The following selected pieces of poetry are copyrighted and may not be used or reproduced in any form without written permission.
When Shall I See You?
(To my soulmate wherever she may be)
When shall I see you again clothed in light?
My heart still searches for that long ago night
When love enfolded us, two became one,
And passions of lifetimes like a million suns
Swept us upward in raptuous joy
As on wings made of stars such the angels employ.
When shall I find my soul's other part,
The union once more of our spirit and heart?
In mind and body may we find rest,
Knowing our togetherness by God has been blessed.
Come to me now for we both know the way.
This is Our moment, let this be the day.
Bright Star
Bright star in night shine forth your radiance,
A tiny sun in dark skies.
You pose your riddles of perplexity
With craftiness that vies
The mind to ponder it's own existence,
A rebirth on places beyond,
To seek the true identity of
The reflection in the pond.
How can one tell, you're just a twinkle,
But around you millions reside.
Are you in my past or future;
Does warmth in you abide?
A single cloud could easily halt
Your tiny beam from space.
And yet now from my memory
You shall not be erased.
You draw me towards you for some reason
That I cannot explain,
As though you are even now involved
In my rebirth again.
Bright star I know that I have felt
The same rays I now see,
In some past upon your shores,
When I was yet to be.
You shine forth now to let me know
Of life's eternity,
And my own presence in forever,
For all I am to be.
6-9-87
The Straw
A careless cigarette
Tossed from the window of a fast moving car,
So small, so seeming insignificant, a mere straw.
Yet upon it rode the destiny of humanity.
And Mother Earth sighed,
She gasped, she shook, she shuddered.
Belching fire and smoke and ashes, with violent trembles
She brought down the hideous temples
Of mankind’s irreverent self-glorifications.
A year passed...
A few souls remained,
And gentle Mother Earth caressed them
And nurtured her new garden.
9-88
Challenge
An easy life does make me bored,
No excitement to entice
One's thinking beyond trivial tasks,
Beyond one's urge made twice.
No, give me adversity, strife, and pain,
And I shall take them apart;
For out from the defiance of these
Come truer feelings of the heart.
I cannot sit back watching life's game;
My choice is to participate,
Whatever the gods may grant to bring forth
Whether at great risk or safe.
I do not choose the road made easy,
Worn smooth by so many feet.
Give me instead the impossible task,
To me it is far more sweet.
Sometimes it seems I thrive on challenge,
Hopeless conditions thus to create,
Only to prove I am still the master,
I am the maker of my own fate.
6-10-87
A Fire in the Hearth
There's a fire in the hearth in the morning on our rising,
And a chore that must be done in the light of each new day;
For 'tis love makes life worth living in the giving to one's neighbor,
And it's fire never wavers, nor by winds does it e'er sway.
There's a crispness to the morning that invigorates the breathing
With a soothing touch of freshness as the sun begins it's rise.
And the glistening frozen droplets hang uneasily in witness
To their brothers' slow diminish in the lighter blue of skies.
There's a fire in the hearth though outside it's cold and wintry.
The snows are bended back on a field split with tar.
And the winds come a howling and a teasing down the chimney
As we gather in thanksgiving for repasts come from far.
There's a need in every person in the finding of his purpose;
There's a fire in each heart and eternal is it's flame.
And it's light shines forth in radiance, in a crystal love it sparkles
A thousand times more bright than the suns from which it came.
There's a fire in the hearth in the evening whence we gather,
And it's warmth bespeaks the love that springs forth from within.
And a blush upon each cheek as the hands are spread in waiting
While embracing precious moments in the loving arms of friends.
9-19-87
The Forty and the Four
The guns were aimed at a nation's soul,
And men were taught it was brave, it was bold.
The stage was set, the players, the roles.
The world knows the story, for it's oft been told
How a people bent on their own self ruin,
Out of arrogance and pride, another to entomb,
Came the holocaust of war, and thus in the doing,
The plagues on a nation of acts so inhuman,
That to us in this time, we can hardly consider,
Or fathom the extremities of cold mass murder.
