Friday, December 28, 2012

Stuttering Mumbleing Fool

I stutter and mumble, I cannot think.
You wonder and fumble, but then you wink;
Between your ranks, you social friends,
My heart has sank, my life ends.
Inside this circle of trust I sink,
I cannot fulfill what is on the brink
Of my tongue to fulfill, what is on my mind;
My true hearts calling I cannot find.
Within this mire of scalawags
I am tired, my eyes are dark bags.
I stutter and mumble, I understand not.
My heart be made humble, lest I be caught
In the proud man's net, a fool's residence!
The world loudly is set upon my fence,
To jeer and caterwaul, a dirge of rain.
By this my call is submerged in pain.
You who do wonder at what I say,
True friends do not rue this dark sad day;
Since amends may be made without a thought
To one's feelings, at bay is what pride has wrought.
You that consider what a shamble I am,
Do not confuse me with my state, dame
Not my soul with my sorry confusion;
Ought we, whole souls, not in delusion
Pamper not our state of mind with comforting ideals
By ill thoughts? Golden orr we did find in our minds? Zeal's
Web suggests that we be sure of ourselves,
Yet forgets that certainty never dwells
Without faith and believe; that is certitude.
And so I beg of you, I presume to be rude,
And ask each peg leg, be not a broom
That throws dust in the air; a musty room
Is the result of throwing blame and shame around...
Confuse not my state with what's inside to be found.
I stutter and mumble, I rub at my eyes.
I consider this shamble, is my house made of lies?
Is all that I knew but a mumble, a stuttering word?
Was it that I merely drew what I though to have heard?
For such is the state of a man or a woman
That cannot of late discern God's good omen.
I look to the left, and I look to the right,
Out of dark corners, of shadows, comes light...
That is what I hope for, that is where my mind lies...
Waiting for some future decision, my mind denies
The present need for decisive action;
And thus I am denied of my present satisfaction.
I stutter and mumble, do you wink your eye?
Or are you a humble, true friend? Speak or deny!
Let your heart be open to me;
Lest between us be a wide open sea
Of bitter distrust and malicious deceit,
Let each of us to each other our hearts treat
Of honesty and valor, of courage and love;
Of this alone I am certain, love comes from above
While hatred, and anger, and maleficent deeds
Are empty and hallow, from them evil breeds.

My tongue is numb from uncertainty...
Be for me a light, a friend, set me free;

Stuttering, Mumbling Fool (c) Luke Bennette, December 2012

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Bare Bones

To speak in silence is of the mind,
A tale untold, we all do find.
A word that's spoken is but thin air,
It's potency naught but bare.
The truth may be, it may be naught,
For all things within the net of truth are caught.
Though truth untold by man is not a myth,
Wisdom lies within it's girth.
Although festering lies do our hearts wreathe,
A willing heart is not buried beneath
The rocky fastness of the mountain;
Is sustained by an underground fountain.
The silver lining hides away
Behind the clouds, the banished day.
Yet it sustains we here bellow,
And when words do themselves show
A barren empty mind and heart
The truth is where I'll turn instead,
Lest I should in mistrust make dread
The king of kings, the greatest art.
So speak not out loud lest first inside
You cast out arrogance and foolish pride,
Give heed of what your thoughts are made,
To what cause such thoughts give aid.
Listen to my silent words,
My eyes that speak as heralds
On a cold clear night of frost;
Such may be the speakers cost
If he expects his words be heeded,
And if he wishes his ideas to be not lost,
He will his thoughts, ideas, have kneaded
With the roller of wisdom and truth.
No other way shall silence, in sooth,
Become any meaningful thing at all;
But it shall remain a silent thing,
A word that's bare, a mere load man must haul
That lends only misery and hate
As man's companion, his mate,
Ill fortune shall such a friend bring
Though at first it appears as glamorous luck,
Soon he shall find himself a sitting duck.
A word that's spoken is but thin air,
If it doth not withstand truths piercing stare.

