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Phoenix

By Chris Daugherty

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2013 Chris Daugherty
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4817-0103-7

Chapter One

    Majestic

    I

    Breathtaking beauty of nature—Behold
    A sky filled with violet, crimson, and gold.
    Lavender mountains alive with ink hues
    Of indigo poignant and oceans of blues
    Exclaim to the heavens O volley and sow
    A serpentine valley in rivers below!
    Empyreal Indra obliges their cry,
    A hammering cascade of grey his reply.

    The ranges awaken to dawn smaragdine,
    A spectrum of dew scintillating the scene.
    Ethereal silver on every cloud
    Reflects the succession of peaks they
    enshroud.
    Not only chartreuse, the bold meadows delight
    In transient shades arrayed sable to white,
    Magnificent pigment the world to display—
    A hope of tomorrow, the truth of today.

Sirens keen their tune,
Envious of the toothsome
From their craggy bluff.

Scythe of a grey moon,
Stave the deliberate night;
Deliver bleu morn.

Rapidly in flight,
Sapid Lepidopterae
Fluttering away.

Celestial orbs,
Gardens hanging in the sky,
Gods of Grecian yore
Spiraling into the night—
Twined into a lemniscate.

Thokcha chain link chink,
Alien intelligence,
Portrait of a star,
A picture of friends from afar,
Glory written on their car.

Meteor shower
Plummeting into the dirt—
These specks do not hurt
The new planet they call home
After flight across the void.


Always

Never let critics hold you back
From penning out your mind.
Always let zealots lift you up;
No one is left behind.

Never mind haters peeling down
The cloak that veils your heart.
Always mind patience from above,
Arrhythmic abstract art.

Never be overcome by fear
No matter how it flows.
Always be wary of the leer
Upon a sly repose.

Ever give up on those who care
About important schemes?
Always give tribute to the ones
Who help you reach your dreams.

Ever remember poking fun
At one who seems insane?
Always remember man is one

Who struggles with a brain.
Ever feel someone's watching you?
Be sure to dress your best.
Always feel grateful for the few
Who helped you pass this test.

August Red Oak,
swooning slowly in the
autumn crosswind, her leaves
crooning softly in harmony together
with a whispering breeze, these progeny
fluttering slowly to rest on the plane of Earth,
one member of a sphere's life cycle, one peace
contributing to the survival of the community,
is a home for the lives of these many united
organisms borne of a restless, ever-evolving
design who begin tiny just as the acorn
yet flourish to fulfill this vast
and sacred cycle.
Many
cross
trails
of the
other
lives;
many
betray
for food.
Life goes on
forevermore.


    Artemis

    Artemis,
    Divine
    The hillsides draped in dew,
    Blankets of grass
    And tides of grain,
    A secret the maidens knew.

    Enlighten the night,
    Where fauna whisper
    In the dark.
    Guide those lonely and lost
    Into familiar hands.

    Enliven brooding
    Miscreants, debauchees, forlorn
    Wandering remnants
    Of innocence.

    A cypress hovers
    Above the fen
    And weeps your name—
    Artemis.
    Artemis.
    Artemis.

Reminisce


I

Despondence rolls in
Like a stifling, humid mist
On my waiting heart.

II

I have expected
This moment for a fortnight;
Times have been too good.

III

Her bly demeanor
Fleetingly on my third eye
Is a bitter pill.

IV

Where is the counter
Prescription for this malaise
That envelopes me?

V

Agonizing wisps
Nestle in my welcome heart,
The pain persistent.

VI

Fonder memories
Skip on the water disturbed
By this jumping jet.

VII

Curly chestnut hair
Tinged golden in the high sun
Haunts me consciously.

VIII

She heeds my study
And misses me once or twice.
We feel each other.

IX

Do not come back, now.
For a moment, I embrace
Cherished memories.


    Majestic

    II

Eloquent rivers flow elegantly
Down mountains to meet a cerulean sea.
This harbor of life roars, crashing on shores
The husks of her fauna who scuttle her moors.
Birds of a feather bright amaranthine
Alight on the rush, bedazzling their green.
While quietly wiling, the crocodile glides,
Awaiting an ebb of the pale cyan tides.

Witness the glisten of platinum light
Enlivening every sandbar in sight.
Carnation-hued conch shells who open
damask
Will echo the ocean when supplicants ask.
Sand crabs endemic to ivory sand
So hungrily scavenge the fat of the land.
Brilliant the spectacle one may beseech:
A goldenrod sun beaming down on the beach.

Midnight carapace
Surrounding incarnadine
Hourglass of warning

Camouflage huntress,
Olivine alligator
Hides among the sedge.

Contumelious owl,
Where do you perch when you howl
Down my clever cowl?

Brief images flit
And flicker before my eyes.
Lifted phosphorous,
Flaming, casts metallic shards
Of fireworks over the crowd.

Three hundred meters
Up in the sky, I look down.
The drop zone beckons;
Three square miles of intrusion
Into my reticent gear.

Smiling city tribes
Enter for a chance to win
The lottery prize,
Scores of citizens in line
To cultivate the jackpot.


    This Girl I Know


    I know this girl with OCD
    Who takes my plate from under me,
    And when I reach to grab my drink,
    I see she took it to the sink.

    I know a girl who sexted it.
    Her finger-play just would not quit.
    With seven words she got me off:
    "Bend over, turn your head, and cough."

    I know some girl...