Early Signs of Greatness

My brother sent me an email yesterday. He found two poems I wrote way back when I was 16 or 17 years old. To be a fair judge of my early poetic endeavors, you need to know that these were not written as serious poems. We were trying to be funny. Trying.

You’ll soon see that I use the term “poems” very loosely. These are poems in the same way that a Ford is a “car”. They’re on the low end of the range. But I digress. Here they are for your reading enjoyment:

Pubescent Poem #1

I stand
In the shadow of the apology
For promises
Broken by the time that never passed
Tick Tock
Goes the Thought
Of my time has come
I guess the answer lies within
Within
Within
Within the moon beam
Cast by the sun
I'm hot
I need a drink
I thirst for the past
And hunger for the future
But I have no past
Is there a future?
Or is it just a great chasm
Cast into the stream
Of unconscious blunder
As we pillage the
Time given to no one
I ponder
I rest
Revived I stand
For I must fall
And fall I will
When the rain comes like a plane
With no pilot
Crashing, burning
In a fiery mass of flaming flesh
I hear the screams of the silent breath
Gone
Gone
Only to return
When life
Removes its veil


Pubescent Poem #2

I walk out the window
The wind smiles at me
I feel tired
I must be free
Free from this bond
This bond of hands
At the gates of the world
I glance back
What have I become?
Where must I go?
I sleep
Deeper
Deeper
Deeper
I dream of the
Smiling wind formentioned
Suddenly, I wake
In the haze of
My missing humanity
How small have I become?
I ponder the birth
Of the thoughts
I have heard of
The new day brings
Memories of those to come
Worry free I follow
The path of life
In a constant struggle
To master
The task
Of living the life set before me
The future time on my watch
Has passed