Amelie Ison

There is a crow that always follows me:
A master of shadow—
His dark black wings full of mystery and evil;
His cunning dots for eyes.
...

-To my friends (who are not poets)

How can you not be a poet?
Let me understand:
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A poem is someone's soul on paper:
It emits a feeling,

Perhaps of great rage or warmth or sadness—
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Man cannot surpass dying—
He cannot live past his own death.
Power fades and falls. Like the tide,
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I know what they are doing,
As they carry me to the car—
I have thought many times upon this moment;
As I know you have too.
...

There is a wolf that watches over me—
I don't know if he is a friend, or if he is foe.
He watches me from afar (silently; peacefully) :
He does not mean to wish me any harm.
...

You sit above me, on the throne of the world.
Our leader, no dispute as to who is in charge
But the fear of your hooked head and hooked feet:
It chases us even as we sleep.
...

At night, I see a man walking.
He is wandering down the country lanes and along a dark road—
He does not know where he is going
And he walks without purpose nor pride.
...

In a great, entangled forest, stands a metal monster—
An impossibility of nature, made by man. Alone;
Broken—it looms over all things natural
And asserts its right over the creatures that belong.
...

When I am gone,
The world will be no different -
It will not change because of me;
Because of my absence. I
...

Yesterday, I stroked a horse:
I ran my hand along his back
And watched his every muscle twitch,
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Truly, it is sad to see the leaves so dead;
To see them fallen and shrivelled—
Taken by life's seasonal Grim Reaper.
The melancholy to see a tree so bare,
...

A bee that cannot pollinate a flower
Is no bee at all.
It is deemed useless; it will surely die—
A bee must do its job to survive.
...

I stare into the soul of death:
She has eyes like nothing I have seen before,
And she exhibits her wrath by staring right back.
...

Do poets die like mortal men?
Or do they live forever in the shadows?
Hidden from our view,
Yet they are there, making notes:
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There is a grave with no name
That stands lonelier still.
It has no flowers nor despairing mourners
And the grass grows thick and bushy,
...

Why does the mouse disguise itself as a rat?
Because it has delusions of grandeur.
The mouse thinks it must win in life,
And to win in life is to be intimidating;
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When the gun points at that delicate spot
Between your eyes—
The point where I like to rest my lips—
I know you will not be afraid for your own death.
...

I have no words
So I'll say this instead:
I'll write a verse
For the missing;
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The mother did not want to eat her young—
Her bloodline; her babies; her sweet devotions—
But she was forced to make a great sacrifice
To keep herself going strong.
...