Author: Jeffrey L. H. Naylor

Zarathushtra thus spake a word
Through all the world to be heard.
Wrapped in mystery and secrets he told,
Of a time before man, his soul had sold.

When the heavens still moved
And the gods still thundered
And the rocks from the mountains cried out
And the waters of rivers were alive.

But long is the time since man has believed
In a world any greater than what he has conceived.
And long will be the time before man will know
The peace that only the supernatural can bestow.

You are the universe within my head,
The magnetic energy that guides my thoughts
As I walk through the mists and shadows.
It is difficult to have any one, single thought
In all the walking and talking in the light and dark
Without you showing up there in the middle of it all
Playing your love for me on strings of erotic promises
Fully composed only when again I see you in the fresh
Hues of reality cast outside the cosmos of my head.

Tis the design and build and length,
The quality of the good Lamp’s oil,
Which marks the measure of all your toil,
Completing a life full of strength.

Xenocrates engaged our souls to our minds,
And wed the two to make our bodies affined.
Without his wily sophisticated ways,
The wish to know and count our days
Might be nothing more or less
Than a case of imaginary distress.

Though only three when Socrates did drink
Of the Hemlock’s vilest deathly ink,
We still admire him for his analytical word,
Which moved and chastened the ancients to spur
Humanity’s race for knowledge with urgent haste.
Yet to this day, the race has been an insurgent waste.

From eyes set deep within his baby round face,
Nascent tears glistened like crystal against pools of indigo.
And when his stubborness could hold them back no longer,
They would burst out remorsefully streaking his ruddy cheeks
With tender conscience, and his faults would be absorbed.
He sang wordless songs rich in childhood prophecy about
The opportunities that waited for him just beyond tomorrow.
To have hoped for so much, now he hopes not!

Yankle Doodle Dandy went to town
Looking to buy Mr. Lapley’s hound.
Not a hound, a weird dog, says he found,
The word then surely got around,
That Y. D. Dandy caused such a frown!
So he stole the mutt and sold him to the pound!

She is bold, making her own way.
She is spontaneous
Falling into the same crevice of that
Shadowy secret place
Simultaneously with me.
She is loving
Her words drip like honey with
The mixture of an ancient potion of
Love, hope, trust, faith and the Giving.
She is intelligent
She is a student of every new dawn.
She is protective
She believes in the sanctity of children.
She is considerate
She wants me to be what I need to be.
She wants to spend her possessions
Possessing the love of my heart.
She is not the thoughtless, selfish, egoist
That sometimes walks the streets of every ordinary place.
She is a siren, who beckons me with the cries of her heart!

sometimes i feel as if my day is but a sequence of steps.
i merely move from one point to the other, finding myself
going, as it were, through a passage, pacing off my allotted
number which is characteristically finite. i move from point A
to point B, displacing my conscious self from existence.
death is its mask, and i wear it everyday. robotically, i move
without anticipation or optimism, but calculating, concluding
that i am always moving myself out of this form of consciousness
into that which i cannot fathom. the pressure weights me,
confuses me, often leaving me entangled in the error of emotion.
prickly, seared emotions, mark me bereft of significance
other than the overwhelming nature of their impact. like the
arrow of time, which purportedly curves sharply inward, so is
the great Otherworldly Dimension created by the arrow of my
rage that surfaces in a finite moment striking my innermost,
creating a torsion that rips, pierces, and influences me so
egregiously that i feel dimensionless. up to that moment of
finitude in my life, rage was just a theory imitating the enigma
of science which encompass me all the day. Rage becomes a
ferocious, inconceivable force. it is the white light of midnight.

Page 1 in 2003 Best Poets

they wait in ships of fate
to will the time and forge the space
renewing rites of exclusion; not to suppress,
but to keep sanity’s sacred distance.
conveyed in satiric vessels, their insane cargoes
full of madmen sail in search of reason.
every destiny hopefully fulfilling.
every embarkation potentially the last.
their sails have a hundred wills
and the murky deep a thousand arms
reaching for the sea-bound steadfast in that crossing,
and point to the passage of imaginary hope.
for the land from which they come
is the land for which they seek…
navigators of unreasoned melancholy,
a moving chaos full of vice and fault.
into the sea of Satan spread wide they their sails,
and firm is their grip that forever shall be locked
onto the course which madness guides them.
into the blindness they hasten, where hope is lost forevermore.

I once slept in a crib, now I sleep in a bed.
I once drank out of a bottle, now I drink from a glass.
I once wore a triangle of cloth, now I wear skater’s pants.
I once was a tiny baby, now I am a big boy.
I once learned only at home, now I also learn at school.
I once could only wiggle, now I race friends around the block.
I once ate green Gerber’s, now I eat chili dogs with hot peppers.
I once colored with crayons, now I sketch the setting sun.
I once wondered about the world, now the world is wonderful.