we don't want to admit it.

We, as a species, are curious pack animals that also require solitude, with the ability to re-connect with the pack.  I think we have lost the opportunity (often) for the right kinds of solitude, and few find packs to connect with, and so not only have that missing piece, but spend too  much time in the wrong kind of solitude, which becomes the chasm... 

What's also interesting, to me, those who wrestle with the dark and depression find it haunting, but familiar, while those who do not, see the frightening aspects of it that some of us have become inured to...

To quote Simon and Garfunkel....Hello Darkness my old Friend....

Anyway I once heard it said, and think there is more than a little truth in this, that Loneliness is to the absence of any connection or company, but rather the absences of a particular desired/required/fulfilling type of companionship, with out the particular type you need, no amount of contact is going to help - not substitute as it were. 

QFT^^

Still of the night
Dark all around

Air hanging thick

Suppressing all sound

Thoughts seek to race

As pulses hard pound

Never reveals

What could be aground

To eyes without sight

Closer they bound

At unready soldier

Who unlike the hound

Never will know

Till in blood is drowned

In the dark
We are alike

With no bright light

To call out shame

Now lone touch

Left to see

You seem the same

As me to me

Maybe not what you were going for, but i get a sense of dislocation from 'In the dark' like a sense of loss of self, no distinction between yourself and others. As for Still of Night...yikes watch out, its the one you don't see coming that gets you, but the terror is knowing its coming despite not knowing when.

Still of the night is haunting.  I love the imagery of the bullet as a beast, stalking the unaware soldier.  A fitting description of combat, from what I've read and heard from those who have seen the elephant (I have not).

In the Dark .... my jury is out on this one.  I can certainly appreciate the thought but there's something to be said for stepping into the light as well.  I'm not sure I buy the idea of hiding in the dark suppressing shame.  More the other way around in my view.  There should be no shame in being different.  And no mistake that cannot be forgiven.  But both require light...

So, as I was writing, the concept of shame in In the Dark, is more about the shame of society teaching that what you see distances us; race, gender, fashion, body type, et al...  In the dark, none of these things matter, we are the same, and superficial distinctions are the shame, and how culture promotes them.  For me, it is a piece about equality, and abolishing bigotry.

OK, yeah.  I can see that.  :-)  I guess my wish then would be that we could eventually find a place where we could live in the light without needing the dark to make us equal.  :)

I agree.

Interesting... I guess I can't say that I'm surprised that all of us can relate to Illyiss' profound words.  Not trying to get into the whole "duality of the soul" Jungian-type thing, but rather the human capacity for both.  As with yin and yang I sometimes wonder if both are necessary for the obverse to exist... Heh, I guess that's why I believe in the Gray Jedi tenets...

Regardless, beautiful Illyiss.

Waking up
Learning to feel
Without the fear
Of losing it all
Emotions ran away
Dragging you along
Making you alone
Terror in the night
Hell through the day
Shut them down
Lock the box
Then comes the rot
Half of you denied
Soul entropy
Such an abstract pain
Like a culture crying out
Just to feel again

As always amazing depth. This section above I really connected with...that your emotions drag you into despair...so you try and shut it off be neutral unfeeling but then of course...


You lose part of yourself by being so locked off. Yeah I've been in a place like that still am sometimes. Thank you for giving such an eloquent voce to such a confused state of mind and heart. Hoping everyone can find peace in the night and a little hope in the day...

I had to read through this 3-4 times.  It was like taking a shot shower with a sun-burn.  It hurt ... but it was necessary.  This has so many layers of meaning.  There's the personal level, a person in pain, depressed, dealing with a hurt or a loss, hoping it will be better, fearing it won't ... and locking the worst of it away, getting temporary relief at the cost of more or worse pain later...

And then there are the cultural and social applications....   :-)  Way to many things to unpack and I won't do it justice anyway, so I'm just going to say that its a profound way to look at our own cultural 'lock box' ... and I fear that what we've locked away, festering, will never be fully dealt with, as to many of us no longer wish to feel at all....

Interesting just how poignant this piece speaks to us all, and just how similarly.  Or...perhaps not, given our mutual interest and regard of one another's work.  Regardless, once again Illyis your prose is sublime, your words valid, the subtext both relatable and haunting.

