Their machinery was too much for you, oh fallen saint
oh living Dream, oh healing life
a love denied through faceless, insidious plague
Yet in lack of limbs and human warmth
in lack of breath and mortal sense
though rooms may stand in lonesome depth
and though sin may stand to dwell again in absence of your healing hand
you will resume
A Practice, oh life, oh granting place
vital halls adorned in laughter’s wealth restoring
and in life you sought to remedy the cries
for better days
for children’s need
and still they will laugh
In the land of Free
Be still now sightless night
embrace the winds in luscious curls
lift each sodden brow and stay the chimes
for eyes of youth will grace the skies and view the world in loving hues
for in life you loved them well, oh resting saint
and draped in faith they will remain
So blurred eyes and life resuming,
gaze not on the past each day in mourning light
fear not release from suffering’s state
In the Land of Free this song we sing shall never wane in living strength:
to laugh in craze, to sob to sleep, to lilt and swing
to bleed in vein, to roar and praise, to exist — to be
To rest we lay a forgiven saint
This is the only salvageable portion of a long, pretentious poem I wrote during my junior year of high school. All of these years later, there’s something about this piece that still rings true for me. Maybe I should go back one day and revise the whole thing.
I have such a hard time reconciling the you who writes these things with the you who makes Mouthies. It almost makes me wish I didn’t know you, then I could romanticize your life and it would all make sense. But I like having you as a friend more. I’ll just have to remember that under the goof ball exterior is a deep and poetic soul.