The Met Online, International stories

The moment is small, silent --

the pen touching the paper,

the rock flying through air,

the flame leaping from the chamber;

and we praise the moment

quite highly indeed,

pursuing it with the vigor of

its accompanying sounds:

the exhaling of breath,

the breaking of the mirror,

the gun's report.

But we forget every time

we sat staring at the blank page,

every day we smiled at ourselves,

every time we said we wouldn't

load the chamber.

The Only Cross I Could Find
A.D.M.
June 14, 2002

I guess I'll take you to the crossroads,

and it's there I'll lay you down.

They said you weren't dead,

but only mad inside the head,

but I can see; I'll lay you in the ground.

I can't be too annoyed with all the blind men

who call themselves the doctors of these times.

I've knelt and said my prayers

in case their words were not all theirs;

in case some of them didn't mean to lie.

The shadows grow; the air it starts to thicken...

your eyes speak to me truer than your wrists.

If you were all your own

I'd never leave you here alone,

but this fight is not one I'll win with fists.

O come to me, Elizabeth, console me;

I've buried the most innocent of friends.

I cannot hold that man

even the way I hold your hand,

but maybe that's how this fiasco ends.

To say much more I'd just grow melancholy

but silent poets never lived their lives

as they were meant to be:

by helping other people see

how faith and hope and love, as one, survives.

The Pearl
A.D.M.
26 November 2002

Perhaps they
set their faces like flint,
facing the winds that blow over the Western Wall;
blown about but never moved,
set apart but never separate.
Perhaps they
will sparkle in the light
forever, never to tarnish,
mocking the snow
and laughing at the rain.
Perhaps they
are a veil,
brushed back from the countenance
of a face bowed in prayer.

Perhaps that is why,
in this subtle monarchy,
it would bring my heart
            pause
                        awakening fuller,
for the knowledge that
I might chance to serve
this long-forgotten royal
whose crown silvers as
            the moment slips into the minute,
            the minute slips into the hour,
            the hour slips into the day,
            the day slips into the night,
            the night slips into the heart,
            the heart slips into something comfortable,
and lies beneath the treetops,
caressed by
robes loosely flowing,
hair as free.

In the distance, the sound
of foreign kingdoms slowly crumbling
illuminates the northern sky,
assuring me that there is no care
that could jar me awake
to touch a marbled cheek,
to walk this way alone,
to content myself with
two score turns of fruited harvests,
awaiting one fine morning
when I rise to find the pearl of great price
standing in the kitchen,
awaiting a strangely familiar,
long-expected
good morning kiss.

The Sunset Kisses You
A.D.M.
August 23, 2001

The sunset kisses you too kindly,

reclining like a queen.

Apollos bids you far too well

within his van'shing sheen.

Upon a thinning wire high,

like Hamlet's father you now tread,

through emanating waves of peace,

though homeless and though dead.

Beware the curse of Icarus,

my daughter yet so young!

The lover's days have passed away

in autumn's auburn sun.

From all of heaven's glory,

should you ever chance to fall,

do pray the sea your plight to heed

and cradle you with mercies for your call.

Atlantis, yet to be described

by mortal to have been

enamored with the deep

and to have made the plunge within,

held for me times of trial

and of pleasure and of pain.

I only hope your sojourn there

fail-safe bring you the same.

The moon shall no more curse me,

no more mockery shall make,

when from this clayèd frame

the maker's breath He from me takes.

And in that day I'll love you

truer than you've ever known:

in sunset and in seaside,

and in heaven --

all our own.

The Met Online is a student-produced online version of the weekly student-produced The Metropolitan newspaper, both operating under the direction of the Metropolitan State College of Denver Office of Student Publications.