Alone I stood
Amid the blessed dark
Empty still was I
No purpose to guide
When above a light
Dark flaming wings
Falling, crashing
Perilous flight
Without thought
I ran, acted then
To break the fall
Of what I knew not
Angel and Phoenix
Dark flames burning through
My lives began that day
So very long ago
When without thought
I happened upon the chance
To catch you as you fell.

I love the imagery!  Beginning in a dark place, alone...  And ending better than it began, for both of you. 
As always I find your style evocative and very emotional.  There's something about the broken lines that distills the emotional content and makes the whole work very elemental.  They're never easy to read, but they're always worth the effort.

Thank you!

It was like watching
The story of a life
I know you once lived
And I was by your side
The details not quite right
Just little things that change
In the telling of old tales
Time and time again
Memories dredged up
Some pretty to delight
Some painful and angry
Some sadistic in the night
Sitting there beside you
Feeling all those things
Reactions so much the same
At all the same que points
Surreal moving pictures
Of a life long forgot
Yet no where would I want
To have been for that time
Neither now
Never then

Wow...I have to Wonder if "It was like watching" is the Sequel to "Alone I Stood" One showing the way helping someone else who is crashing can pull you ou of the darkness...the other that lives don't last, our memories of them twist once they are gone, smoothing over details, misrepresenting what actually happened and what was said, but what sticks is the emotion of the moments if not the precise details - which is actually a strong part of the psychology of memory encoding people tend to remember the emotion a gist of a situation rather than details. I'm not sure what is worse, knowing there was no were else you would have rather been  -

"Yet no where would I want
To have been for that time
Neither now
Never then"
And still losing that time as it turns to an old reel of film...or feeling it was all a waste of time as i tend to with such memories.

YES!  Part of the importance of perspectives is the fact that it gives both meaning and purpose to the ephemeral.  But the pain of such a fundamental loss... Only compounded by regret; regret that is twofold: the loss of a life and the inexactitude of failing memory...without which, what do we really have?  Beautiful...and terrifying.

My God Illyiss...THIS is one of the key points about Kazic that I wanted to convey in Schims and you have written something MUCH more adroitly than I ever could. 

This one is...  a little different.  Not poetry, just a very visceral look into my own head... 

1984.  The year I became self aware of the way in which I interface with world around me through music.  The way I delve my emotions, and how I express them when the words become too complex to gift understanding to others.  Something I hadn't realized before tonight.  In a freak chance a friend shared a video shouting out the great music that was 1984.  A discussion ensued how that was a great year musically, but friend thought another year (1987) was better, but that 84 was amazing.  I watched the video on 87, and it hit me.  84 imprinted on me so much deeper.  Why?  So I delved, and found the answer.  Good, right?  Well yes, but...

My heart and brain are stuck in 1984 right now, on a nostalgia trip of all the emotions those songs have been tied to over the 34 intervening years, and I don't know if I really can take all that heartache again and again and again, but I can't stop either.  Coming into 84 was the last time I remember not being always dysthmic, the last time before I saw through the last of the illusions my narcissistic mother had woven around my life.  By the time my impressionable mind made it into 1985, there was a miasma, a darker, bleaker outlook that had taken root, and has never left to this day.

I grew up with movies and pundits that told my overly imaginative, abused brain that by the time I reached adulthood, or shortly after, we would be in either a post-apocalyptic wasteland, or else that the world would be a dark dystopia brought straight from cyberpunk fiction.  Mad Max or Blade Runner.  That's if we didn't all go out like in the older, "The Day After".  I watched people die, and not just on tv; I was just one year older, in 1985, when I first saw someone shot and killed up close (for a pair of Air Jordan shoes, which the offender was wearing a matching pair).  I saw the homeless under the bridges and overpasses, the crack and heroin addicts huddled, muttering, shivering, searching, with eyes that spoke of having been too far over the edge, and having seen too much.  I lived just outside of the murder capitol of the world, where politicians did nothing about the pressing problems of the day, while less than a mile away, murders were so rampant, Judge Dredd might have fit right in.  When I could go out the door, get on my bicycle and ignore everything, I could escape.  For little, tiny pieces of time.  Music.  Politics.  Sociology.  Fashion.  All commentated every thirty minutes by the ever stoic Kurt Loder, and the whole world loomed large and ready to rip itself into flaming shreds of nuclear winter...

