Three More Revisions: See If You Remember These

Cherry with a Raindrop on it: Not This Year

Well, I have revised a few more of the poems from Atheists and Empty Spaces. I cannot honestly tell you how many words, phrases, and lines were changed without looking in the book. Remember, even my saved document is different from the book because of the editors at Austin Macauley. In case you want to know, I still have seven or eight copies of that out-of-publication book. It will be interesting to look back and see the changes.

Since I have done away with the footnotes, here are a few things you might want to know. The end of The Day Rain Filled All Empty Spaces is a reference to the flood story in Genesis of the Bible. Shapeless makes several literary allusions first and then again later to Victor Hugo's Et Nox Facta Est. Blake's London is referenced in in the fifth verse, and the last two verses have easily identifiable references to Shakespeare's Hamlet. By the way, Ophelia kept the rue for herself. Just thought you might want to know. Oh! I almost forgot Admiration. Its mythical illusions all come from the story of Medusa, from her arrogant beginnings to her ghastly end as a deadly party favor at King Polydectes' celebration. I think it has a very poignant message about fandom and hero worship.

Anyway, as always ENJOY!

The Day Rain Filled All Empty Spaces

The thunder drums.

The raindrops tinkle.

From brim of hat

To boot, they sprinkle.

The Earth transpires.

Dust becomes mud.

“Ssshhh!” Go bald tires

On a rutted road flood.

It taps on tin roofs

And pecks at glass windows

Like tiny horse hooves

Each gust that the wind blows.

A mist-forming breeze

Refracts farmhouse light

And glisters in trees

As it flows through the night.

The drops fall where they may

In all good or bad places

But regret that one day

They filled all empty spaces.

Shapeless

We pass through godless places

Where deities cannot go.

We are becoming shapeless.

Our apathy makes us so.

We enter ourselves in races

No mortals have ever won.

Infinity is shapeless,

And we seem too bored to run.

We amble through empty spaces,

Indifference our wavering guide.

We are becoming shapeless

As we shift from side to side.

We think that in most cases

The truth is what we’ve seen

But it is turning shapeless

As the glow around a screen.

I mark the passive faces

Rapt in digital ennui.

Their marks are tired and shapeless,

Strangely alien to me.

I ask how they embrace this

Life, birthed as an avatar.

They say their forms were shapeless,

But these memes are who we are.

We are kings of infinite spaces,

Liberated from a nutshell,

For the Internet is shapeless

And as vast as Hugo’s Hell.

While you sift through herbs of graces,

You may choose Ophelia’s rue,

But as you grow more shapeless,

Hell itself will tire of you.

Admiration

Dread this daughter of ignorance

And the toxic delusions she makes.

Her charming smile turns noxious grin

Under nests of hissing snakes.

Her passing form mocks Wonder’s awe.

She’s a terribly beautiful crone.

She rouses the hearts of devotees

Then shushes their minds to stone.

Her blood gives rise to wealth and art,

Her assent breeds deep devotion,

But then she dies a party favor

Bereft of any emotion.