A bit of poetry: Samples from University

I missed the official poetry month, which is April, but as I recently seem to be repeatedly stumbling on old poetry of mine, I have decided that May will be my poetry month.

Today I came upon a very fat folder filled with what appears to be just pages and pages and pages of neatly typed up poetry I wrote a long time ago. All of the poetry would be prior to 1992, as I vaguely remember interning in the Vice President's office (yes, of the United States) and using the down time after the election loss to type up pages of hand-scrawled writings....

I had always assumed I had lost these writings, as there was no digital version, and I hadn't seen the folder in, well, decades. Apparently I did not.

So, for your entertainment or potential edification, a few poems of mine from the early 1990s. Which, yes, means I was very young. Very young.

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Life
-- December 10, 1990

Sometimes life seems so meaningless,
It comes and goes,
In an endless circle of continuing questions.
It never really reveals itself,
It remains hidden,
In the recesses of greater minds.

Sometimes life is so complicated,
It twists and turns
With neverending choices and problems.
It is always a different shade of grey,
Never black or white,
Only understood by the gurus on the mountaintop.

If life were an easy task,
So many wouldn't have died in the search.
So many wouldn't still be searching,
For the meaning of life.

Black and white without different shades,
Is boredom.
The complications, the confusions are the spice,
In an endless pot of variety.

Time will iron out some of the wrinkles,
But new ones will always be formed.
A smooth sea signals a monsoon;
Troubled waters can make the adventure.

***

Cold Fear....New Tomorrow
-- January 23, 1991

Cold fear
Tightening its steely claws
      - grasping my heart.

Hold dear
The songs of our yesterday
      - within your heart.

Gasp
Short breaths struggling to be free
      - releasing the pain.

Clasp
Near to you that which is.
      - forget the pain.

Yesterday
To remember but never regret
      - the loneliness.

Today
Is the future to erase
      - the loneliness.

Think
Of the love of a foreign heart.
      - near to you.

Drink
To the dreams of a new tomorrow
      - close to you.

***

Sleep

To sleep or not to sleep.
That is the question.
For it is not for nobler minds
To waste upon an afternoon's nap
But to be profitable -- to be awake.

To sleep perchance to dream.
Of a faraway place.
A land of exoticness
Where silence can be interesting
And the profit lies in the illusion.

To dream perhaps to dream.
Is it a love that never occurs.
An emotion too unreal to be felt
An insanity to believe in
But to profit the sane.

To dream perhaps of sleep.
Not of the darkened eyes
But the smoldering flames.
To lavish within another's arms
Profiting from another's love.

To dream, sleep
And to sleep, dream
The insanity of sanity
Which keeps the notion of love alive.

***