I still think I don't understand what timeline I slipped, this still feels wrong, and I am lost without the apocalypse I was born to experience, and find myself in this slow, orchestrated slide into consensual dystopia, all at the call of the Capitalist masters and their demi-human handlers...  Hell, even the end of the world is monetized...

Illyiss, thank you for sharing.  I'm not sure exactly how old you are, sir, but we are of an age.  I have a similar reaction to 1984, but I didn't have the dysfunctional family members you're describing nor did I live on the edge of "The Dark Side".   So my own recollection of that time is far sunnier.  What I remember from 1984 is triumph.   USA striking gold in LA.  Star Trek IV.  I also became "musically aware" that year, but my discoveries were the works of a men such as Bach, Mozart, Holst, and Copeland.  Especially Bach.  The precision and order spoke to me.  It still does.  But my favorite type of music, again something I found during a long time of enforced stillness in the summer of 1984, was music from a period I learned later was called the Renaissance.  Pre-classical music, coming out of the Medieval age.  Loved it.  Still do.

I did NOT love the broken leg and crushed bicycle.  I also learned in 1984 that I am mortal.  Well, sort of...  I didn't actually die.  I just almost died when a car slammed into my bike.  I spent a long summer unable to get out and do things.  I lost a summer of fun.  I found classical music and books about stuff.  I read about 60% of the Encyclopedia that summer... 

My friend, I hope and pray you can find your way out of your dark maze.  I won't pretend to understand the agony you are living, but there is hope and healing available.  To coin a phrase: Let go of your darkness.  Embrace the light... 

I think I get it…everything you saw pointed toward an imminent end, not just in various media but also in real life – and with good reason too - the list of things you did see show a society already tumbling into dystopia – but it never quite came and so it’s like the world has frozen – it’s on a kind of strange pause where time moves but doesn’t progress.  And perhaps the worst thing is these things that show a path to desolation are still there – there are still the homeless, the drug addicts, rusting industrial wastes bordered by foreclosed housing estates – so in a sense everything is still as it was in 1984 but the apocalypse remains in abeyance.

If anything I would be surprised if you didn’t feel the way indicated here. I’m reminded of a scene in a book about WWI where the protagonist watches all the people being carted toward the battlefield and he imagines this is the way it will always be – the machine will just keep churning – in many ways he was right – same old stage just a change of scene.

I grew up in a very different place- sunny South Australia of the late 80’s across the 90’s.  Despite both speaking English and being ‘western’ the culture is very different to urban US, much more like a big country town than city.  So far from most of the major problems of the world all those movies at the time were just fantasy and showed no parallels to what we saw day to day.  That doesn’t invalidate your reality – rather in my mind it makes me think how weird it is two such different ‘worlds’ can exist on the same planet at roughly the same time depending where you’re located –neither is reflective of the whole of the world, yet each is its own universe….and each produces different people as a result. 

Anyway much to consider and a very fascinating and deep exploration of your thoughts.  Glad you felt you could share. Hopefully putting it out there helps to externalise a little.

Its sobering to realize how much our circumstances can shape our views on life.  Also a good thing to remember.  Just because I have fond memories of the 80's doesn't mean everyone else does.  :-)

I too grew up during the 80s.  I remember being worried about impending nuclear war with the USSR, I can recall the incredible interest rates of the time (God forbid you borrow money at 13% or more), and--like Illyiss--distinctly remember seeing my first pair of Air Jordans.  Not mine; I grew up poor, but rather a classmate of mine had them.  A month later he was stabbed during a robbery (the Air Jordans being the object of desire).  My memories of the 80s are also balanced by good times to compensate for the bad.  Seems that duality is a common trait, at least here among us.  I had a saint of a mother; my dad...well, let's just say that its been to my benefit that I haven't seen/spoken/worried about him in decades.

It was during the 80s that I developed an appreciation for those things that I hold in high regard: reading, writing, music (I remember the first time I heard Carmina Burana; still epic IMO), exercise, history.  And while I certainly cannot know what Illyiss is going through, I can certainly empathize given my own adversity.

But I also lucked out: somehow I had the wherewithal and wisdom despite my 20-year-old stupidity to realize that the woman who became my wife was THE ONE.  And regardless of ups and downs (and there have been many), I know that having her has helped beyond what I can convey here.  And to think that was almost 25 years ago...

