When All You Love

On 2021013120210130 By Beleaguered ServantIn Original Poems1 Comment

When all you love is still the same,
But somehow, not enough;
When every path’s abandoned, each
New friend, a new rebuff —

When days stretch on like oceans,
And the nights are heavy lade,
And all you ever dreamed about
Dissolves and starts to fade

Then hope becomes a beacon you
Must follow to its source;
To call out in the night for friends
Until you’re more than hoarse

But though your throat be bleeding,
You can still find voice to sing —
When all you love is still the same,
You still have
Everything

(“When All You Love” – 2-9-2017)

Now every pathway seems the same…

On 2021013120210130 By Beleaguered ServantIn Original Poems4 Comments

Now every pathway seems the same,
And choices vary not at all;
The way of hope, the way of blame,
The spring, the summer, winter, fall –

They’re all one road. It’s all one thing.
The path of tentative mistrust
That each new footstep seems to bring
Her in this world
Of lies
And dust

a hundred-weight of dreams

On 2021011420210114 By Beleaguered ServantIn Original Poems1 Comment

a hundred-weight of dreams inside
a thousand-weight of fears;
some scattered days of hope within
and dozen months of tears —

a dread that’s born of emptiness,
a questioning of worth:
a plague of such anxiety
as rends the very earth.

the colors of accomplishment,
ineptitude, or both;
the tearing sound that signifies
both injury and growth —

the hotel with its silence, or
the spotlight with its cheers —
a hundred-weight of dreams inside
a thousand-weight
of fears

Interlace 1

On 2020091520200915 By Beleaguered ServantIn Original Poems1 Comment

I would defend your honor, if I could:

There’s now a pressure on my eyes,
That makes my vision blurry;

And send benighted temper, with its hood,

As lately, I would realize,
It’s dangerous to scurry –

To where it never bothers you again –

As constantly, mortality
Surrounds, and I’m aware:

And be a guard for you among all men

The unimpaired finality
That’s always looming there

Token

On 2020091520200915 By Beleaguered ServantIn Original Poems1 Comment

what is your truth? what have you seen
when no one else was there to see?
is there a lonely spot of road
that's made from you or maybe me?

you knew one in the wintertime
when walls were painted with despair
and no place that you went preferred
to anywhere
or everywhere

what is your plot? your character? 
  your theme?
why do you linger over post, 
  or meme,
or stare at empty screens and wait 
  for words?
or dream of flight, while sealing out 
  the birds?

the lonesome road of wintertime
the isolated way;
the habits that are character,
the token we must pay
to see while we have eyes to see,
and not to look away:
for humankind is horrible
past what mere words can say.

our eyes look down,
the raptors coil above:
it's only love that is our hope,
and all our hope must be
in only
love

the trees shiver

On 2020071920200719 By Beleaguered ServantIn Original Poems1 Comment

i watched the trees shiver

as spirits fled them;

and i shivered –

and my spirit left, as well

Room 108 Night

On 2019121420191214 By Beleaguered ServantIn Original Poems1 Comment

He awakened to a dull blanketing clamor
Lights and shadows moved across the ceiling and walls, caused by passing cars and
Nothing looked familiar around the room
The smell of a cheap hotel, the towels, the pillows

When he was driving all those hours and hours he thought –
He thought, and kept thinking, at least he would sleep, sleep till daylight
But —
No such luck

And loneliness like a truck with its high beams on
bore down on him with the horn blaring
And he had nowhere to go to get away from it

Blank emptiness chasing him like
the crazy vindictive trucker in that Spielberg movie he saw as a kid —
What was it called?
Oh yeah –
“The Duel” —

He wondered when people had last had sex in that room –
He wondered if he would ever have sex again –
He wondered if he would ever get back to sleep

He could still smell bourbon from somewhere,
With ever more lights and maddening shadows moving —

The heater was blowing, singing a sort of suicide song
And he suddenly understood —
What the words of that song

Meant

Stains

On 2019121020191209 By Beleaguered ServantIn Original Poems2 Comments

You think about it all the time,
But never have you said

The weight you carry in your heart,
The words within your head —

But in the morning, hard and gray,
You’ve known these secret pains

Then covered up the traces,
All the bruises and the stains.

To all the world you’ve shown a face
You’ve painted on for show,

But that’s become habitual;
Now, everywhere you go,

You just display the sunlight.
You’re a beacon mid the rains,

And no one sees the leakage,
Or the bleeding, or the stains.

It doesn’t matter anyway.
You know that’s how you think —

And when you seem on edge, I know
You’re really on the brink —

Why is it that you won’t come clean?
There really is no knowing,

But maybe you’ll see hope to know
Your stains at last

Are showing

The Night Was Made for Loneliness

On 2019081120190810 By Beleaguered ServantIn Original PoemsLeave a comment

The night was made for loneliness,
For sitting by the sea;
For watching sunset, knowing you
Are far away from me

The dark, it loves my aimlessness,
My visions that take flight;
It also sends these slow regrets
To nag me through the night

My mind me keeps turning back to you
And reaching for you there —
The night was made for loneliness,
And knowing you

Don’t

Care

No Talent For Certainty

Tag: Despair

When All You Love

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Now every pathway seems the same…

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a hundred-weight of dreams

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Interlace 1

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Token

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the trees shiver

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Room 108 Night

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Stains

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