Oct
22
2000

Creator

by Stephen Messer

Vanished from my heart I find
a loss of all that connects me with my mind:
my youth, the creator of what I am now
and humbly, there is a great and glorious vow
not to lose that creator;

but the quandary then arises,
the more that youthful creator is creating
the more detached this creation — me — becomes.
and humbly the creation holds on and protects,
not to lose the creator.

I have memories of that creator,
A world as he to it at that time had related
memories that define me and allow
this to honour that long lost vow
not to lose this creator – me.

alas, funnily, I find a new debacle,
I am what he said he said he’d make me
Then he wanted eagerly to know
the wisdom he’d created
would not lose me–his creator.

posted in Introspection, Personal, Poems, Time | No Comments

Sep
26
2000

Oh River

by Stephen Messer

There are waves that do not move,
the waters passing through them
I would ride;
Take me, but allow me to survive,
and in surviving my soul can come alive.

Oh river bathe me,
save me,
make me realize what I can be!

Oh river heal me,
steal me,
leave me feeling who I am.

Oh river don’t break me,
make me,
take me to where I am.

I have seen a wave that didn’t move;
the water passing through it
I had ridden,
and it brought me here to this place;
my soul has come alive.

And in the journey’s epitaph
I row away again,
for the end of one river’s journey is
where the rest of my life begins.

Oh river cleanse me,
mend me,
let me see what I can be!

Oh river enrich me,
fix me,
for I am a broken man.

Oh river don’t tease me,
please me,
for I know not who I am.

And on that wave that didn’t move,
The water rushing through it
I once rode,
And it freed me from all the inhibitions
Of myself that I had ever known.

posted in Introspection, Nature, Poems, Rivers, Songs | No Comments

Sep
12
2000

Life is good

by Stephen Messer

This canyon
this night

I dare not call this dance
of reflected moonlight
a shimmering of light.

The waters swirl and eddy,
ephemeral and aware.
I take the moment’s
passion
and breathe in this crisp night air.

A mother moon watches over us,
and dances on the water.

A mother moon whose accompaniment
has been more than just a a night light;
It has been a measure of this journey.
this moment of my life.

I take in all the things
I see,
and know
that

life is good.

posted in Introspection, Nature, Poems, Rivers | No Comments

Sep
12
2000

Journey’s End

by Stephen Messer

Faintly,
I weep within.
Not for pain or emotions
or even for love;

but for that which is to come.

I weep within
knowing a journey’s end
will take me right back
to where we began.

But does not the journey
onward go?

I smile, faintly, within.
The journey doesn’t end
with this river.

posted in Introspection, Personal, Poems, Rivers | No Comments

Sep
12
2000

Journey

by Stephen Messer

Somewhere,
People would call this a Tuesday night.

Or is it Wednesday?

I don’t really know or care,
for I’ve found a place that has given new
meaning to this concept of time.

Day, night, moonlight.
A current flowing past.
Such are the measures of time in this place.

Brisk, cool waters that sustain us,
entertain us,
and take us toward an end we know will happen.

The end of measuring time by sun and moon above,
the end of this journey down a river.

posted in Nature, Poems, Rivers, Time | No Comments

Sep
05
2000

Canyon

by Stephen Messer

It sounds distant now,
and I know it is.

For not too far away the water’s forces
carve deeper the trench
that is this canyon.

I will travel that canyon
that trench
that river

and face it as I face a life that
lays ahead.

I know not what it will bring
but the opportunities it affords
are too great to be
ignored.

I’ll face that challenge,
as have many others,
hoping to come out of it a different
person,
deepening my sense of the place
in which I find myself
in this universe.

Not really knowing what
lies when — the names
just unfamiliar labels now,
shall eventually be a part of my being
a part of who I am,
who I might become.

With this in mind I run the river
as I have dreamt and thought
and wondered.

Tomorrow will awaken me with that new
challenge, that new purpose
that new life.

And onward I will row.
Onward I will go.

posted in Introspection, Personal, Songs | No Comments

Aug
21
2000

Key to Everything

by Stephen Messer

I was the key to everything
an integral part of the contemporaneous
That first cold eye and me
waiting fiercely and abruptly rising
to arrogance,
Defying that which would entail a wise decision.

I was the key to everything;
and no lock I ever found would be turned
A first dark night along with this body
flesh desperate to labor onward
towards enrichment;
In deference to all decisions made.

I thought the key to everything
was whatever I had once laid to rest;
But in laying down I chased away
the peace that sky and breezes bring
with the unrest of an inharmonious mind
In denial of all decisions made.

I locked away most everything
that once I’d thought meant so little to me,
in a deep recess of a life and mind
towards which I’d never turn or look
for arrogance,
The decisions had been irreversible.

posted in Introspection, Kisner Collection, Poems, Songs | No Comments

Aug
18
2000

It is the dreams

by Stephen Messer

The crumbling walls I walk along
That take a city’s stagnancy
and hold it in without remiss
without the chance of meaningful escape

Though escape I have, in mind if not body
For the mind wanders other great places
I would go, should my body last.
The mind sees what eyes cannot

It is the dreams that make this real

And I walk along these walls
Held in by inane prophecies
of when that wall will fall
But freed by what my mind sees

A bended knee upon the ground
Not once as active as I could have been
Time has taken away the young man that
Once I knew as me.

And in these indifferent times
I place my values differently
I look upon a crumbling wall
With this sense of insanity

It is the dreams that make this real

For me to live and cry and laugh
Luxuries that have passed me by
A choice I made; a price I paid
to lay down and live my own lawless way

Thus here I am incarcerated
A fair price to squander on this life
Horizons can’t be seen or walked towards
except in a dreamful eye.

But dreaming on I keep it real
Sanity is in the heart
chemical inbalance? I wonder not
for I am happy thus.

It is the dreams that keep me real.

posted in Introspection, Personal, Poems, Time | No Comments

Aug
17
2000

Draw the line

by Stephen Messer

It was deeper then and I am lost
I would have slain those hoary lights
of a night that hid a wretchedness
far from the sight of those who cared.

But this worn flesh that writes away
takes all my being and focus thus;
How can I feel a love endowed
to all those of like mind
who frolic forward into time,
taking empty hearts as these
to fill with sedentary but hollow bliss.

For nothing clothes a spirit thus
as a body that came from this dust
of earth, or as it were, cosmos,
of life, or as I’d have it, lust.

For spirit is as spirit does
the priest forgets; sits in disgust
for everything devoted once he was
is now realized to be lost

and in the face of forward facing time
I must draw the line.

Here I draw the line.

posted in Introspection, Personal, Poems | No Comments

Aug
17
2000

Clear windows

by Stephen Messer

I hate to feel the clear windows
of songful sweeping vistas
that once I knew as a child only can,
would be my saving moments.

A golden yellow sunset,
reaching, straining to give way to night;
a cloud’s moist deposits taking
away a selfless heat;
This I need repeat.

My life has gone other ways now,
so those clear windows in walls too high
have taken off on other paths and so
Cannot ever be peered through.

But vistas they afforded could not have left alone
the hungry heart that pounded on
this wall I pledged to break.

And now, free, alone, awake,
I stride into the night
to find a songful sweeping vista
to be appreciated as only an adult can;
My saving moment thus returns
An evening’s end before the dawn
to reach and grab another day and
take me on this laborious way
where labor’s love shall eat alone
between the jobs that occupy
and take away the pain
of knowing,
pain of seeing
pain of everything I’ve been

to free me from myself.

posted in Introspection, Personal, Poems | No Comments

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