How one so great could fail thus, we shudder.
And a world left in ruin so vast, so utter.
Oh how we tried to save those we dared.
A few escaped to freedom, and for us dearly cared.
But being so outnumbered our efforts were impaired.
At any moment we knew that footsteps on the stair
Spelled the end of life to any still there.
A pact then between us to utter not a word.
A babies sudden cry. Oh no! Have we been heard?
A light pierced the darkness, a second, then a third;
The bayonets flashed round us, the boots with their spurs.
Quick drop below the pews and do not make a stir!
Listen still now for I must tell you more,
How a church of forty people and soldiers four
Met their destiny in forever at a knock on a door:
The trains to oblivion to those on the floor,
And the soldier still standing the execution guns' roar.
Can you hear her cry, do you see the widow's tears,
Or the child left with nothing but consuming fears,
The crippled and maimed who no longer hear.
How we gloried in the battles of those long ago years!
Oh dear God, let us not so soon forget
How the earth drank our blood and the rivers ran with sweat;
How the air filled with ash of the furnaces regret,
And a people disappeared in a flash and a fret.
And millions of souls cry out unto Thee now,
Instill within us the lesson that somehow
Through the ages to forever in the ever present now,
May we always be mindful of the Forty and the Four.
4-5-87
jc taylor
for Donna
in remembrance of shared experience
Lament of a Broken Heart
And oh if only love would stand beside
And keep cold death far from it's cruel door,
I then might bask in glorious ecstasies
Beyond the tightening grasp of tears and woe.
Yet such a fate has seemed to pass me by,
For now in tears alone I weep but more;
And far off sounds of joy and revelries
Do taunt my soul with all it could not know.
Then gasping for a breath as if to die,
A single tear fell slowly to the floor
Amidst a flood of youthful memories.
Must I in sorrow to oblivion go?
But God in mercy must have heard my cry,
Removed me from the path that spread before,
And gently as the whispers of a breeze,
Did grant my soul the love it longed to know.
Often I Wonder
Often I wonder what life is all about.
Sometimes I cry, sometimes I could shout
For joy, and times I just sit in quiet
To consider the difference of wrong and right.
What have the Masters to say of the heart,
About love and God, and what is my part
In this magical scheme of things unseen?
What shall I become, or what have I been?
All around me is din and chaos,
And thoughts like leaves in the wind are tossed
To and fro into such a clutter
That sorting the paradox makes me shudder.
What shall become of the world we create:
Will it vanish in some cataclysmic grate
That sifts out all imperfection to find
The gold, and then leave the dross behind
To wallow eternally in it's own quagmire?
Is this mankind's destiny-a fate so dire?
Are we finally to inherit the damnation
Of disease and war as our greatest creation?
Surely there must be some saving grace
To lift our thoughts away from the place
They've entrenched. For without something more
Than just ourselves, I see the last door
As a one way entrance to oblivion.
God help us undo what we've thus begun!
6-4-87
Soaring
Riding upon a thunderhead
My spirit soared.
I looked out on my past
And friends of old on clouds beside,
Multitudes like the rain we bore.
We caressed a land serene,
And gently gave our best
To the lush green mountainsides:
A happy land of many souls,
Valleys deep and buildings tall.
( The elevators rarely worked )
But all around the lushness green.
Flowers yes and colors more,
The steepness of the hills
Made me wonder at first
How so many could live
When there were no factories,
No stores, no fields, or crops to pick:
Only green-new life for sure.
A hobit world perhaps
And perhaps only in a dream,
Or even a past life.
Many rooms the buildings show,
But footsteps were not the way to go.
One need only think and he was there.
Look up, look out, and still all was green,
A crystal emerald world of love and peace.
Back upon my cloud I pondered
And returned to the present.
1-25-81
The Two Suns of Home
In a twilight world of mornings bright
Was a land filled with perpetual light.
