Sunday

Free

The king is dead
The courtiers fled
The soldiers bled
For a loaf of bread
The maid it fed
Now makes his bed
And in her head
Wakes a foreign dread

These bars of steel
Sheer walls of stone
Have echoed forth
Many thoughts unknown
Cut through the cracks
New sun has shone
That light is mine
And mine alone
I am a beast
Of heart and bone
A hungry seed
In desert sown
When towering weeds
Had overgrown
I wrung their necks
To forge a throne
A summer sung
Among my own
The bird remains
The nest has flown

For them that see
Past the canopy
Waits a misery
You must agree
You will decree
The swelling sea
Her sunken tree
Ever home to me

When in that boil
I choose to be
Am I then caged?
Pray, are you free?

Tuesday

The Writer's Creed

Fear not, my words.

Fear not the hour you were born or the piece of paper you were carefully, carelessly or precariously committed to. Fear not the thought that engendered you or the hesitation that endangered you. Fear not the fingers that typed you or the pen that scribbled you. Fear not the blocks that held you back. Fear not.

You will be read. You will be ignored. You will be celebrated, reviled and detested. You will be tested. Fear not. Fear not the eyes that take you in, or the mouths that spit you out. The blinks of disbelief, the stares of discontent, the nods of appreciation and the muted gaze of indifference. They will greet you one and the same.

Fear not the cynicism you carry or the cynics you attract. Fear not the love you foster or the fury you proclaim. There is a weight on your shoulders and it is heavy. Only a few will see it but it is there nonetheless. You’ll be great company on a good day and on another, a speck in the distance. On a bad day, you will preach. 

You will cross lines. You will pass judgment. You will condone and condemn and be the only shred of solace one has to cling to. You will skimmed through, skipped altogether or spent entire days with. You will cloud thinking and rain fresh perspective. You will crush notions and renew hope. You will not retreat. You will provoke.

Fear not the chuckles you invite or the curses that drop by anyway. They will never be enough. Fuck the distractions and the four-letter frowns. You have a purpose. To set minds spinning and enter conversations and contemplations with the subtle force of an honest intention. You will lift songs and power into speech. Speeches, someday.

You will be treasured. You will be forgotten. You will strike someone like a bolt of lightning and stay buried under an avalanche of inconsequence until someone else unearths you by accident. But, you won’t have aged. You are immortal, the bright beacon of a beating heart. You travel to places my feet will never set foot on.

Fear not the strangers you speak to or the strangeness you bring out in them. You are a plot to my mind and the key to its deceptions. You are my strongest hand and my deepest tell. Let us play like we always have. Without reason, often with. You have been my privilege to write and my pleasure to convey. You will be questioned.

I believe in you.