Spectral Verses, A Series Of Poems Written From The Viewpoint Of Lord Byron Speaking From The Grave Poem by Captain Cur

Spectral Verses, I, The Twilight And The Gloom

What fair voice calls my name as I loiter in the grave
a poet now besieged with ignoble repartee,
death is just a misty cloud that hides the quilted waves
patterns of the fickle tides that charge then run away.
In my youth I sang great chants, my verse would never sway
banished from my native soil I sailed to war with fate,
hearing echoes from my past I fought in unknown bays
hoping for a hero's death my sins to mitigate.
Alas! No peace, no resting place, unsettling as the moon
where my spirit walks between the twilight and the gloom.

Spectral Verses, II, My Heart Folds Loosely Bound

With lackluster elation
I tense my burning pride;
static mantras push up
the sweet lilies from the ground,
each blossom scents stray breezes
my verse has softy cried
yearning through the ages
for that close uplifting sound
contained within the pages
my heart folds loosely bound,
that holds my soul and weds my mind,
splendidly it climbs.

My angry youth was stolen,
where all I've loved has died
ruptured dreams that mangle lives,
the clock stroke loudly chimes
unintended mourning
that shift across grey skies
reaching toward salvation
for the light that fools my eyes.

Spectral Verses, III, Youthful Combs Of Fire

My writings plague solemn desires
dispatched within my grief,
waiting for my soul's revival
as I sense the failing beams
above my head stars once bold,
now dying, fade in disbelief
yearning youthful combs of fire
extinguished while I sleep.

My words of love coldly covered
by the graveyard's mossy dirt
embracing lips of favored lovers
as we lain in soft caress;
bites my savage tongues expression
has now sanctified the hurt
in my bed of weeds and clover
where no soft cheek warms my breast.

Spectral Verses, IV, The Die My Soul Has Cast

Black scorch marks of dejection
where I burn with pains delight
what my shallow terms have bought me
fills the die my soul has cast.
In the throes of trepidation
I have turned against the light
clutching runes with boney palms
tossing stones that read the past.

I scribe a new adventure
scribbling verses in the dust;
I align the passing planets
influencing natal charts.
Scorpio will be rising
that Saturn's foot will crush,
the Moon and Mars enjoining,
lovely Venus bares my heart.

Blending the earth tone pigment
as the brush strokes flesh her face
with eyes of eternal softness
and hands of phantom grace.
My white linen shirt the canvas
golden ruffles tress her hair
her temperate presence forming
shyly rising in the air.

My breastbones hardly breathing
I retreat back in the dark
she calls her eyes entreating
with a voice of goodly praise.
I sing to her my love song
with my notes c minor sharp,
embracing empty visions,
strumming string-less harps.


Spectral Verses V, Moon Tides The Pattern Of My Soul

Falling beauty pales in nights unsleeping
whispered to my marker hedged in stone
fear not though the midnight breeze is weeping
for the moon tides the pattern of my soul.

Rolling waves embrace an inner silence
inflected by their rising harmony
pounding shores drumming steady violence
she calls them back and slowly they recede.

Monuments are built to gods and martyrs,
idle worship reprised in pageantry,
wars afloat in blood and human horror
rewritten by ignoble history.

Surging seas unleash a stalwart power,
tempestuous they rage in mystery;
penetrating, crumbling earthly towers
immense foundations washed out by the sea.

Innocence must brave the unknown silence;
purity will light the burnished eve,
cast me moon, redeem me from the violence,
in the beauty of your midnight weeping breeze.

Falling beauty pales in nights unsleeping
whispered to my marker hedged in stone
fear not though the midnight breeze is weeping
for the moon tides the pattern of my soul.

Spectral Verses, VI, Void Of Dark

For in the seamless fabric of our dreams
we walk between real and imagined life
prescient when we wake our senses stream
to the horary poverty of strife;
but our soul created by spirit mind
its beacon shines throughout our earthly shell
within our dreams it flies traversing time
and gleams the truth above this worldly spell.
Consciousness of self, the eternal spark,
has given meaning to the void of dark.

Spectral Verses, VII, Linguistic Chains Of Slight

Opportune tenacity regulates my soul
against the wave born thoughts of reason
that have intensified the toll,
extracting cherished bits of memory
from the speciousness of mind
regaled within the boundaries
we have aptly labeled time.

My heart no longer beating,
my cold blood dried and dead
within the confines of my spirit
my eternal book is read;
to the ghosts that haunt and plague me,
to the inept breeding pride,
to the worthless charms and omens,
to all who lived and died.

I rattle in my coffin
linguistic chains of slight
as I turn each crumpling page
black dirt absorbs the light,
but I know the bitter answer
to the quandary we call time
I am trapped within the moment
of a stalled and stagnant tide.

Spectral Verses, VIII, Raise High The Curtain Of Your Dreams

Astounding as the grimaced pain
that falls upon my breast
that turns within my soulful pleas
disturbing peaceful rest,
as poignant as the simple pause
where all my dreams are lost
between the silence of the lines
where truth is rarely sought.

In the deepest regions of my soul
light is blindly shuttered,
mayhem then infects the grace
where lifetime vows are uttered,
wasteful words that garnish mind
placating idle reason
love grows then rots away
when its fruit is not in season.

Deeply plows the hardy till
that seeds so life may follow
replant the blanket of my grave,
the ground grows old and hollow,
soil turned by harsh bitter hands
with dead skin thick and calloused
shovelfuls of passion sound
on my wood and satin palace.

Console me and recite the words
from the marvel of my youth;
forgive me of my petty sins,
search between my lines for truth.
Do not follow in my steps
for you are prone to go astray,
raise high the curtain of your dreams,
don't pause and look away.

Spectral Verses, IX, Conceptual Realm Of Beginning

In the conceptual realm of beginning
where my spirit is dispelled by the light
forced through the canal of awakening
I will breathe my next breath of life.

By the pangs of my birth's separation
where my being is renewed in the flesh
worldly base to divine aspiration
I wander unable to rest.

Empirical voids comprise the heavens;
multitudinous suns burn out and restart,
I will share their fate for millennium
through the finite beats of my heart.

On the cleft of divine intervention
between marrow and umbilical blood
despite genius of human invention
my soul's evolution is love.

Spectral Verses, X, Flames To The West

Soul! Fly high your flames to the West!
Hence spoke the fiery eves request
twilight glints and the sun protests
folding back her sails.
Soul! Fly high your dreams to the East!
Arise to lights unending reach
full moon is hung in dawn's retreat
moonlight shyly pales.

Dress! Touch your midnight scented bride
that plays and shifts in shadow hides
from new to full her bridesmaid's cry
bouquets tossed to earth.
Upon the firmaments divide
they raise their spinster tearing eyes
upward reaching knead sea and sky
bastions of their birth.

Awake! Awake! The pastures' swell
with tall green grasses, verdant dells,
the misty mountain casting spells
life reclaims the land.
The yard birds sing their yearning song
to svelte wildflowers and dewy corn
upon the hill the tower's dong
church belled steeples stand.

The joyful singing of the choir
tuneful chords of love's desire
embodiments eternal fire
poles the compass bares.
From North to South the magnet points
directing lives, approves, appoints,
in life and death reflects, anoints
passions that we share.

The church bell softly tolling now,
the death of death has been avowed
replanted by the tillers plow
spring buds in my view.
Get up! Get up! Your spirits free
drink gypsy wine and dance with glee
dispersed within the liquid sea
life begins anew.