She wanted to know
Why I came this far
Only to sow
The seeds of war

I had good intent
No hate, only love
I was even hell-bent
To be sweet as a dove

And then one day
As I laid back
I did hear her say
How much she loved Jack

So I picked up my rifle
And cocked its smooth lever
With two shots I did stifle
My evil deceiver

One day I discovered
Who this Jack was
Once he was mothered
By the now dead lass

As I swallowed my barrel
And pulled back the trigger
I felt the assist
Of her dead-cold finger

Pretty interesting, I like it Mojo. The last line is wonderful.
However, to put that into perspective the only other poem I understand is Jabberwocky.

Lol. If you understand Jabberwocky, this next one won't be much of a challenge for you..

Every time I look
I see but I don't find
It's as if I took
The life of my own mind

The dead start singing
As bells are ringing
For the soul I'm bringing

Two steps back I take
Yet forward my mind goes
The light ahead's a bright lake
Yet darkness around me grows

The dead start singing
As bells are ringing
For the soul I'm bringing

I raise one hand
And touch the ground
In the strange new land
My soul has found

The dead start singing
As bells are ringing
For the soul I'm bringing

This one wasn't quite as obvious, but I had fun filling in the blanks and coming up with an interpretation. (I'm picturing the elevator scene from Angel Heart, except without the elevator. All-in-all, I think I like it more. (I just read it, I have to let it dwell to be sure.)

But I have to say, both are dark. If your next one is dark we're going to have to ask Axiom to turn off your ability to play any more death metal. (I've always though Axiom is like Tesla; they have back-door access to everything they sell.)

Here's something happier for you. This one won me a poetry competition. Unbeknownst to me, apparently this poetry style is tough to pull off.

Cold and uninviting is the feeling of death,
Approaching your withering form now
With unimaginable speed and stealth.
Cold and uninviting is the feeling of death,
Claiming your last breath.
And you are thinking how
Cold and uninviting is the feeling of death,
Approaching your withering form now.

Isn't that sweet.
You feeling OK?

Oh yeah, I feel all warm and tingly now. A definite pick me up.

This one came to me during a colonoscopy.

Masters…nevermore


We sail Her seven seas
and seed Her arid clouds.
We mimic birds in flight
and luminesce Her moonless night.

Deaf we’ve grown
to Mother Nature’s constant warnings
in anticipation of the mornings
when the masters cause disasters
and the sun shines all for naught.
Then we’re masters…nevermore.

We split innocuous atoms
and litter space and time.
We juggle strings of nucleotides
and dope Her sands with arsenides.

Blind we’ve grown
to Mother Nature’s constant signs
in anticipation of the times
when the masters cause disasters
and the sun shines all for naught.
Then we’re masters…nevermore.

We feed the gears of industry
and in Her lap belch filthy wastes.
We drill her body and pump her riches
and squeal in pleasure like sleazy bitches.

Insensitive we’ve grown
to Mother Nature’s constant strictures
in anticipation of the pictures
when the masters cause disasters
and the sun shines all for naught.
Then we’re masters…nevermore.

Her cancer now metastasized
just as we have realized
our right to metabolize
has vanquished and vaporized.
Now we’re masters…nevermore.

I'm glad someone can write poetry, because I sure can't.

Charles, that's a good start. Now just 2 more lines and you'll have written a poem.

I like that one too Mojo; although appropriating "nevermore" was a bold decision. (Or is that common? Like I said, not much poetry experience.) Given your consistent tone though, he'd approve.
Let me know when the self-illustrated collection comes out, that would be awesome I bet and I'm definitely snagging a copy.

I borrowed the word "nevermore" from Alan Parsons's The Raven. It's on his first album titled Tales of Mystery and Imagination (Edgar Allan Poe).

Illustrated...yeah...folks have been asking for that. Thanks.

Here's one I wrote on the deck yesterday as my octogenarian neighbor behind me was threatening to toss his wife over their raised deck because she wasn't disciplining their mutts properly.

Wish I had a time machine
I'd fix some stuff that I have seen
I'd take away pain and dismay
So folks could laugh their days away.

Wish I had a time machine
To learn 'bout things that haven't been
I'd come right back and tell our kind
Just how bad we're misaligned.

But time doesn't flow the way I think
The past and future are not distinct
The only time I can extol
Is the now, the present, under my control.

Those moments lived and in my past
They're all gone, they didn't last
And those ahead, on the way
Depend on what I do today.

The present then is all there is
The woeful sorrow, the expansive bliss
It happens right now and no machine
Can take me to a different scene.

I liked this one a lot Mojo.
But I have to confess that as a science fiction fan, and a 3-beer philosopher, I got restless on the line, "The present then is all there is."
But since the poem previously touched on the reason for my reaction, "And those ahead, on the way, Depend on what I do today," I went ahead and gave you an, "I get the intent and the message."

If I'm being overly literal for a poem, you gotta educate me.

This last one resonates with everyone who's read it. It's intended to be taken literally but interpretations vary.

For example, let's consider the line "And those ahead, on the way, Depend on what I do today". Some interpret this as free will and get a warm and fuzzy like you. Yet nowhere did I say that "what I do today" is my choice.

Readers get defensive about the present being all there is. But taken literally, if the past is gone and the future has not yet arrived, the present really is all there is. And you saw that. Perhaps more contentiously, "The past and future are not distinct" suggests that both are on the fuzzy precipice of the "now" or time is artificial. We all know by now the reality we experience is not the fundamental reality. Time is no different. Time is nothing more than our very practical way of counting/tracking change of macroscopic events.

A seemingly simple poem, that innocently spilled out of my brain and onto paper, can give one pause. For sure these thoughts have been percolating in my skull for a very long time and finally let go when I just wanted to get the hell out of the same time in which my demented neighbor resides.

I can't write like this kind of words, such a great poems !
But I would like to share my favorite line,

"Be unique, Be you !"

It's a good mantra. Sometimes it's difficult for people to find themselves.

Took a trip to the future
Only to find
A stronger me
With a much tougher mind

Amidst the escarpment
Tattered and scorched
I saw that mankind
Had pillaged and torched

I learned enough about men
To make no ally
loyalty was my virtue
But only to I

I dished lots of mercy
But not for compassion
I made my own laws
And got satisfaction

I tried to reason
But it wasn't for goons
My revolvers worked better
As they blasted out tunes

I shot and I slashed
To avoid being prey
Dying ain't much
of a living I say

Then I came back to the now
No longer naive
Don't matter how I die
Only how I live