Ancient Rhythm
Ancient music calls deep down in your soul.
It brings forth a light that burns your fears
and makes your heart never sleep.
It beckons a scent only an animal can follow
a need from the beginning of time.
It conjures a touch from inside your bones,
released through the prickly shafts of hair in a shiver.
Do you leave it all behind?
Do you jump off the vessel with the cracked hull?
Do you save your life from the fickle wind
that sucked all the honesty and joy out of the air?
Or do you stay and become a martyr
for the honor and loyalty of a promise?
Promises broken and reestablished so many times,
the wolf now cries
And the boy never becomes a man.
The strum comes from faraway lands,
a journey through pain and wisdom.
Its soft strings turn into pounding thoughts.
It refuses to be silenced or sent away.
It refuses to be forgotten.
A stirring in the dark once thought to be dead.
Lying awake willing, the longing away
turns into a battle between wrong and right.
Do you walk away from the years you grew too apathetic to leave?
Or do you stand by “for better or worse”
and sacrifice what is left of the second half of life?
The gift of love and touch one day only to hide
among the dark crevices of a cave the next.
Do you continue to play the game?
Or do you walk away from the cat even if he kills the mouse?
The power of an ancient man won’t wait forever.
It tempts and sends out a gravitational pull so strong
that even the purest of minds can’t resist.
A primal love that never dies but lies,
waiting until she decides to live and not repent.
Do you break a heart to free your spirit, even if
the ancient light dims and fades away?
By Daria Pardue
In Response to a Smirk
At the edge of the world is a rich pink sky
speckled with dust, an occasional feather
and drifting black insects
Messengers of annoyance and fear.
The vastness mocks our smallish thoughts
and encourages us to jump into the abyss
or a possibility.
Only the jumper can make their intention known.
Only the jumper can believe in the electricity of the open air.
Not jumping, one stays teetering on the edge a
mass of indecision.
Dendrites fire off and argue with synapses.
A brain at odds with the heart.
The body morphs into a stump holding up a never-ending seesaw
of a warring heart and a dream-crushing brain.
Or maybe the edge is too far off,
the mudslides are too slick and convincing
that drudgery beats the shit out of both the brain and the heart
and even the soul loses its way.
The pressure of the edge of the world closes in
squeezing from the inside out.
The ideas are sweat on the skin for a feather to float by and swipe them up.
It floats into the universe and waits for the bravery of a decision.
It is stolen. Gone.
The feather catches an updraft, the feather dances,
the insects have a ho-down on the feather.
And the jumper slips!
The insects laugh, they whisper, they conjure.
They think the jumper will never believe the heart.
But one day, the jumper will smash all the insects
And use the floating feather to mop up their broken pieces
and stir them into the mud and make clods, pies, and balls
And let them bake in the sun
Resting in possibility.
By Daria Pardue