Poetry
Nights Passing
Evening is when the day sets,
settles, creaks, and moans to rest;
Tucks, snuggles, and pulls the cover
over the suns final silhouettes.
It’s when the cool wind stirs
some awake and lulls others to sleep
and nocturnal beings venture
in the shadows of the moon.
When our dreams become real
the mind takes you to places imagined
to people your to shy to meet
but in this world surreal
You sometimes waken with worries
that seem bigger than life
to things unseen but imagined
to things dreamed, not real.
© 2017 Don Stewart
Youth of Our Dreams
Pine scent mixed lemon perfume,
a tree laying sideways rotted
made a chair and footstool
in a place called Waverly.
At the end of her street
we returned to the fire.
In the quiet of the night
branches scratched panes,
laying by the cupboard and sink.
Moonlight flickered thru the glass
shadowed by the great walnut tree
all else still, lest we waken, lest we waken.
Now years later we returned,
remember the youth our dreams
the dreams of our youth.
Scent of the northwest
riddled in pine and citrus memory.
© 2017 Don Stewart
Kept In Kept Out
Bars on windows
three locks on every door.
Curtains drawn to hide
in from outside.
Fenced in yard,
topped in finest barbed,
keeping in, or keeping out,
concrete yards.
Through a crack in the door
he greetsa neighbor,
a chain holds them apart,
a child grows up
not knowing,
the forest or the trees,
but a sidewalk and street lamp
holding up a drunk
and no parking sign.
Neon lights and skyscraper stars
lighten dark gangways
from streets, where rivals threaten
for the color of a scarf
and imaginary boundary
drawn by OGs.
Hold your gunfire
hide your knives
hear the music play,
an artist that lived here
wrote those words.
Time to feel the notes and let them sink
in this barren lot
and let them lift us
so we can rise.