One day when I am a poet
I shall sing to you a song.
A song that tells the secret love
in words I cannot say.
One day when I am a poet
I will share with you the dreams
I dream of you each day-
dreams which stay unspoken.
Love-a word which is so small
but means so much
that I'm embarrased to say.
For my feelings for you so overflow
my senses, that all the books ever written
could not tell the story.
How do I say
that one day without you
is a lifetime lost;
how do I tell you
that life without you
is a flower despoiled of bloom,
a bird with withered song.
How do I tell you with words?
One day when I am a poet.
Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Monday, March 9, 2009
The Harmony
("...Let reason, the gift divine, be thy highest guide.
Then should you be separated from the body,
you will be imperishable, a divinity, a mortal no more."
Pythagoras, The Golden Verses)
Look around you!
There's music in everything we see.
The sky with its lofty tones resounding
from a rainbow harp.
The forest its violins
whose quivering strings sweetly plucked
by bows of the wind,
serenade a sleepy earth
like songbirds singing hymns.
And there is play.
And love.
Why not change residencies for a day?
Permit yourself to slip past
the barricades of time and space,
to venture free from the trodden path
into the open fields of worlds unclaimed.
Life is a flower.
Let its petals unfurl and bloom
into the magic colors of its fate.
Forever nourish the roots
from which it sprang,
to blossom forth that vital sweetness
which makes all in your magic garden
wax with the music of love.
Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels
Then should you be separated from the body,
you will be imperishable, a divinity, a mortal no more."
Pythagoras, The Golden Verses)
Look around you!
There's music in everything we see.
The sky with its lofty tones resounding
from a rainbow harp.
The forest its violins
whose quivering strings sweetly plucked
by bows of the wind,
serenade a sleepy earth
like songbirds singing hymns.
And there is play.
And love.
Why not change residencies for a day?
Permit yourself to slip past
the barricades of time and space,
to venture free from the trodden path
into the open fields of worlds unclaimed.
Life is a flower.
Let its petals unfurl and bloom
into the magic colors of its fate.
Forever nourish the roots
from which it sprang,
to blossom forth that vital sweetness
which makes all in your magic garden
wax with the music of love.
Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
The Piano
From your piano
the golden notes that sing
the sounds of life and love
more pure and real than earthly things,
migrating us back to places and times
buried in tombs marked
by solemn epitaph the final ending.
To know ourselves from times before
that stretch to now the written legacy,
to carry forth the dreams of yore
into a new beginning.
One continuous stream of light,
brighter than brightest rays of day,
softer than quiet glimmers of night,
speak to us and point the way
we have long forgotten.
Without you life of beauty is lost;
without you life lived is grim;
without you our dreams slowly fade
to empty material whim.
Speak piano, forever speak
the golden tones we cannot say,
with your magic wand of flitter cast
the future for us to make.
Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels
the golden notes that sing
the sounds of life and love
more pure and real than earthly things,
migrating us back to places and times
buried in tombs marked
by solemn epitaph the final ending.
To know ourselves from times before
that stretch to now the written legacy,
to carry forth the dreams of yore
into a new beginning.
One continuous stream of light,
brighter than brightest rays of day,
softer than quiet glimmers of night,
speak to us and point the way
we have long forgotten.
Without you life of beauty is lost;
without you life lived is grim;
without you our dreams slowly fade
to empty material whim.
Speak piano, forever speak
the golden tones we cannot say,
with your magic wand of flitter cast
the future for us to make.
Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels
Monday, February 9, 2009
Tickling the Moon's Feet
Why have we come to hide our hearts,
Why are we here to stealth our souls,
Why do we waste away our precious gift.
Today when I looked into your eyes
you did not see me.
You and I, let's tread away
the silly charade and fly
about the clouds until
our hearts and minds go
crazy with raging love. Mocking
earth's solid clocks and rules,
we'll dance the night to dawn,
even tickle the moon's feet
for a mischievous laugh or two.
So when looking into your eyes,
the world becomes a magic garden,
with colors so bright I shield
my eyes to see. Touching
your hand a river of peace courses
through my veins to make
me drunk with sweet ecstasy.
Now that we are here, it is
as if we're one with infinity:
with reason to live to share
our infinite love,
with reason to love to make
ourselves complete.
Or why would we have come
so far.
Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels
Why are we here to stealth our souls,
Why do we waste away our precious gift.
Today when I looked into your eyes
you did not see me.
You and I, let's tread away
the silly charade and fly
about the clouds until
our hearts and minds go
crazy with raging love. Mocking
earth's solid clocks and rules,
we'll dance the night to dawn,
even tickle the moon's feet
for a mischievous laugh or two.
So when looking into your eyes,
the world becomes a magic garden,
with colors so bright I shield
my eyes to see. Touching
your hand a river of peace courses
through my veins to make
me drunk with sweet ecstasy.
Now that we are here, it is
as if we're one with infinity:
with reason to live to share
our infinite love,
with reason to love to make
ourselves complete.
Or why would we have come
so far.
Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels
Thursday, January 15, 2009
The Passing Of A Songbird ~ A Satire
(Author's Note: Satire, taken from Latin satira, earlier form satura, a poetic medley. A poem ridiculing present vices or follies.
CAUTION: Not recommended for the readership which strictly prefers uplifting verse. Especially deleterious to the psychopedantic brood of academe.)
There should be no music in this poem.
It is a tale about the time I was
a songbird and lost my wings.
What good is it to sing
to a forest empty and cold
where smug violets refuse to bloom
and the air's jaundiced with hate.
At last I can make sense of it.
It all began one day at school. I, recalling
vividly, a lecture by my psychology professor
( an intellectual poseur with stern visage
and adroit command of the lectern)
authoritatively saying: "Man is just an animal
and to survive one learns to adapt."
( Street Translation: "Life's a jungle to kill
or be killed."
Not by any stretch could
I be deemed religious,
yet have always seen myself
as something more than
primordial "instincts" and form of animal.
Never could I imagine
the likes of Socrates, Michelangelo,
Shakespeare, or Mozart,
nor Moses, Jesus, Mohammed
or Gautama in such vain.
Nor to suggest I've worn a halo,
but I've never felt ameliorated
by the prospects of living
at another's demise.
To lighten the air and lessen
the tiresomeness of lecture,
I cloaked myself within the poems of Shelley.
Music flowing off lips of the lyric muse
hidden inside the lines,
throbbed with one unbroken rhyme, until
as if by incantation, I was charmed.
From the mundane realm of human body
I sallied back to provenance- the being that I am.
To see the world with bright, encouraging hue,
feel its palpable beauty at every glance:
the voiceless air with duet of passerines,
a weathered barn snug in its cloche of snow,
fields with sleeping rootchildren dreaming
of coming spring.
Rife with free illusion,
possesed with native goal,
I sprung into the lofty quest
with gladsome heart and soul.
And with the subtle hint of verse,
it was as if I were:
a cloud!
the wind!
a spirit!
a bird!
Such things are hard to put to words-
to express the feelings.
Just let me say
a sense of calm and clarity,
freedom and wonder,
all wrapped up as one.
In an instant I could be
whatever I wished-
as with a snap of the fingers it was done.
Love for lyric and free expression
always was my core,
with affection for the winsome serenades
of songbirds.
( You might say it was natural for me to be a bird.)
And there I was,
newly fledged wings,
soaring about the clouds,
above the woods below,
heart drenched in blitheful song,
without care for time
or concept of wrong.
Quite the contrast to years growing up,
enduring the pains of pedantic schooling,
finally, to be what you've yearned to be.
How wonderful, I thought,
for all of us to share this happy fate-
to live out that special something
which makes us who we are.
When it happened without invitation,
a crudeness impinged upon my sense.
Slight at first which grew ever stronger,
like the loathsome curse of a thorn lodged
beneath the flesh.
It heavied the air and coarsened the spirit-
inklings of that baser side of life.
Soon the sweetness of my singing soured.
Filtering through preverted air came
first the sounds then images morphed
out of the past: "Hundreds of Palestinians
have been killed in Israeli air attacks!"-
vis-a-vis "Kill or be killed".
( Like a child alien and defenseless in the world,
a being exposed is easily maimed.)
Scanning the classroom, I watched
as fellow classmates pliantly nodded
to the professor's precept,
when one stood up to give a deduction:
"War is merely man's natural adaptation
to survival threats by man."
( Street Translation: "We'll stay in Iraq
a hundred years if that's what it takes.")
Suddenly, without thought to consequence,
I shouted aloud: "No! No! No!
"That's not the way life works!"
Besieged by an array of censoring eyes,
I pinched myself to see had I been dreaming,
only to find, I'd already lost my feathers,
no longer was I a joyful songbird
to adorn the world with graceful hymns,
but like the others a "man" of Earth.
Thus was the passing of a songbird.
There will be those who decry
my account heretical.
To some, set aside as fool's paradise, tagged
"frivolous waste of the reader's time".
While others cast the gorge at my arrogance
that I would try and be so different.
My professor swear to my insanity,
even order my isolation for fear
were such contaigon to spread,
it would spell the doom
to his own survival.
Judge it for yourself.
But if only the world would be better for it,
when there's one less songbird who sings.
Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels
CAUTION: Not recommended for the readership which strictly prefers uplifting verse. Especially deleterious to the psychopedantic brood of academe.)
There should be no music in this poem.
It is a tale about the time I was
a songbird and lost my wings.
What good is it to sing
to a forest empty and cold
where smug violets refuse to bloom
and the air's jaundiced with hate.
At last I can make sense of it.
It all began one day at school. I, recalling
vividly, a lecture by my psychology professor
( an intellectual poseur with stern visage
and adroit command of the lectern)
authoritatively saying: "Man is just an animal
and to survive one learns to adapt."
( Street Translation: "Life's a jungle to kill
or be killed."
Not by any stretch could
I be deemed religious,
yet have always seen myself
as something more than
primordial "instincts" and form of animal.
Never could I imagine
the likes of Socrates, Michelangelo,
Shakespeare, or Mozart,
nor Moses, Jesus, Mohammed
or Gautama in such vain.
