Nonitage

The Diversified Poems

1) A Fearless Night

I sat quietly, and watched the night weeping in
Lonely from some eerie dark, unknown to man.
Lo! Beneath the dome of heaven, grit with crept
And conspiracy,(Clark A. Smith looked at me)
He sucked the sunlight, hid within the twilight,
With unrequited tears: then in ominous silence,
He tried to swallow me!…

*865 9/2005 [dedicated to: CAS]

2) Shadow-lands

I walked with the deadquietly

In the darkness of its vaults

Looking at its ruined past,
Their shadows taunting above my head!

In the twilight of these unwashed vaults

Shadow-lands, unresponsive

Yearning hands, vaguer faces:
All shadowy hanging limbs above me!

All these grim and ghostly shapes I see

Have tears, sorrow, and misery.

No joy upon their faces at all;
I pause, I sigh, I see thee, see thee…

(I am like a dreamless bird, caught
in, in the vanishing shadow-lands of
a vision.)

3) A Witness of Minnesota

The winter moonlight frosts the north…

The lights that melts the quiet sky…

Silentlyfrom far to near
The evening trembles forth with stars!

From ebbing forests, rivers sweep

Unseen life, oblivious weeps,

That held dominion in the deep,
Once changeless, now changesperpetuity

Who guards the holy northern skies?

At their insurmountable posts?

What final commands bend their might?
O, territorial armies of eternal light.

And onto which this land was born,

Whose life awakes to live again?

The light of forests lift up ye face
To the legacy of lasting Destiny!

#863 9/2005

4) City of Doom

Where lonely now, New Orleans rests

And scattered dwells, antique dust
The towers of doomed cities (saith sing) rise

Accordant to American skies!

Swept into destructions forum

The city of melody is no more
Floating under waters and waist

The cords of music cry, infinity!

#860 9/2005

5) An Old Poet

O, yes, yes! To thy I bow, too

The dignified laurels on my brow

To my unworth’t, is give to know!
Such poet who holds humanities soul

A shadow o’er my vision runs

Lo! The weariness of man

As I taste his bitterness: death
What is, shall be; what was, is.

(And sealed for eternity.)

#861 9/2005
(For Robert Bly and Don Hall)

See Dennis’ web site: http://dennissiluk.tripod.com