Journey Wrong

by john clare

I was not wanting on this journey into exile
Impudent men packed the safari boxes and set out
Tracing torn paths on maps rolled long ago
Thinking wiser ones than them hid something
worth leaving.
And so we endured the hardships
of following forbidden maps.
Our party split at the foot of the sacred hill,
most of the burden bearers seeing
the skulls upon the stakes
Others the golden trinkets adorning the bones.
Way too far along to say I told you so,
I pick up the abandoned burdens
and journey on
Too close to the X to turn back now.
And to what?
The reef holding our sunken schooner?
The drums from cannibal councils
hungering for flesh?
The lot is cast with this gold lustered crew.
What more can a mute coward do?

Beyond Fifty fathoms

Beyond fifty fathoms
by john clare

from the shore to far away
beyond the time of gloam
the equinox between the night
and the day
Half a heart for home
Half a heart to roam
the symmetry defines
a double bladed shaft
crafts of graceful lines
places sought so vast
Half a urge to hurry
Half a urge to tarry
gleams from soft glowing
roiling to rippled surroundings
the nearer to the far I go
behind fades shattered sounds
Half way to gone
Half way to alone
upon the thin point of time
i pause before going beyond far
to cut upon the trot line
setting the guardian of far free
Half the line swings
Half the line sinks
too soon the paddle scrapes
the near shore from far
shattered sounds i had escaped
rising stench from a rotting gar
Half his body bone
Half his body gone
Half of me home
Half of me gone.

O Wind

Misgiving

by
Robert Frost

All crying, "We will go with you, O Wind!"
The foliage follow him, leaf and stem;
But a sleep oppresses them as they go,
And the end by bidding him stay with them.

Since ever they flung abroad in spring
The leaves had promised themselves this flight,
Who now would fain seek sheltering wall,
Or thicket, or hollow place for the night.

And now they answer his summoning blast
With an ever vaguer and vaguer stir,
Or at utmost a little reluctant whirl
That drops them no further than where they were.

I only hope that when I am free,
As they are free, to go in quest
Of the knowledge beyond the bounds of life
It may not seem better to me to rest.

First light upon Suwannee

Suwannee Gold

Toward Halpatter Home

Luna Swift

Four Pair

Low Alligator

Flyways

Five Rebels

by john clare

We had five compasses all pointing the same direction
Each plainly telling us which way we should go
Yet to the man the opposite direction was chosen
When all were lost each blamed a compass defection.

We each had five rulers all marking the same inch
Each clearly showing us where to make the cut
But when none of the boards would squarely abut
We blamed the rulers varied increments.

We had five tuning forks in the key of C
It easily told us how to tune our instruments
But when the noise began and the booing commenced
It was the fault of the fork, we heard the chord of D.

We had five Bibles opened upon John 3:16,
We each clearly read whosover, shall not perish
But have life eternal
But when we died and woke in hell infernal
We blamed the Bible for not saying
what it clearly means.

Five rebels blaming all the wrong things
Compasses for going North, rulers for warped wood,
Forks for bad music, Bibles for not going with the good
Five rebels now screaming instead of singing.