A pantoum!

Here's a pantoum, rounding out my final poem for the portfolio!

Gloaming

The woods are quietest at dusk.
Fog passes through trees like spirits.
The muffled footsteps of foxes alert us
so we stay close to the ground and hold breath.

Fog passes through trees like spirits
as the leaves turn slowly to ash
so we stay close to the ground and hold breath
for fear of choking on the deathly smoke.

As the leaves turn slowly to ash
the dim white sky darkens to gray.
For fear of choking on the deathly smoke
we breathe heavier inside our masks.

The dim white sky darkens to gray
but we can barely see the first star.
We breathe heavier inside our masks
and the blood inside us rushes to our eyes

but we can barely see the first star!
We focus with clear intent
and the blood inside us rushes to our eyes.
It would kill us to miss this chance.

We focus with clear intent.
The target is at hand,
it would kill us to miss this chance.
The fire has no will to stop us now.

The target is at hand!
The muffled footsteps of foxes alert us.
The fire has no will to stop us now.
The woods are quietest at dusk.

© 2009 Emilio Gándara

Some new poems

Hey all, here's a new batch of poems. First off an ode, written in that sort of pretty elizabethan "exalted" language :)

Ode To Certainty

Mild mannered creature of lore
Calm, the air around thee sighs
Solemn, the earth change not

Hunters chase thee in scores
Yet thine elusive form hides
Thy secret place held aloft

Mercy, give me time before
My aging blood of me denies
My life is stolen thought

Thou art the knowing future
What aptly anxiety divides
Till sorrow's remnant is nought

Thee I hold in my deepest core
Your visage alone and me likewise
A shadow in thine chamber caught

The words thou speak whom can ignore
Their very life and breath belies
The rest that my conviction sought

Wilt be mine I beg for more
Than thine mere mention tries
And fails to be mine life's lot

And then a macaronic verse :D

taiyou no shi

The sun died, leaving behind the moon
an eclipse solitary loses its smile
and the sunset retrograde lacks light
what simple vision breaks my dream

wake at feeling a cold safe
the light of the moon destroys my window
and without sun see a mirage
a desert stellar full of clouds

another desert my throat and swallow
yet have salt on my tongue
and in my brain swim thoughts
my brain a sea of alcohol

looking the sky recall
while fly thousands of stars
make lines pulling the darkness
and the tide rises, a gold tenuous

the clouds shine and disappear
revealing the truth of the lines
pulled the body inert of the sun
and suddenly revives and us blinds

"taiyou no shi' means 'death of the sun'. What makes the previous poem macaronic verse is that it's sort of a mixture of english and spanish. In that I only translated the words, not the lines. That is why some lines are grammatically incorrect or strange. Here's the original spanish version, in case you were interested :D

taiyou no shi

El sol murió, dejando atras la luna
un eclipse solitario pierde su sonrisa
y el atardecer retrógrada carece luz
cual simple visión rompe mi sueño

despierto al sentir un frio seguro
la luz de la luna destruye mi ventana
y sin sol veo un espejismo
el desierto estelar lleno de nubes

otro desierto mi garganta y trago
aun tengo sal en la lengua
y en mi mente nadan pensamientos
mi cerebro un mar de alcohol

mirando el cielo recuerdo
mientras vuelan miles de estrellas
tiran lineas halando la oscuridad
y la marea sube, un oro tenue

las nubes brillan y desaparecen
revelando la realidad de las lineas
halaban el cuerpo inerte del sol
y de repente recucita y nos cega

© 2009 Emilio Gándara

Sestina

Here's another intricate poetic form. This time it ends up being a rather large poem. Hope you enjoy this sestina.

The View, The Option

All that is, that has crafted out of empty nothing every soul
knows too well the state in which we are, with guilty stain.
In this space the darkness sheds from light a silhouette
and from that shape a shadow cast upon the tortured slaves
those who toil day and night with no rest or peace or silence
For such the light clothed in flesh and blood became savior

In our delusion we were all convinced we needed no savior
but in the depths of our frame lay a fractured, needy soul
we laughed in our folly, it cried in its own secret silence
in its eyes took root a dark shape, an unwieldy, deathly stain
and given the choice, we put on shackles and chose to be slaves
but the truth hit us like a midday sun, all that is left a silhouette

Once that bomb fell, all that was left on the walls were silhouettes
they had nothing but the future in their hands, they knew no savior
they were the children of the children of the children of the slaves
when the dust settled, all that was left, were ambulating souls
all you could see was ash, dust, debris, and the sporadic stain
and if you had ears to hear, all that filled the air was silence

We all watched the TV. We watched it in disbelief and silence
The towering pillars of steel and commerce in grainy silhouettes
in surprise we couldn't save the jumpers, now on asphalt: stains
perhaps some, feeling the grip of death stayed, waiting for a savior
but was the price they paid a heavy expense? Perhaps, their soul.
Of the news, of the phone, of all we could learn we were slaves

Days after becoming sixteen, in such youth already a slave
and who could know a secret so well kept behind a lock of silence
He paid every day, he paid in dollars and cents, in life and soul
under street lamps, the shape of men, paper and bag silhouettes
he shot up but couldn't pay up so he was shot up with no savior
his mother runs to the street to her baby, on her dress blood-stains

Nobody wears such old clothes, splattered of gross, smelly stains
but she does. They call her a walker in the night and she too is a slave
he gave her a place to lay her weary body; he calls himself her savior
he hits her and uses her and she is left, a crying pile of bones, in silence
she came to know no other way but being a screaming silhouette
she thinks to herself she is pathetic and broken, and has lost her soul

The answer is true for every soul, even though we are full of stains
our shadows projected like silhouettes, bound to a wall as slaves
we need not suffer in this silence. There is one who knows us: a savior

© 2009 Emilio Gándara