Random Compositions Written Today

Today's Poem
C.K. Armistead, 5/6/13
(For Matthew, obviously.)

Don't you dare leave me
You have to stay
Don't you dare grieve me
My heart dies that way.
Why did you scare me?
You know I love you.
Why try to dare me
To put up with you?

You know I'm staying
I've been here so long
You know I'm not playing
I'm trying to be strong.
You've been beside me
Through loss and pain
Been there to guide me
Back through the rain.

We can't change it now
The way has been set
We made our vows
We've never broken them yet.
You must survive, Love,
Even if I do not,
You are the prize, Love
That my poor heart bought.



Time Traces
C.K. Armistead 5/6/13

Time is but a whisper,
A phantom on the wind.
You think it runs forever
But your share of it will end.
In youth it moves so slowly,
You think you've got all day.
With age it dawns abrubtly,
You've whiled it all away.

These fingers once so elegant,
Now knotted with age and bent
This jaw once firm and lovely
Now softened, hanging loosely
My eye once sharp and clear
Grows much cloudier every year
My beauty once a truth of me
Now gone with the youth of me.

But time leaves a gift in its wake
If we but look to find it
Experience profound to make
Our memories to bind it.
These hands so many things have done
This jaw set firm too many times
The love that through my years has run
Lost beauty far outshines.


Fickle Spring

C.K. Armistead 5/6/13

Ah, fickle Spring,
Though flowers do bloom
And birds do sing,
Though rabbits do ramble
And squirrels scramble bold,
Yet do you hide your warmth,
And pelt us with cold.
Cold your winds, again frae the North,
Fickle your favors to those on this Earth.



These were written in just the last little while,, as I sat here and stared at the page.  Thanks to Michael M. Ornstein, who brought up poetry on Twitter today, and got me in a poetic state of mind.