Dreams of Endless Summer
Oh, sacred day, born on the breath of morning;
Rising from the mist of wonder, dawning
Over dusty roads of wayward spirits
Dancing endlessly through the golden wheat;
Waltzing past the green glades of childhood
And the green caravan of trees marching
Endlessly across the distant horizon.
Bring to me the sounds of thunder;
Raindrops dancing on the tin-roof of time;
The sigh of thirsty flowers, dressed
In rainbows arching across the sky.
Oh, sacred day, born of beauty, ever
My delight, knee-deep in the memory
Of endless summer days fled forever
On the sun-tanned legs of yesterday.
The Night Waits for Me
The night waits for me
In the wanton glow of starlight.
It waits for me to walk
Beneath the moonbeams
In the shallow wake of wonder
On the trail of hopeful dreams.
Chaste are the waves of yearning
Washing over ripe innocence
Locked inside the soul of love.
Free the midnight shadows
To walk the endless corridors
Leading to the soul’s awareness
Of its own delight and need.
Awaken the glow of love
To live in the midnight air
Heavy as the dew-fall -
Light as the scent of flowers
Carried on the breath of Spring.
Oh, how the night waits for me,
Caressing the secret longings
Only dreams can ever fill
And patience ever taste.
Each breathless sigh worships
hand-holding darkness
And the hearts sweet reverie.
The stars gaze down at me;
The moon kisses my bare feet;
The night writes love poetry
On the walls of my tender soul.
The night waits for me -
Dressed up in starry finery.
OH LET IT BE FOREVER MORNING
Oh, let it be forever morning
Forever dawn with light just breaking
Over some distant darkened hill -
Forever silky leaves bathed in new-born gold
And silver-throated Thrushes calling In dew-sparkled piety
From swimming reverence high
Atop the minaret of morning;
Misty, flowing notes
Calling the faithful To prayer.
Annie Johnson is 84 years old. She is Shawnee Native American. She has published two, six hundred-page novels and six books of poetry. Annie has won several poetry awards from world poetry organizations including; World Union of Poets; she is a member of World Nations Writers Union; has received the World Institute for Peace award; the World Laureate of Literature from World Nations Writers Union and The William Shakespeare Poetry Award. She received a Certificate and Medal in recognition of the highest literature from International Literary Union for the year 2020, from Ayad Al Baldawi, President of the International Literary Union. She has three children, two grandchildren, and two sons-in-law. Annie played a flute in the Butler University Symphony. She still plays her flute.
Funeral of my Journal
I have became fading paper
Where my words once were.
Might have said all I had to say
So in reverse they are going away.
Fading into the void, forlorn
Waiting to be reborn.
Time was never on my side
Eating me away inside.
I ignore the hourglass
I know it will all pass.
I am not ready for this funeral.
Not ready to bury my journal.
World of Desire
From hollow shadows rise
Scream to dark skies
The night streets so empty
Bleed like poetry
Hear that distant plea
Veins calling to me
Wanton of eternity
Lusting for captivity
My eden, lost city of light
Enter the night
Where shadows fall
Hear my call
Where the fog does rise
Where my black heart lies
Crimson masquerade
Feel sanguine dreams fade
Black drapes hide so well
Secrets my world shall not tell.
Where candles burn endlessly
Like hearts longing carelessly.
Bleed like a vampire
Enter the world of desire.
From South-Western, Michigan, Jerry Langdon lives in Germany since the early 90's. He is an Artist and Poet. His works bathe in a darker side of emotion and fantasy. He has released five books of Poetry titled "Temperate Darkness an Behind the Twilight Veil", “Death and other cold things” “Rollercoaster Heart” and “Frosted Dreams” Jerry is also the editor and publisher of the literary magazine Raven Cage Zine poetry and prose. His poetic inspirations are derived from poets such as Edgar Allen Poe, Robert Frost and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. As well as from various Rock Bands. His apparently twisted mind, twists and intertwines fantasy with reality.
Twilight Fire
Tonka bean ghosting your nose provokes interest
Sparking flames of desire to escape the gloom
Between my cold lips, secrets go to have a rest,
Midnight is between my desires as I show interest.
My visage is a puzzle, can you pass my test?
As you try to touch the flame, your smile does bloom,
Under the red moon, you catch me and can attest
To the fact that I am worth the risk and your interest
As we make our great escape away from the gloom.
