Echoes from childhood memories,

warn of dangerous nights,

down to my land of no lights.

Carrying throughout my years,

with only faded reasons why.

Following deep into my middle season,

versions I once had to silence forgotten fears.

Creating a new value,

I'm to learn somewhere here.

Finding value in discovering how to fully embrace,

Where a reliable, unforgettable love would shine through

Recovering from those hateful thoughts,

Always being found, just beneath an unnerving reality,

Those lifecycles playing out in those unheard cries,

A girls dreams to escape the evil moments over and over,

her reality hits, knowing to never hold such peace.

Her heartbroken, forgotten, young life, forever to reside within...

‘THE SOUNDS OF SILENCE ’

I was alone

when I went searching

   for your face

in all the crowded bars

where love hides out

under an assumed name.

There were many other faces

decorated with whiskey smiles

   and anxious lips

ready to whisper

anything I wanted to hear

but never telling me

what I really

   needed to know.

Why do those faces

always look so desirable

   at night

and so terribly lonely

when the morning sun

invades my one-room world

and splashes across

   the tumbled bed?

I didn't know your name

   then

or even what you looked like.

But I recognized you

by the sadness

in your eyes.

   Or was it

the reflection

of my own

lonely stare?

(Excerpt from the “Sadness of Happy Times” by Lou Duro: www.louduro.com)

Wearily, she watches you trek to the door,

Your luggage a battle in your hands,

The nurturing mother is eager to help

But knows she must resist.

Before her, a man towers her over,

She is shaded by his spotlight,

But she still sees her little boy

And it kills her to say goodbye.

Her world was created around you,

She remembers little else,

And when you’re gone, what is left

But a barren house of memories?

Still, your path is one that you must create

And that you must travel alone,

Though she’d give up her life to tag along

She can only wave goodbye.

She worries about the job she’s done,

If she has raised you well,

And given you the courage and strength

To prevail in a world so cruel.

“I’ll be home soon,” you reassure,

You’ll be missing home, as well,

And when you return a better man,

Outside the window, a wicked wind moans,

The havoc-striken forest has toppled,

And though the storm has won its battle,

Its perseverance refuses to recede.

Awestruck, I stare and I am reminded,

Its ferocity demanding to have its way,

It offers the answer that I’ve waited for,

Of the delicate rose and mighty wind, which am I?

The rose, so immaculate in its elegance,

And always so dainty and frail,

It lends itself to be vulnerable, exposed

Acquiescent of nature’s abuse.

But, oh, that mighty, powerful wind,

Consenting to only reverence,

Yet, still, it calms to a soothing breeze,

Defiant only when it is provoked.

The wind, yes, I profoundly recognize,

Vividly, it stirs within me,

Forced from the calm to its vicious howl

Lullabies chirped by sparrows a grin

from the green within the trees,

songs of elation, for Winter has gone,

as they sway in the gentle breeze.

The sky’s light invites me into its warmth,

dancing gracefully on my face,

the aroma of grass so freshly cut,

a brand new season’s embrace.

Cheers of a crowd at the baseball field,

franks on the barbecue,

and folks joined as one, at the picnic tables,

after the game is through.

The envious cold has bid farewell

and the earth is now revived,

all are out with smiles abound,

for at last, Spring has arrived.

One nation under God, indivisible,

And yet we stand divided,

The course on which we have embraced

Is destined for the mountains.

And still those mountains blind us,

As statuesque as they stand,

We cannot see beyond the plain

That is simpler for us to travel.

And when comes a day they come to view,

Forcing us a new path,

A new revelation with them brings

But it, then, shall be too late.

Together, yes, we could have climbed,

Strong and united as one,

But divided, it only conquers us

And the battle has been lost.

On the other side, a reward awaits

As the stripes and stars still wave,

Those mountains offered a pathway to glory

That we were too stubborn to take.

If only we could have seen

But we, instead, were weakened,

The plain eventually finds its end

And the mountains are all that remain.

But for the courageous, our mighty reward

That we can never touch,

For it is only now that we realize

That the united are who will survive.

Salt-scented breezes caress my skin beneath a blanket of blue

As we glide across a rippling glass;

My reflection dances in the liquid mirror

As if to entertain my soul.

An ebony sky intrudes, replacing a fallen sun,

Fury will join in the night;

Roaring rumbles penetrate the silent air

In the electric darkness.

Swept up in a moistened and bitter wind,

Violent waves toss us forcefully about

As the depth swallows our bow,

It descends into ruffled black.