When evenings rose there was no night.
Then was I born in heavenly flight
O'er seas and mountains of majestic might.
Illuminating orbs that I see,
In dreamy mists of reality,
Enflame all hearts to reverie.
Abounding life you bring to me
E'er singing to your eternity.
To the west your brightness shines,
And thence to east your mate I find,
As from your palaces to remind,
Yet a child are you both in time.
Spiralling love does thus entwine
And lift your souls in tenderness
With warmth from the heart to bless,
Blissful mete in togetherness.
'Pon your shores I long to rest
In arms graced by a golden tress.
Hallowed ground I love now from far,
Thy morning and thy evening star
Fill my dreams when mind's ajar
With beams that never leave a mar.
So gently does your light regard
The beauty of your tuscan shore,
And emerald rains caress the moor.
Shall I ever find the door?
And returning illusions of lore
Languish the thought of never more.
No! I shall find my path to roam,
Through whatever gates may come,
A way not to all, but perhaps to some.
Return I now to that I am from
By the light of two suns of home
.6-20-87
On Love
Love, yet fear not when she pierces the heart with her flaming daggers, for her wounds only open you more to life. And never cease giving to her of your totality, for she demands all, but gives her all in a time unknown.
Love, and count not the tears, though their tide may sweep you out on forlorn seas of grief and sadness. Each drop is but another soul who has tasted her hypnotic fruits, so you are never alone in your sorrow.
Love, but look not behind you at that which no longer is, lest the shadows of her trials imprison you forever in a frozen past of stone. And though your heart freely bleeds from her many tests, she shall also mend with the sure strong sinews of time and friends.
Love, though you hang on your cross in the balance of death itself, for there is a greater light she saves for those unwearied by her trials. Love, and seek not to escape her talons, for that is but a surer death than any execution she may bring you to face. Love, and in some glorious final moment in repose she will make it worth any price she may have demanded.
Love, and love only, for there is no other path than she, save Hell itself. Yet she also surrounds It's borders with mirrors of fantasy and illusion. And dipping you down into It's fires, she purges the dross from your spirit that nothing less than purest light may remain.
Love, and in her own time she shall surely lift you higher, whence in tearful surrender you give only her the reins to your soul.
Love, and she shall grant your fondest dreams, for she only is those hopes and dreams come true, forged to perfect brilliance in the furnace of time, and tempered to perfect strength in the compassion and grace of God.
Copyright July 1989 by John Columbus Taylor.
All rights reserved.
Two Hearts
Two hearts entwined on a satin bed
Engaged in lover's play;
Two souls enmeshed in rapture free
For one immortal day.
Two spirits soared on wings of light,
Their love for e’er to bind.
One heart was yours, and now I know
The other heart was mine.
7-9-87Jc
I'm Mad
I'm mad.
Don't ask me why, don't make me cry.
I'm mad.
Don't sing a song, don't make me wrong.
I'm mad.
Don't try to make right my mistake.
I'm mad.
Just let me be so I can see.
I'm mad.
And if you do I promise you
I'm mad.
I just can't think, the whole world stinks.
I'm mad.
And if this verse gets any worse
I'm mad.
All at once I'm such a dunce.
I'm mad.
Don't be a fool, just keep your cool.
I'm mad.
And in a bit it all will fit.
Why heck I'm not as mad as that.
In fact just now I think I feel
A little like a stupid heel.
I didn't mean to be a bore.
I'm really not mad any more.
Rain Come Softly
Rain, come softly in a laughing little patter,
A quiet gentle tapping on an old tin roof.
And ease my mind of what it thinks may matter,
As thoughts drift lazily through passages aloof.
Come not as thunderous drenchings in summer,
Nor as the chilling portent of an early winter day,
But warm be your caress as you touch the gods' creations,
And joyful be your speech as a child in it's play.
Rain come softly as I peer outside my window
At your dances in the puddles' reflections of the sky;
And the tiniest of rills e'er joining in the laughter
Form the lazy flowing streams that go pondering by.
