dragon unseen

the echo of the horror goes away

leaving behind this memory of shock

a break in time not noted by the clock

while passing cloud has covered up the ray

we are not certain yet this is full day

so we come here and place our hearts in dock

for your perusal so that you might mock

or press us hard or even probe and slay

the signal here is of a subtle sort

made for discernment by an elder eye

thus nor for wasting on our hasty youth

who are on this day in another court

beneath a vision of a different sky

but still must learn there is a single truth

this is a dao

i miss the master of the golden house

who has gone down to view the changing tide

or so i'm told perhaps to soothe my pride

for some new message now i must espouse

before the last new flame we have to douse

in the new dawn there is no place to hide

this anger at being taken for a ride

or knowledge that i'm smaller than a mouse

vision is lost the message all unsent

when signal flame no longer seems to leap

above the hills nor on the mountain peak

can any see just where the last word went

now no one has a single hearth to keep

and in the clamour none would dare to speak

a form of art

you wake and read the message on your phone

which tells you something that is bitter cold

at edge of summer now you are not old

just middle-aged not in the best of tone

a little silly too inclined to moan

about the minor things yet not the gold

measure of what can now be truly told

you see the words a crab now eats her bone

the tale's been written on a rotting page

yet can be read by any human eye

we can't escape the poison nor the taint

nothing avails there is no use to rage

each comfortable answer is a lie

and yet she set the signal down in paint

alarums and incursions

we miss the mark by blaming modern haste

for all the losses that the old declare

since time's the one thing that we cannot waste

 

why bother waiting when the one abased

will be revenged when none is left to care

we miss the mark by blaming modern taste

 

instead of noting that the old displaced

was most unkind and never was quite fair

since time's the one thing that we cannot waste

 

you ought to leave at once before the taste

of anger drives our guardians all spare

we miss the mark by blaming modern taste

 

for those disasters that our kind have faced

the dirty magics came on unaware

since time's the one thing that we cannot waste

 

burning our feet showing our gems were paste

leaving behind only a haze in air

we miss the mark by blaming modern haste

since time's the one thing that we cannot waste

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first words

a meeting graven deep in the recall

so scents and colours you cannot repress

the place the time all seem to coalesce

the heat was summer but the season fall

and from this distance no detail is small

since paths were crossed and cannot now regress

back out of meaning life itself must bless

what we have been and forbid us to bawl

now roads will take us far but not so far

that voices cannot take us back in time

to where the light first taught us how to touch

our minds to plastic shapes that had no scar

before to hope was made a sort of crime

and any knowledge had become too much

swallows

no grieving then but seize the darting joys

that pass like summer birds above the lake

enjoy the time and all the things you make

 

ignore the pain avoid the childish noise

see how the breezes still the reeds do shake

no grieving then but seize the darting joys

 

before they pass on to new girls and boys

as life requires since every reed must break

eternity's the dream that we mistake

no grieving then but seize the darting joys