[One Stop Poetry has posted a fun prompt: to go back to the beginning and post our earliest poems.
I started writing poetry in 1960, at age 14. The words poured through me like I was doing automatic writing. I have no idea where they came from, but they poured forth like a fountain, and were as angst-ridden as most teen poetry is. I often wrote feverishly through class, and the teachers overlooked my inattention, since I seemed unable to stop. Here are two poems from 1961, when I was 15.]
We walk in half-steps.
Let my kindred spirit
(submerged within
the masked
and groping present)
Grasp hands; as giants fleeing
before the wind,
Let us find Truth:
the depth of life's
real beauty;
Or wander into spring
on trembling willow-whispers;
Or waft with summer's
mellow tranquillity.
Let us claim stark beauty
unadorned: a naked tree
Pointing a time-bent bough,
a rain-wet street and,
After dark, a haunting melody
that softly fades
And dies away.
*** **** *** **** ***
The dusk offers its sacrifice
to the gods
of the turbulent fountains.
A faint star gleams.
A token dream
sings through
the misty mountains.
The clouds part:
Dusk presents its face-
day's grim reward for dying.
A whisper echoes
o'er green meadows:
tear-stained peace
which follows crying.
The melancholy theme
of night begins
its song of sadness.
A memory rides
on wings of might
in a breeze's burlesque;
the madness
of untended,
searing pain
inspires
a yearning
in the breast,
and the heart requites
love's bitt'rest thoughts
in wild unrest.
A shadow falls.
Dusk's gray defeat
of day deserts
to Night
with its parade
of haunted dreams,
tear-streaked
before the sight.