Vaping Away A Lifetime
The youth of today
Smoking their lungs into charcoal
The dangers that lurk behind
Brightly colored pens
Pretending to be harmless,
When they are filled with heavy
Metals and other toxic substances
Behind the apple scent
There is cancer, organ damage,
And medical debt
Each puff is another day that you will
never get back
Each cough is another scar in your lungs
Suffocating you with every inhale
Vaping steals your future
Because it destroys your health
And without that
You have no lifetime to live.
-Come and take as much dollar as you need but stop crying. I hate crying. I hate tears. I don’t want to see anymore tear in your beautiful eyes.
– Why do I take dollar from you. What do you think about me? Am I a beggar? I don’t want to take any dollar from you.
– You tiny girl! But your sound is like the Himalayas. It seems to me that you are a little bit brave. But why are you crying?
-I am not bound to tell you. You are not able to help me. You rich people think only dollar can solve every problem. Dollar is not the solution of every problem. Go to your road and please let me cry. I want to cry and cry. My forehead is burnt. I burned my forehead.
Mr. Patrick is astonished to hear the tiny girl. She seems to under ten. She may be more than ten because none can guess her age accurately to see her structure. She is a stolen girl.
Mr. Patrick comes out from his luxurious car. He is now very close to the girl. He gently asks the girl, What is your name?
The girl is now crying with low sound but she does not answer. She is crying like herself.
Finding no other way Mr. Patrick starts to cry.
The girl stops her crying for the time being. She is surprised and asks Mr. Patrick, Why are you crying? Are you making fun with me. I am not a funny girl.
-I am crying a little bit for you.
-I have no need you to do that.
-At least tell me your name.
-My name is Dream.
-Dream! That is interesting. What is your father’s name?
– It is unknown. I don’t know anything about him. My mother has never shared anything about him. Even she has not informed me Who my father is and what his name is. So, how can I tell you my father’s name?
Dream starts crying again. Mr. Patrick is a little bit nervous but he does not express himself. He asks Dream,
-What is your mother’s name?
Without giving answer Dream angrily asks,
– Are you a question man? Why are you asking me question one after another? I have forgotten everything. Everything.
– Tell me your mother’s name.
– Death.
-Death! How is it possible? I have never heard this name.
– Rich people like you are afraid of this word.You want to forget this word by spending dollars. But you won’t, will you?
Your dollar is not as true as death. Death is dead. My mother is dead. She is dead and a dead woman has no name.
– Your mother is dead and this is why you are crying. Now you need dollars. I want to help you.I want to give you dollars.
-Oh! No, I do not need dollars . If l need l will not take dollars from you.
-But why?
-Simple. Very simple. You are arrogant. I hate arrogant people.
– Take dollar from me. I have enough dollars. l want to stop your crying.
-I need my father’ identity and my mother’s name. My mother’s life. Can you give me any of the two?
– No, no, no. I can’t. I can’t.
-Let me cry.
– Stop crying.
Mr. Patrlck threw dollars into the air.The dollars were flying but could not touch neither the sky nor the tears of Dream.
Mr. Patrick is walking as if he were mad. He utters some words but these are not clear.
Strange ManAfter Jorge Eduardo Eielson
How far can that strange man go
with bird feet, failing eyesight,
and a cane that is liable to break
in half at any time? He is turning
the corner at a leisurely pace.
Snails leave him in the dust. He
is twice, thrice times slower than
slow motion. Day turns to night
and the strange man lumbers on.
His cane miraculously bends but
does not break. Thin and fragile,
the strange man and his cane
has turned the corner.
*
Eventually
Eventually, you will get
to the bottom of me.
My shrunken heart, hidden
under a grain of rice.
You will find me with the moth,
a family of them, drawn
to the light. I will be found
somewhere in Asia.
If you want to know, I will
be there in search of
the footsteps of ancient
poets, Li Po, Tu Fu, to
draw inspiration. Still
as a birch tree I will be.
I will pay homage to
those who held their own,
whose names stood against
the test of time. I will
acknowledge the people
who came before me,
who painted on cave walls
before school eventually
ruined everything.
*
One of the Many Birds
I find you in the branches
of the dark tree,
just one of many birds,
just one of the night singers.
You are the neighbors
I want at my grave
singing my eulogy
and my lullaby to ease
my ghost self into sleep.