Nor to suggest I've worn a halo,
but I've never felt ameliorated
by the prospects of living
at another's demise.
To lighten the air and lessen
the tiresomeness of lecture,
I cloaked myself within the poems of Shelley.
Music flowing off lips of the lyric muse
hidden inside the lines,
throbbed with one unbroken rhyme, until
as if by incantation, I was charmed.
From the mundane realm of human body
I sallied back to provenance- the being that I am.
To see the world with bright, encouraging hue,
feel its palpable beauty at every glance:
the voiceless air with duet of passerines,
a weathered barn snug in its cloche of snow,
fields with sleeping rootchildren dreaming
of coming spring.
Rife with free illusion,
possesed with native goal,
I sprung into the lofty quest
with gladsome heart and soul.
And with the subtle hint of verse,
it was as if I were:
a cloud!
the wind!
a spirit!
a bird!
Such things are hard to put to words-
to express the feelings.
Just let me say
a sense of calm and clarity,
freedom and wonder,
all wrapped up as one.
In an instant I could be
whatever I wished-
as with a snap of the fingers it was done.
Love for lyric and free expression
always was my core,
with affection for the winsome serenades
of songbirds.
( You might say it was natural for me to be a bird.)
And there I was,
newly fledged wings,
soaring about the clouds,
above the woods below,
heart drenched in blitheful song,
without care for time
or concept of wrong.
Quite the contrast to years growing up,
enduring the pains of pedantic schooling,
finally, to be what you've yearned to be.
How wonderful, I thought,
for all of us to share this happy fate-
to live out that special something
which makes us who we are.
When it happened without invitation,
a crudeness impinged upon my sense.
Slight at first which grew ever stronger,
like the loathsome curse of a thorn lodged
beneath the flesh.
It heavied the air and coarsened the spirit-
inklings of that baser side of life.
Soon the sweetness of my singing soured.
Filtering through preverted air came
first the sounds then images morphed
out of the past: "Hundreds of Palestinians
have been killed in Israeli air attacks!"-
vis-a-vis "Kill or be killed".
( Like a child alien and defenseless in the world,
a being exposed is easily maimed.)
Scanning the classroom, I watched
as fellow classmates pliantly nodded
to the professor's precept,
when one stood up to give a deduction:
"War is merely man's natural adaptation
to survival threats by man."
( Street Translation: "We'll stay in Iraq
a hundred years if that's what it takes.")
Suddenly, without thought to consequence,
I shouted aloud: "No! No! No!
"That's not the way life works!"
Besieged by an array of censoring eyes,
I pinched myself to see had I been dreaming,
only to find, I'd already lost my feathers,
no longer was I a joyful songbird
to adorn the world with graceful hymns,
but like the others a "man" of Earth.
Thus was the passing of a songbird.
There will be those who decry
my account heretical.
To some, set aside as fool's paradise, tagged
"frivolous waste of the reader's time".
While others cast the gorge at my arrogance
that I would try and be so different.
My professor swear to my insanity,
even order my isolation for fear
were such contaigon to spread,
it would spell the doom
to his own survival.
Judge it for yourself.
But if only the world would be better for it,
when there's one less songbird who sings.
Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels
Monday, January 12, 2009
We Meet Again
In the concourse of our lives,
Whenever the two shall meet,
If you recognize my face
Your heart will feel mine beat.
On the boulevard of time,
Cross aeons of memory behind,
To a place our vibrations rhyme
We meet again in heart and mind.
Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels
Whenever the two shall meet,
If you recognize my face
Your heart will feel mine beat.
On the boulevard of time,
Cross aeons of memory behind,
To a place our vibrations rhyme
We meet again in heart and mind.
Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
We'll Go to Distant Worlds
I loved you
since the time I looked
into the deep oceans of your eyes.
From the waves of passion thrashing
beneath my earthly body,
to stormless shoals smothered
with warmth of morning sun.
Disabused of name or tongue
or past ships lost
to uncharted Atlantis,
I found you in a place
where infinite sky meets
the bottomless sea.
Because I loved you more
than space could hold,
more than I could fit
in a smaller world.
Now I know why stars explode
across the Universe,
what marks the road to take
to distant worlds.
And there with you I'll go,
our destinies complete-
though not in terms of endings
set with time or date,
but our journey together
that never ends.
How I've loved you!
But I can only love you more
as I sail across your oceans
and we love upon the shores.
Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels
since the time I looked
into the deep oceans of your eyes.
From the waves of passion thrashing
beneath my earthly body,
to stormless shoals smothered
with warmth of morning sun.
Disabused of name or tongue
or past ships lost
to uncharted Atlantis,
I found you in a place
where infinite sky meets
the bottomless sea.
Because I loved you more
than space could hold,
more than I could fit
in a smaller world.
Now I know why stars explode
across the Universe,
what marks the road to take
to distant worlds.
And there with you I'll go,
our destinies complete-
though not in terms of endings
set with time or date,
but our journey together
that never ends.
How I've loved you!
But I can only love you more
as I sail across your oceans
and we love upon the shores.
Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels
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