Under the flashing sky we leap, one by one,

Into an unknown world of erratic cold,

Blinded in the night, abandoned and forced to ride the ocean tide,

Monstrosity fights our search for blessed earth.

A fearful struggle of determination, softened by a song on my father’s tongue,

Prayers into the lightning stricken Heavens,

Wrestling with weary bones and trembling muscles,

And suddenly, we are spit out by the sea with a kiss of freedom.

I’m still choking on my own blood.
As it slowly fills my lungs.
I am drowning inside myself
The blood is mine; 
the air is gone,
Now so am I.

After death, there’s nothing more than the same familiar space; still empty.
Waiting for the thoughts you brought to fill it,
Infinite & Eternal in each and every direction;.
Both up and down and beyond before.
Encircled by the horizon,
Stretched over these frozen markers in time.

This emptiness where your consciousness doesn't so much as ‘go’ 
as recollect that it's always been here.
can’t you see through this persistent dream?
there is no afterlife because nothing, 
not even memory, is ever destroyed.
just transformed.

into waves, 
into higher frequencies,
into states your mind no longer fathoms.
so you leave your mind behind.

crystal
liquid,
gas,
plasma.
your mind is the fifth state of matter.

None of us gets paroled
From the prison cells we lock ourselves into.
So that we all can fit together inside
These jigsaw lives that we lead.
.

Which  of course, eventually all blow apart.

We are merely the fragments of ourselves awaiting reassembly.

Each moment of thought is but a tiny drop of time.
Each piece fits the next piece.

Although we may try to avoid,
The murmurs of our own thoughts.
It is our hearts that yawn and awaken slowly
From their long winter night’s sleep.

You and I are mere mortals,
Who dreamt of a life without end.

And this is the story we tell ourselves.

Whilst slinking back to our cells.

My great grandfather was a Slave

My grandfather was a Native

My grandmother was a Bantu

My mother was a kaffir, Nigga, Negro

Names imposed by shackles

But an Afrakan I am

An identity my forefathers were deprived of

An identity I am now polluting with the fumes of cigarettes

In dope I am giving it another face

In ecstasy I am giving it a comical image

My drunken stupor gives it an unstable belonging

My borrowed accent contradicts what it represents

My imitated dress code conceals its beauty

My adopted religion undermines my intellectual prowess

My language deafens my ancestors

My values are valueless

My mind is discriminatory

It repels anything indigenous

Whilst absorbing all that is alien

None can identify with me

Even those I am emulating

Patriotism I reserve for my kind

I look down at my patriots

If I were xenophobic

I could have been my own victim

I pride myself in my slanted inferior education

An education promptly deleting my true history

Ignorance is my custom

I am dreaming dreams my forefathers cannot interpret

I am singing praise songs for my dying culture

I am branding a heritage

I cannot inherit

Knowledge of freedom is embedded in my subconscious

But suppressed by fear

Fear to develop my culture and identity

Fear to be rejected by the world

Fear to be different and still love myself

Yet with no identity I remain

TEARS OF THE VALKYRIE

Mighty are dragons, flames they do breathe

Long are their talons, with teeth they do cleave

Wings like a storm, the wind they do blow

No fiercer an enemy do angels or men know

Healed in clear waters deep in the well

There Odin’s eye and golden sword fell

Greatest of Battles, with sword he doth fight

Thor without Mjolnir no longer hath flight

Deep in the dragon the flames they do seethe

Heimdall fought bravely, but no dragon is he

The eye now is blinded, strong arm is left lame

Now come the Valkyrie to mourn for the slain

Copyrght © 2017

Robert K. Wheeler

The Fairies’ Tale

The days are long the nights are mild

The blissful life of a fairy child

They play with fish with birds they sing

Magic they wield on gossamer wings

The forest animals to them do speak

When injured or frightened its fairies they seek

Fairies they sing of Heaven above

Of war long ago and God’s lost love

Soon comes Armageddon at the end of an age

A side they must choose for battle will rage

By RK Wheeler

Copyright © 2017

THE DEMIGODS

There came a battle long ago

When Hera fell to evil foe

Felled by Haydes the stories tell

On the mount where Olympians dwell

Thunder rumbled, lighting flew

Mortals trembled, mountains blew

Stones they tumbled where angels lie

Unlike mortals they never die

Smell of sulfur, blinding smoke

Foretold by Fates wise men wrote

Within the earth Zeus pursued

One-time brother where dragons flew

Like gods they were to mortal men

Long stayed holy but then the sin

Mortal wives Zeus did take

Hero children the unions make

By RK Wheeler

Copyright 2018