Train I Ride
I am watching a YouTube video of a train pulling a load of zinc ore on its 750 kilometer journey to the refinery in Townsville, about 100 kilometers north of where we live.
This is no 16-coaches-long-Elvis-Presley number. Think 70 or so wagons, think each one maybe fifteen meters long. The calculating part of the mind goes dizzy trying to work out the metrics of it — total weight carried, total length.
The side panel of YouTube offers me, as alternative, Opening The Coffin Of King Henry VIII, or 80 Incredible Moments Caught On Camera, or Windy Day At The Beach, or David Bowie’s Heroes. All Words In The Title In Capitals, all videos with no relevance to the train pushing on to the refinery.
I leave the train line a few minutes in & open the coffin of KHVIII. Or, more accurately, I am confronted with his six wives chronologically introduced, followed by Kings Charles I & II. Here there is no drone footage, just a commentator droning on. & it’s not the coffin about to be opened but the vault. & because the vault has already been opened to put the headless corpse of Charles I in alongside Henry VIII, plus, probably, opened before that to make sure there was room for a second coffin & opened after to ensure that all proprieties had been observed, the video is something of a anticlimax.
So I return to the zinc. & YouTube, offended by my lack of interest in early 16th century English history, offers up in the side panel Marvel & Star Wars comix — much of it fan-made but posing as the real thing — interspersed with short pieces about the Rugby World Cup.
Now I am offended. I prefer the real thing — if ‘real thing’ is an appropriate term to describe something that is patently not real; & 80-second shorts reveal nothing of the 80-minute struggle that often characterizes the game I’ve loved for nearly 80 years.
The train moves on, past travelers' rest areas & cattle stations, running parallel to the highway. My earlier thoughts catch up with me: the pedant in me rises to the surface; I open another browser window. Search for wagon dimensions: 15.5 meters. 71 wagons comes in at roughy 1.1 kilometers. Plus the two engines. Carrying load per wagon: 72 tonnes. Total load of ore: 5110 tonnes.
Now we’re moving through Calcium — Yes, Virginia, there is a place called Calcium, & guess what they mined there. Time for an interlude. Heroes is again in the side panel, this time a version by King Crimson, also shot live in Berlin like Bowie’s was. & another continuity — the guitarist is Robert Fripp, who played an integral part in the original Bowie recording.
Back to the train for its last minute / forty kilometers to reach Townsville. Maybe it’s the impending presence of a city, but the sidebar fills up with AI-generated jailbait. I switch to full screen, uncomfortable with such companions. & as a convoy of cars towing caravans passes over a bridge while the train passes beneath it, & the beginning of the built-up area draws closer, I close off with my own rendition of Heroes, dipping my toe into those waters where the dolphins swim.
“In the textured glass, a body, blurred. Wrong collection of pixels to be Michel.” - the line that destroyed me. I read a line in a book. It is beautiful --- the line is beautiful I must explain what it means to me for a line to be beautiful, because you see --- it can be subjective and defining my terms is a habit acquired. An aftermath of studying philosophy. And so I find this line beautiful because it is simple yet unique. It --- I have to stop and think to explain--- evokes in me instantly an explosion of emotions. Which emotions though? Bear with me, I will explain: First, I feel tricked as if a magician played a hand, and although I was attentive to their every single move, I still missed the secret of the flash, between the Turn and the Prestige. Then I feel dumb as if my _amman_had asked me when I was young to bring her a specific piece of thread, and despite my multiple rounds of deep searching the Danish cookies box (where she stored all her sewing threads), I informed her of my failure to retrieve what she had asked of me. Only for her to come and show me how the thread was right there, in front of me, I shouldn't have even opened the box. Finally, I feel bitter like a mathematician working for years on an impossible problem, on the verge of making a breakthrough, but someone else already finds the answer--- an answer so simple that it hurts. And so I read every beautiful line, knowing it could have been mine. I tell myself: The Universe of language is rich with beautiful lines, the more that are taken, the more arise. The Space in the marginalia is infinite, and whether it takes seconds or eons, I will have my time --- to craft a line; simple and beautiful. But until then, I must burn, green with envy, I will toss and turn. Even though I am glad that Zadie Smith came up with it, and yet I can't stop lamenting the loss of another good line. I know I will never commit the biggest literary sin, called plagiarism. But I have mastered the Original Sin of coveting the word forbidden.
