Ashley's Poetry

All ©'d! You takea my work, I breaka you legs!

"The Wave" by Michael Whelan

“The Calling” (written 9/2/04)
Proverbs 3:5, 6

I felt a sound in my brain, heard it in my chest
When question was asked and answer promised—
Like the crashing of the surf on the sand,
Except that there was no ebb:
It rose and rose!

The sound grew, loud and wonderful,
Like a crowd impressed, a crowd joyful,
Giving a long, drawn-out Shout!,
filled with hoots and hollers and whistles,
Fingers in between lips, clapping,
Cupped around mouths, pummeling the air,
Feet jumping up and down or stomping the bleachers
That they might make
the Loudest          Possible           Noise
They could, just to be loud,
Just for the thrill and joy of it,
Their souls turned sound,
Blaring from their bodies.

Like standing two yards from the amps
So that the sound doesn’t just shake
The parts inside your chest
(Like the bass drum does in the passing parade),
But shakes every part of you—
Your hair nearly blown back from the power of it,
Your very nostrils vibrating with Sound!.

So the sound flooded, grew,
Roared until I had to shout with it
So as not to burst my ears,
Had to join the joy
Lest it completely overwhelm me.

That crowd was the voice of One God,
Who shouted in my being.

Who says He only speaks
In a      still,       small      voice?


"Moonlight in Day" (written 9/9/04)

Late afternoon, and skies are blue,
The sun hangs sated in the sky.
But though the night will not come soon,
The moon shows clearly, standing by.

I cannot see its milk-white rays
For all the honey of the sun,
But mixed, the golden lights of day
I know its pearl beams hang among.

And so, when in a slew of friends
Your face joins with their crowded eyes,
Amongst the thoughts of fifty men
I feel your mind upon me lies.

In nights we two can stand alone
And share our thoughts when all is still,
As moonlight gently touches down
When all the skies with ebon’ fill.

But still through all the lights of talk
I am aware of yours between
Their minds, as when past noon I walk
And know the moonlight drops its beams.


"Vigil" (written 9/9/04)
Within the eye a maiden stands,
A lamp held in her hand,
And watching, waits to see her love
Return from distant lands.


"Spring" by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema


"Maying" (written 9/21/04)
Always my feet are straying,
Always my hands are playing,
Always my lips are saying--
For I'm always a-maying.

Asleep or awake,
At work or on break,
For my young soul's sake
I'm a-maying.

Cool the breezes blowing,
Sweet the creek is flowing;
My feet are always going
As I'm maying

The birds their voices raise:
My voice joins in their praise
At the op'ning of the days:
Always maying!

For my soul is always young,
And those songs are on my tongue,
And the light is green and gold upon my head.

And the joy within my heart
Isn't just a little part
Of the song that keeps on singing till I'm dead

With white flowers in the ground--
Even then you'll hear the sound
Of my voice, still going round
As I'm maying!


"Sensory Perceptions" (9/21/04)
(This is what happens when you have psychology and poetry on the same day.)
These wavelengths strike receptor cells,
Neurons fire within our brains,
It reaches to the farthest lobe,
And then we see the rain.

The complexity and the longitude
Recorded by three (3.00) bones inside:
It reaches to our listening cells
And then we hear the tide.

Action potential rises
Neurotransmitters flow
Dendrites catch them on the way
And then we feel the snow.

Science, you'll never learn it all!
You don't know where to start!
You'll never realized that life is more,
Much more, than the sum of its parts.


(9/21/04)
They say his poem's beautiful,
Evocative. Is it true?
I don't know; I've never heard
A nightengale. Have you?



"Goblin Market" by Emma Florence Harrison

(9/21/04)
Friends, Romans, countrymen:
Four score and seven years ago
We took one small step for man,
One giant leap over the moon.
The little dog--laugh all you like,
All you can: you can't catch me,
Oh, catch me if you can!

O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,
That tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,
Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player,
For all the world's a stage.
Hey now, you're a rock star,
Get the show on, on with the show:
Everything's coming up roses.
Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
I'm looking over a four-leaf clover--
They called it Ireland.
Friends, Irish, countrymen:
Catch me if you can.

Ready or not, here I come,
Marco Polo!
My mother told me--
Mother, may I?
Mother, mother, why do you weep?
Didn't mean to make you cry,
If I'm not back again this time tomorrow,
And tomorrow and tomorrow,
No man is an island.
Do not send to know for whom the bell tolls:
I heard the bells on Christmas day,
Away in a manger.
Friends, Jew, countrymen,
The Lord is God, the Lord is one.

One ring to rule them all,
One ring to find them--
Hide and go seek ye first the kingdom
For thine is the
This is the way the world ends--
There will be no other end of the world,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Rockabye, baby
On the treetop
'o the morning has broken,
Like the first morning.
On your mark, get set,
Go on, what happened next?
It was a dark and stormy
Nightengale. Blow, thou winter wind;
This life is most jolly old St. Nicholas,
Heigh-ho-ho-ho the holly and the ivy.
Oh catch me, catch me please,
I'm falling, catch me if you can!



"Affliction of the Nibelungs" by Franz von Stuck

"Cassandra and the Damned" 9/23/04
"How terrible knowledge of the truth can be
When there's no help in truth!"
--Teresias, Oedipus Rex, Sophocles

I
Cassandra of the screaming mouth
The matted hair
The rolling eyes
Cassandra of the dirty cheeks
The blackened nails
The foaming lips
Cassandra of the rags and shreds
Cassandra of the dark and dank
Cassandra of the reek and filth
Pure glowing truth of the gods was gleaming from her.

II
Scream, Cassandra,
Scream, thou caged, wild prophetess,
Scream in the echoing Cells Below
Where no one hears your warnings but the already Damned.

III
Who can be mad who deals in truth?

IV
And who in the madhouse will understand?