Darkness Clouds

This is one of my early poems, written in late March 1997. This poem was an artistic breakthrough for me, as I devoted far more time and effort to its perfection than I had ever done with any poem before. In this poem I also began to experiment more with imagery and syntax, as well as with alliteration, subtle musical rhythms, and other poetic devices that went well beyond the basic rhyme and meter of song lyrics and other simple poetry I had written up until that time. In many ways, I consider the composition of this poem to mark my transition to becoming a true poet. That is not to say that I was necessarily a great, or even a good, poet (I must leave that judgment for others to make), but it is to say that I had become, objectively speaking, a real poet, and not a mere writer of verse. In hindsight, it is almost as though I had discovered how to use the sorcerer's wand of the magical poetic arts--still just a novice apprentice, but suddenly realizing: Oh! That's how it works! 

Seventeen years later, it surprises me a little to realize that there is still much I like about this little poem (that is not the typical reaction to revisiting one's early, formative artistic works, many others of which I wish I could delete from existence). Other than reciting it at a few poetry readings back in the day, and including it in a self-published (is there any other kind?) chapbook that only a few friends and family ever saw, this is its first publication.

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Darkness Clouds

Darkness clouds—whisper,
 

enchant me with your softness sad.
 

Melancholy heights—
 

paint my purple passions,
 

sing my mournful dreams.
 

Electric sorrow sky—
 

reflect my violet hopes,
 

echo my shadowed desires.
 

This cloudness longing,
 

this ethereal ache—
 

translate liquid dark,
 

interpret buried rain.
 

Release catharsis showers—
 

flowers bloom
 

where you weep.
 

Let me lie beneath
 

your sad shadow-fall.
 

Water me as you do the grass—
 

with your tears so soft
 

and sweet.