Illyiss my friend, I will not relay to you useless platitudes or suggestions (which, for the record, I do not believe ANYONE here has done; we're in GOOD company with Karm and LSG) but I can--like my friends--offer you my friendship and a ready ear.  And that's a promise that you can count on.

You come and you go
Follow whim and desire
Live as you do
Be who you are
All of the foibles
Oddness and faults
Each dirty garment
On closeted skelletons
These all as well
Are aspects of you
None of them scare
Frighten or phase
No batted eyes
At any of this
I know the depth
Of your sweet darkness
Singing a song
I've always known
A lilting dirge tune
Calling me home
To claim what you gave
More precious than throne
You made requests
Which I have fulfilled
Come share the spoils
Of what you desire
My dearest, dark lady
All this for you

Brilliant soft points
Glowing up high
Shades of bright blue
And innocent white
Against inky blackness
Green all around
Canopy above
Soft on the ground
Chirping of crickets
Temperature warm
Slowly pale disk
Her reflection of light
Rises up towards
Those blue and white dots
Arcing across
Horizon to horizon
While settled together
Close upon blanket
No words need be spoken
Nocturnal this tryst
Fingers light touch
Joining of lips
Deep flames uprising
Burning red hot
Joining together
Passionate need
Find it together
Some soon summer's eve

This moment suspends
Perception quantum expands
Aeons range back
Foundations of time
Infinity stretching out
Possibility forever more
Always one constant
One thing stays true
As I looked into
Brown eyes like oceans
Turned golden storm waves
Became intersections
Dimensions' crossroads
All things that were
And ever may be
Carry this weight
This truth I can see
I glance in your eyes
See perfectly clear
My heart simply melts
To have you so near
So over and over
Through life and through age
I assert my vow, promise
This feeling, no cage
Never you question
Or believe it not true
Forever I love
My queen
Yes you

Unbridled darkness
Long days unseen
Asked to come forth
By word set free
Churning storm seething
Stretching old wings
Flexing clawed fingers
Gnashing sharp teeth
Sights hard set
Purpose in mind
Biding the time
Unbridled passion
Specific intent
Ready to give
What was so asked
Towering form
Growling reply
Eager to hear
Some soon reply
Question I pose
Hanging out there
Conversation prompt
The words,
"My queen..."

Common theme in these four seems to be this Queen...and wow that's a lot of dedication wrapped in a amazing set you your simple (i don't think any one line gets past four words!) yet absolutely startling imagery and metaphors - especially "brilliant soft points" which is full of color (blue white, red, green) and the oceanic parallels strongest in "This moment suspends".  Maybe its just me but this is like the kind of thing I imagine a darker Tristan/Lancelot writing to Isolde/Guinevere.   

Very good parallel here. I didn't think about it when I first read them, but after reading your comment, I whole-heartedly agree.

All alone
Not one soul
Giving face
Voices echo
Screaming,screaching
Whispers, murmers
Shouts and yells
Cacaphonic overload
Thousands of thousands
Tales and tells
Advice and critique
All eternity
Fractured infinite
Laughing void
Tender nirvana
Swirling slicing
A mind unhinged
Connection complete
Download or delusion
Pain from the flood
Or loss from the first
Is murder our only forever...

Took a few reads but i think i get this one now..the start bit sounds like someone who is subject to sensory overload of some kind experiencing an overload from all the sounds...yet still alone...then it seems like 'advice and critiques' basically send them in a swirling madness it resolves back to the start with "Pain from the flood/Or loss from the first" - is the apin from the flood of sensory information or the isolation ending is a chilling but pertinent question, are these two things both fleeting and the reality of the abyss the only true forever thing.  Complex but so succinct and as always thought provoking.

I'm not okay.

Except I am.

That's what you see, the face I wear.

Inside it hurts, it forges me hard.

The passion, the fire, the love so strong.

Apart, away, with no word, just faith.

Despite the flame, dark cold edges in.

I battle the ill, the flaw of soul.

I trust, I love, I hold belief in us.

Caught between love and depression.

I cry, I struggle, I fight to tread water.

I believe in you, I believe in us.

Every day as well, I believe in me, though that is the struggle.

You with I, one day shall be, I know my heart in glee.

I am okay.

Except I'm not.

That is a genius mirror start and finish.  Has a very kind of 'Not Waving but drowning' feel about it, i don't think there's anyone that isn't doing this in some way, covering up something that cutting inside, but its okay in a way, but its not. As always you speak to common experiences that one doesn't really reflect one is or has (or will) experienced in such an eloquent way.