Bare Bones (c) Luke Bennette, December 2012

Monday, December 10, 2012

Gale and Lark

Betwixt the snow and rain that falls upon
The head of snowy white, a once raven
Dyed twine that glistened in the darkness,
Is nothing but a glistening ocean
Of nothingness; so that out of this void
Is said to come something. And looking up
You smile, your lips part in a childlike grin
As you spin around, and around again!
And your head shines in the dark like the sun
Since underneath the lamppost you have fun.
And I do merely look upon your joy;
Here in the dark. I remember the boy
That once saw a girl and called out to her
With a timid squeak; an embarrassed peak
That almost was the end of me! I'd have
Run faster than a kite in hurricane 
Season had you not been listening for
My call; you were waiting like a morn lark
Waits for the dawn; you sang, and turned my tracks
By singing out your heart from behind locks
Of blackened sheen. My task was lightened by
A single blessing I had never thought
Could ever be, that you had longed, as I
For you, for me. Now I call out to you,
And you stumble back, surprised. In the snow
Your grin takes on character, a grimace;
For any woman knows the sound her beau
Makes. And this grimace hides underneath it
A daring plan, a joke. From beneath that
Lamppost you call me to join your revels,
That together we might throw out devils
That do muster beyond the lamp lit fray,
And remain locked in arms until the day
Do take us to heaven; if it may.
Smiles do take us by surprise, and so was
I taken by her smile beneath the lamp
Light. With heavy steps that spoke of my age
I lumbered forward. No longer a page
As in my youth was I, no handsome knight
In shinning armor that could make you sigh,
No clever gentleman of humerus
Gab, I have no intellect! I must stab
Out and take a risk in walking to you;
But risk it I will, for I love you. True
Heart that beckons to mine own I will walk,
Voice that beckons me speak I will talk! Face
That bespeaks of beauty I will gaze on!
And though I am but an old man that's gone
From youthful fancies, whose lost fancies breed,
Still I'll love you more than any young seed.
Now five paces away I stop to look,
I see in you a story, such an open book!
From the tip of your toes beneath brown shoes
To the tip of your hair made white from age,
I see in you a woman fair, and choose
To saunter on,  am forever your page.
You regain your feet, and your smile becomes
Lost in those telling blue eyes of cold steel
Made bitter sweet by wounds that did heal. Did
You step nearer to me? I could not tell!
For I am lost forever, your eyes fell
Me like a tree and I would topple were
It not for your hands around my waistline.
Here we are, wrapped together, lost in time.
And from my mouth comes the nightingales part,
For I must sing my piece, my heart must start.
I never look away as I sing. Your
Eyes brim with tears, I feel your golden ring
Upon your aged hand dig into mine,
Your head collapses on my chest, you pine
With joyful memories of love and life...
Now my song is done, but not yet is strife.
You take up the song from where you are still,
The dawn begins to shine, your song doth fill
The open air with peals of a woman's
Glee, you proclaim from your heart our story.
Betwixt the light of the sun and the dark
We stand and we sing, the gale and the lark.
Underneath the light of a old lamppost
Two are one; two of the least become most.

                Gale and Lark, (c) Luke Bennette, December 2012

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Missing You


Because a world of memories is clear
To the one who holds them close, as a dear
Heart holds close the memory of of a soul
That helped you to surrender all control
In the moment; and what better moment
Than that inexplicable time present
To us in this waking state of being
To open up anew our hearts and sing?
But memories once shared loose their luster,
And loose all their power; I did muster
So many a time at the thought of you
The needed energy to make it through
A blistering day of dreariness, a
Frigid day of hopelessness. Does a May
Lie waiting around the corner if I
Should expose these thoughts? Shall memory die
If I share with another the this old bliss?
Or shall I forever loose you and miss
You; even as shadows miss stormy clouds?

Missing You, (c) Luke Bennette, December 2012

To the Heart


A man whose formed by many pairs of hands
Never knows whose hands to slake, whose demands
To surrender to with abandonment
Of heart and soul; he withdraws to the tent
Of his mind and contemplates affections
That affected him so strongly outside
The tent of his soul that they were likened
To a hurricane, bent on destroying
His mortal frame with many bending winds
Of pointless direction. The surging tides
Of a man's heart may be fickle that
He becomes enamored of the whole world,
And as easily becomes indifferent;
Even so, a man who sows so as to
Win for himself the whole wide world of men
Woes the day that he accomplishes his
Feat of feats, since at it's end he has not
A single formed conviction but a mass
Of melted butter that is his heart. All
His principles have gone by the way
Of siding with a side rather than a
Form that forms a side; like a man who picks
From his meal only the side and leaves the
Main course that was his own to be looted
By so many pairs of hands. Thus is man
Perplexed and confused in his discernment
Of the heart and soul, the mind is a tent
That is ripped asunder from within, and
Many woes that could have been avoided
Become a reality that woes man's heart.

To the Heart, (c) Luke Bennette, December 2012

Monday, December 3, 2012

Stranded out at Sea


Door of oak, solid and fast.
Ceiling of paper, a paper mast
That holds the fan;
A flimsy plan.
Two candles burn,
Their flames in turn
Dance about and dart
Through an empty heart.
Echos smart my ears
Even as my peers
Evaporate from sight;
Such is my plight.
Pictures everywhere,
Silent converse their fare.
Books beside me, three shelves up...
A full stomach from sup.
Yet the mind goes zooming round.
Nowhere to be found
Am I to be, nowhere at all.
I listen everywhere for a call,
A simple sound, a voice...
One upon which to cast my choice.
A desk before me sits,
A computer holds my wits,
A phone counts down the time
Until the end of this morning rhyme...
Then music will cease,
Prayers begin.
My brow will then crease,
My soul within
Will sicken like a tree in autumn's wind,
Like an inn that's put out to much ale;
And having taken to much I'll end
With a sad sops mopping tale.
Dark surrounds me,
Dark within me,
Dark behind me,
Dark above me,
Dark to my left
Dark to my right,
Dark in the cleft,
Dark is my sight!
Where has my light gone?
Where am I, this pawn
Of one so great,
Where is the dawn?
Why doth my heart hate
The very waked sleep
That doth my eyes keep
From a softer bed?
What is in my head
That I should lay
Upon a floor of hay
That's grown sour after
So long in the rafter?
Or upon a marble floor
In front of an oaken door?
Curling lips do tell
That my mind is hell
To walk through tonight...
Like a frost or blight
To the greenery is I
Who do groan and sigh
With confused pain
Like down pouring rain!
And shall the door open?
Shall He return to me?
For right now I'm coping,
I'm stranded out at sea.

                Stranded out at Sea, (c) Luke Bennette