:: POEM REVISION ::


The Willow
by PJ Kempen


The Willow overgrown
envelops your home
with its blonde, wild maiden-hair
Monolithic
Atop the quiet hill.

Its roots spread out
like your raw, muddy toes
through the cool grass
beneath its canopy.

Stillness
The summer wind embraces you.
Warm silk on bare arms and legs.

Run your hands through the branches.
Grip to feel them pull back.

Hope in secret
that they'll pull you up
and out of context.

Somewhere not bathed
in the sepia fog of childish ignorance
or the neon glare of the imaginary.
 
But you always let go.


-

Peer through the branches.
To glimpse a world outside
hidden, forbidden
worth fighting to see
because you must fight to see it
and you do.

with a child's hands
a mouth filled with words
you flee the quiet hill
to find something more  real.
and you do.

What you find confirms
all of your fears
That all that made sense was pretend
that all you believed in was wrong
that all you despised was law.


-

Now alone
In holy disillusion
If you could but grip
and feel the branches pull back
would you wish them to take you to the quiet hill

to bathe again
in the sepia fog

in the neon glare
under the cool maiden-hair
canopy of the willow?

You always let go.

:: Renaissance By Fire ::
by PJ Kempen 

Labor for an uncertain cause
Hands made raw

Somber, I inhale
Rejoicing in the smoke
of the burning works of the fathers

We must burn it all
And leave nothing that was

Ritual sacrifice of the obsolete
to the new gods
Reason
Self

Start again amid the fallen ashes
and the ancient stones
Survivors of fires scrutiny

Charred and tired
Those silent truths that will not burn
Face them to the new North of understanding

We will build it all again
In our own flawed image
To fall or stand as it will
Only to say that it was ours.

To hell with your words.
We will find our own truth.

:: What's Left To Mourn ::
by PJ Kempen

She pressed her cheek against the silken cloth

Draped over her dark waving hair.

The dim evening light sank in the room like dust.

Cool Shadows danced on her skin.

Still and silent she sat in her father's vacant, unmade bed

Mourning the man who died long ago

Hoping she managed to ease the pain

Of an ending which lingered too long.

George Pratt, Tiffany, 2012

:: Remembrance ::
by PJ Kempen

Dreams forgotten or never remembered
Swallowed by the hourglass
That strips me of myself.

Dieing
Every moment dieing again
Every moment being born
New skin and new face

Again I watch helpless as I sink away
Into the hungry, endless void
Left to ask who I was
And be met with no answer.

Let not this new skin be forgotten.
Let not the forgotten dreams be had in vein.
Let my failures be so brilliant
As to be worthy of remembrance.
The blinding genius of spectacular failure.