Superb poignancy as always Illyiss.  I believe that most (if not all of us) can empathize with this, and so much more than "duality of man" labels.

A sword may appreciate the fires of the forge as necessary but that doesn't translate as liking them.  So too with adversity.  What's ironic is that through progressive resistance do we become stronger.

But I don't have to like it.

Thank you Illyiss.  Powerful and poignant.  With any love comes pain, we are all flawed and end up hurting those we love the most.

And I want to echo LSG: the use of mirror images beginning and end is excellent construction.  :-)  Nicely done!

Damn. Well done Illyiss.

When you meet someone and fall
By inches and degrees
Step by spoken word
Quietly the heart of you
Beats to now another
The space within you grows
All of you, to each of them
Never growing cold
Even when they've gone away
Or never feel the same way
So leaps and bounds
Pile on deep inside
The love, which fills
Beside the ache that chills

Illyiss, this is a beautiful look at and description of a relationship.  The initial pass and I wanted to think it was in reference to a romantic relationship, but this goes so much deeper than that.  This is real love, real relationship, the kind of connections that expand our lives and make it worth living - even when we know they're not permanent.  The imagery of hearts beating together, of lives filling  the nooks and crannies of each other's existence...   

Thank you, sir.  This is awesome.   

Agreed there is also a sad edge at the end in my reading "even when they've gone away / or never feel the same way...the love which fills besides ether aches that chills" once they are gone it becomes a hideous absence all that connection you had (or thought you did) rebounds all the more painfully....but maybe that's just my personal experiences read into the poem...but then that is what poetry is all about - saying what you feel in ways you can't articulate yourself - time and again Illyiss has done this for all of us.

It is a strange joy of poetry, for the poet, that the words, with such strong and specific meaning when penned, can mean something different and unique to each reader.  Even at times a reader may find different meaning when at different points in their life.  Many other forms of written work, to have the original intent not conveyed clearly to each reader, is a consternation, perhaps even a failing, yet poetry, most like painting in this way, draws forth meaning through perception.

Thank you all for your praise, and for indulging my prose.

Forever alone
Inside this skin suit
Wether crowded room
Or solitude complete
As though a passenger
Traveling through this life
Longing to love
Connections not quite
When so near at hand
I feel light years away
So more like the sun
I send out my light
Burning inside
My heart's furnace bright
Yet never knowing a moon
Unreflected
My light

BOTH of these REALLY spoke to me.  Since my childhood, I'd suffered from a gut-wrenching loneliness that was a constant for my first 20 years of life.  Then, I met the woman who became my wife, more than filling the emptiness and banishing the pain.  I won't go into more particulars here but...suffice it to say, the weight of imagery is so much more sublime than even words alone can convey.

Thank you, Illyiss.  Prose truly moving and altogether entirely personal.

Thank you for sharing! Very true though I once read something like once you publish or tell a story it is no longer your story but the listeners - there is no listening not filtered through their own different perspective hence same words have a thousand meanings drawn half from within the viewer.


This one...disconnection almost out of body I think we all get that feeling sometime s - what is this thing in the mirror is it really me? It's rarely how you imagine yourself in your mind's eye...it's just this carrier - luminous beings are we not this crude matter?

Inspired by a photo and story of a person who has SCA field legal Black Panther armor that is screen acurate in appearance.

Found among
Anointed knights
And warriors all bold
From times and places old
One man alone
Among the ranks
Does stand apart
With armor sleek
Which calls to mind
A cry so deep and bold
That pride inside
Does surely swell
From battle cry
Rings over field
Heard in period never
Forget us not
Wakanda, forever!

That was really, really good Illyiss. Excellent.-1 

Timeless beauty,
Eternal grace,
Elemental strength,
Ethereal presence,
Of the fae,
And of the dark,
From the North,
Renown in spades,
Skål to her,
Who deserves all honor.

An epic ode to one held in high esteem.  I love the Scandinavian imagry and subtle touches of language that evoke Viking halls and wood fire smoke over icy terrain.  :-)

^^^What he said.^^^

Skål indeed!  Shakespeare's soliloquies have nothing on you my friend!

With your permission, I'm going to put that in a card to my wife and take all the credit for it!!*

*_{I am of course just kidding}  :)