Come now not frozen as in chilly dead of winter,
When pathways deeply covered in their blankets of white
Lie dormant like seeds, unused, but awaiting
The springtime thaws that call forth all to life.
Rain come now softly as a gentle reminder
Of the love in each heart as it goes on it's way;
And leave us not wanting, nor in any tribulation,
For your dropplets are but harbingers of another bright day.
9-19-87
Rita Rita
Rita Rita pumpkin eater
Fly got caught in her nose
She sneezed so hard she turned into lard
And out in the yard a cold wind blows.
Whatever happened to dear old Kate
The girl with the flaxen hair
She was such a sight in the middle of the night
Would give quite a fright at the foot of the stair.
A Journey of the Soul
Down a winding rutted path
O'er looking golden plains,
Came a spirit hovering low,
Like newly fallen rains.
Around a hillside turn it sped,
And then it swiftly soared
To heights beyond the eagles realm,
Trailing it's silver cord.
Beyond the clouds it paused to view
The scene left now below,
But only for a brief reflect,
For it had places to go.
In the twinkling of an eye
It passed the Milky Way,
As bound for some far place in time
In yet another day.
On it sped toward a distant star,
A thousand times more bright,
Dancing with it's rainbow beams
To be part of the Light.
The beams became a mansion gold,
And columns crystal clear.
As wisps of other souls swept by,
It ventured to go near.
Passing through angelic gates
Up to an emerald throne
With seats adorned in crimson light,
It knew it was at home.
It revelled in the sparkling joy
With not a thought of time,
For here was only harmony,
And music most sublime.
Yet did the silver cord still pull
Back to another shore;
And so in love it did return
To that it was before.
In dreams it knows the pathway home,
In peaceful moments of rest,
Another dimension in space or time
To realms of consciousness,
Released in love most blessed.
7-28-87
I Only Want To Be Loved He Said
Tell me what do you want to eat,
Where can we go and who shall we meet?
I only want to be loved he said,
For I do not care whom we greet.
Tell me dear now what do you see,
A career in the future for me?
I only want to be loved he said,
What you do doesn't matter to me.
Tell me when is our wedding day,
Should we go or should we stay?
I only want to be loved he said,
And all the rest is needles in hay.
How many children shall we bear,
And can we take them to the fair?
I only want to be love he said,
And for the world I do not care.
I'm having friends today for a game;
Things no longer seem the same.
I only want to be loved he said,
For within my heart there burns a flame.
What shall we get for Bob and Sue?
Christmas is near; the city's a zoo.
I only want to be loved he said,
That is all I care to do.
To myself I must have lied;
Many tears have I since cried.
He only wanted to be loved he said,
But from a broken heart he died.
The Prince of Toads
The Prince of Toads sat on his throne
To ponder why he was alone.
Now he did love a maiden fair
With olive skin and golden hair
She hardly knew that he was there
Or so he thought 'pon evening's done.
Yet she did know a mystery,
Of how a kiss could make things be
That seemed impossible to all.
If he would only hear her call
They might some day in love still fall,
Together then, could he not see.
The magic of a summer's day
Did call the lovers in their frey,
"Remember now the long ago,
When love's embrace you both did know."
And once again to make it so,
She kissed the seeming spell away.
And suddenly the toad began
A transformation in her hand.
But not a dream was this, now he,
More than she'd even hoped he'd be,
A handsome prince for all to see.
Together now in love they stand.
12-21-88
The Lovers
Through the wild and flowing grasses
By the wandering waters fall,
Came the lovers in their fancy
Playing near a tree so tall.
They were dancing with the sunlight
In a sea of golden flowers.
The birds were singing love songs
As they kissed beneath the bower.
And time came to a standstill
In the joy of their embrace.
She was smiling like an angel
As he gazed upon her face.
There was nothing else that mattered,
Just to love was all they knew.
And beyond the clouds above them
The Gods were smiling too.
12-21-88