Tag: Poetry

Bonus Poem: Steel and Blood and Bone

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

Through lightning, rain, and thunder,
howls a wind blowing cold.
Footsteps by the window echo,
smoke-filled hallowed air.

Come all ye together hither.
Listen and behold.
For the mountains have long listened,
to what the trees are have now foretold.

On the wind a battle rises.
Steel and blood and bone.
Sky darkened, fields ashen,
life faded and burned ‘fore old.

As the night it creeps upon us,
a hallowed horn is blown.
Up the ramparts stalk the massive-kin,
allied against our solemn throne.

And if perchance a failing wind,
should utter unto all,
Then a distant, tolling bell,
shall sing then of the fall.

And if perchance a sailing win,
should blow us from the halls.
We’ll sing then of the better times
while here we stand ever tall

Steel and blood and bone at dawn,
‘neath blackened despairing suns.
How the wizened will be vanquished,
know only the blessed ones.

Poetry-Thing Thursday: Heart of Wits

~ S.M. Nolan ~ 1 Comment

On second street, an avenue
I never thought I’d be with you,
and now the years have left us both estranged.

I wasn’t sure that I was blue,
having met so many few,
I needed them then but now I’ve changed.

And if I am not looking back,
I’ll never feel the need to crack,
I’ve gotta keep my head on straight.

Books and papers in a stack,
atop them all your face is black,
I guess I’ve begun to feel the weight.

But life is short and love is long,
and you’re in need of another song,
So why don’t I just pack my bags and leave.

But every time I think to do,
What we both know we want me to,
I have to stop a while and believe.

When the rain falls hard I’ll call it quits
as something in your voice admits,
that we’re better off apart you and me.

But I just can’t handle this, it’s
a deadly game your heart of wits,
And so I think I’ll just wait and see.

Goodbye to love is never right,
I wish that we had known we might,
break apart like warming ice.

Then I’d have had the great foresight,
not to guide myself with your light,
and instead braced for snake-eyed dice.

I guess it’s just this waiting heart,
that buries itself beneath the art,
of making love and missing the point.

But I’d do it again, know that it’s,
just to play your heart of wits
and in its warmth, myself anoint.

Poetry-Thing Thursday: To Endure

~ S.M. Nolan ~ 4 Comments

In the streets the dead walk.
Around them, survivors scamper and scour.
Rats.
There are no dreams;
save death coming on swift wings,
rather than a long un-life.

Those alive wish they weren’t.
Wish they’d perished when it all set in–
or during the unrestful aftermath.
Now, somehow, they carry on.
Survival is more instinct than intention.

Rotting corpses shamble through shadows.
Their bowels drag. Leave trails.
Rot. Filth. Decay.
Groans fill darkness.

Gnarled and mottled feet,
tramp across a ruined civilization.
That which nature,
with her indifferent persistence,
intends to reclaim–
through her devouring,
swallowing more and more each day.
Forever.

But even through the despair,
the stink of hope is palpable.
but the dead find sustenance with it.
Seek those weakest to it.
Even still it remains;
a spark of life, infinity.

For among the mottled flesh,
the rotted bone,
there is an ever-present ticking clock.
An invisible pen,
which scrawls in time,
the tales of one species’ dwindling existence,
and of another’s wounded limping–
for even total war may be lost,
to attrition of a sterile species.

And to that,
it is said,
if there is one thing,
Humanity is known for,
it is its undeniable ability,
to endure.

Poetry-Thing Thursday: On the Prow

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

I nearly fell upon
my knees,
oh please,
don’t tell me the seas,
have memories,
of all of the fallacies,
that men and machines believe or breathe.

I couldn’t tell about,
the time,
or crime,
that lead me to climb,
a ladder of slime,
atop a bell whose chime,
certainly leave you a mime.

If I had known,
the song,
a gong,
from my heart would wrong,
the messer of prongs,
dislodge and assert them inside of your bong,
or perhaps wetten a sect of your thong.

Were I to say,
The word,
I’d heard,
No more than a third,
of the mourning bird,
would flock with a herd,
of cattle-men ready to hone the absurd.

So do I,
sit here right now
with unbidden bow,
out on the prow,
of bright-white ship but how,
could they, I wow,
in wake of a filth and greed-laden sow?