Joseph Peter Ostapiuk

From my tortoise eye,

I see,
...

Just as smoke from the fire
rises to the canopy of pine,
my eyes believe,
'thine beauty is mine.'
...

While drifting on these ebony waves of silk,
the air is cooler here,
where my feet aren't touching the ground
...

Where do the birds go after they sing?
When the wind is unrelenting
and the rain begins to pour
Does their soothing voice soar
...

Blueberries and vines over the fence
like wayward lines passing over the rigids and boundaries
and bleeding;
its skin holds the blood of the divine.
...

From my walking
on the earth
it hurts;
for reasons unknown to me,
...

I watched the boldest of streams
give way to this winter freeze
The water
frozen under
...

Walking this stale, unmanned street
of damp and residual rain
Stepping slowly, weary and lonely
in dire mortal pain
...

These otherwise phantom eyes,
they do soothe it
and deep are you,
burrowed within me,
...

She was just tall enough
to reach their boughs
bending; her golden tresses
flowing earthward,
...

In the meadows of autumn, you are the purple clouds
and the flowers where we lay in the evening glow
you are the birds dreaming into the sunset
and the song of the brief November breeze
...

Low, candlelight low
Flickering wildly,
your departing glow
...

There's an entrance to the woods I should call my own,
for to no passer-by has it ever been shown
where leaves exceed and lean over the trail
as if a shadow had casted his form above my eyes
...

The lily,
the way the sunlight kicks off of
the rooftops at dawn
Nothing escapes my sight without
...

Waiting, I’ll keep you
Through those long and unwanted hours
When you and I lay silently about the night
Like a ship at the bottom of the sea
...

My Tragic Queen
The night has come so soon
And your fair porcelain face
No longer shines by the light of the moon
...

I know how this goes
I won't let the moon deceive me

Because the night's not playing Beethoven
...

There's this broken road I've been treading
On the other side of the tracks

Where the clouds never break to the sun
...

...

Forget me a while
while the midnight lamp is waning
keep your eyes turned from the night
and the stars as they're fading
...