Ryan John Payne

I'll light a candle in Grandmother's name
And thank the Lord and give Him praise
For all the love that she did impart-
For the loving influence upon my heart.
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When forlorn flow'rs your green thumb'd find,
Their blossoms would forever bind
Memories and love of which we share-
Your lovingkindness ne'er once threadbare.
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I look at my neighbor quizzically, quietly pondering this quibble’s quandary-
The disinclination to acquiesce to recantation of implanted altruistic misery.
Stultiloquence in consequential and quintessential eloquence rendered thus
Takes a transcendental trajectory in silent shadowy vehemence without fuss.
...

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We look beyond to those on Earth and pray they make it through,
Because there is no greater Gift than what God's blessings prove.
Yet when we're there, we'll see His face, the Son that God did send-
Flowers, birds, all pretty things- and each loved Earth-known friend.
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I thank Him in advance,
When it's time for rain:
When the thunder chants,
As I write this quatrain...
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When red met blue
It was love at first sight;
That's why we see purple
At sunset's last light.
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I cried myself to sleep lastnight-
My tears synchronized the rain.
I could not access your heart at all
And a rainstorm was to blame.
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Modern society devised a new recipe called the hypocrisy cake,
And they claim that it's quite delicious.
Only the truly unorthodox and insurgent are allowed to partake:
Their ingredients are somewhat suspicious.
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My left hand is like a minstrel, and my stanzas stand approved​: ​
I've always written to be clever, because it​ is​ my point of view,
That lefties are neither sinister nor sanctimonious as presumed​.​
I have always been enigmatic, since I​ am​ de​termined a recluse.
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Oh say, can you see, by our doom's early plight,
What some pompously hailed as the twilight of freedom,
Whose stomped stripes and scuffed stars through a perilous blight,
O'er the Internet watched, were incessantly streaming?
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The sad, uncertain rustling never before caught my attention -
I always thought that purple curtain-an ascertained intention-
Was only Poe's vivid fragmentation and a histrionic invention.
His ascension into a bleak December made me soon remember
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Three prospects were determined upon a purple path,
And I mourned two from which I would now abstain.
So that I'd remain a christened pilgrim, those I passed,
Pondering at once - at last - each and every aftermath
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Neither did I fret nor was I grim
When, with words, I tried to limn​
Insolent adjectives ​oddly phrased
In my mind's ​clandestine xeriscape.
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I will always remember way back when,
When Daddy was much younger then,
When he was standing at Mom's side:
All the times we shared before he died.
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You and I sat on our very own wall:
Enamored, I didn't notice we'd fall.
All the king's horses, all the king's men
Never could put us both together again.
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If purple were nature's choicest hue, instead of blue or green-
If valleys flowed with lilac plants, in lieu of its verdant sheen-
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When I say I love you,
It may not always be in words.
Those written here upon my heart
Will sometimes go unversed.
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Because of the night and of the stars,
Silence dispels the awful gloom
That once surrounded my impervious heart,
But now dejection lies entombed.
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Love needs no requiem and valentines have grace-
Reliquaries of the heart indemnify and emplace.
Valentines are to be waltzed, to be reclaimed in time-
No vacant, unrequited heart would ever stop a rhyme.
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