The Maiden and the Derelict Ship

In the glaring of the sea, I saw a derelict,
Floating lost and silently, spinning an aimless pirouette.
Then on my side, upon the shore of the shining sea,
Standing like a stone alone, a maiden wept there quietly.

She pointed to the waves and swayed with the melancholy dance,
Twas a strange circuitous waltz I saw, a kind of sad romance;
And it filled her curious mind with thoughtful reverie,
Of all the things she'd lost or found, and what she kept she'd set free.

Kneeling on the glittering shore, where her castles made of sand,
Once stood proud with ramparts high to defy the Tide's command.
She scooped the remnants with both hands, the ruins made by waves,
With eternal might and strength, it's subtle surf pervades.

Then lifting her eyes to the heavens, she watched the leaden drifts
Form across the ominous sky, the dark clouds deep and swift.
The cerulean sky and the white clouds, now frocked in mantels grey and black,
Dressed as if in mourning for the Sun's gay rays that now held back.

Gentle tears escaped the corner's and down the young girl's face,
Pining for the derelict that had sailed once with proud, high grace;
Pled she to the gods and Fates to give her rest at last,
And moor beneath the briny waves, where peace will hold it sure and fast,
To the shelter it may find, swaying in the trackless face,
Deep below the waves it sails in it's splendid former grace.

So with a child's simple faith, she waited patiently,
In her youthful expectation of all life's possibilities.
The Master of the ship's design was flawless and each detail met,
Using only finest teak and oak from keel to mast was set.

Desires and dreams may find disaster, while we hope it naught
That fears will make it fall the faster, wasting what's been wrought.
Thus the maiden slowly turned from the ruthless restless waves,
And rose the swells above the masts amain to her watery grave.

Feeling a kindred spirit to the derelict ship's final fate,
She turned and headed back to home, for it was getting late.
She wondered if a lesson some how could be gleaned from this?
But she was just a child, she thought, and thus all was dismissed.

Danielle LaReaux/Daniel Thomas Roe©2006

The Death of Ægeus

(or The Tragedy of Theseus)

He sat and watched the rising sun
Come from the ocean blue,
When a sailing ship's silhouette
Caught his eyeing view.
Excited with anticipation,
The dark prowed ship drew nigh;
He hoped the gods had grace upon
His sorrowing soul, or let him die.
He prayed goodtidings Rosey-fingered
Dawn that arc'd the morning skies,
Would bring to him and be his meed:
"If my son still lives, a white sail flies!"

In the bowels of the dark prowed ship,
Sick from love sat alone his son;
The white sail in the hollow hull,
Left he in grief, forgot, unflung.

As the father watched his heart beat faster,
The black sail whipped through lusty wind:
"This token sign tells me disaster,
For my son will not come home again!"

As the ship to port his sad eyes followed,
Thought he bereft of his dear son;
From off the cliff, the wine sea swallowed,
As he lept it's height and fell head long.

Sorrow upon sorrow, for portentous fate
Had snatched the two he loved away:
The first forgot and left asleep,
The other dead for a token's display.

Daniel Thomas Roe©1996

Vivian with the Smokey Grey Eyes

A little girl with smokey eyes;
As bright and clear as morning skies.
And golden hair, wild with wavy locks
That dance a flutter in the breeze like flocks
Of gambolling lambs 'neath the trusting gaze
Of the Shepard's eyes watchful eye unfazed:
Comforts each lamb, each one he'd raised
As though his child, born in his arms,
Asleep, secure and kept from harm.

Whether day or night: awake or asleep,
He keeps them safe within his deep
Love where fear is stayed
(Though in this dreadful world we are betrayed.)
But, child, one day Christ will come on the clouds;
He'll come and take us from here with a loud shout
From heaven, where no evil can live
To stain our thoughts; our soul the Devil sieves.

In that place no evil will pursue
Us to the Mansion prepared for me and you.

Daniel Thomas Roe aka Danielle LaReaux aka Daniel Gary Roe, copyright 2007

Perhaps

I look beyond my panning view,
that once made up my impressions and dreams.
A romantic with wide spectrum's the hue
Of what other dreamers with visions unseen.
Along with a million sad souls,
Who have lived side by side
With their Monsters and demons within:
In symbiotic coexistence,
There to live or die,
Drawing strength from one another's sins.

(O mitigate these unpalliated pains
That I might draw strength from you, God!)

And learn to live again?
That the scathing of Bakkus's sweet dram,
And the fragrance of nepenthe's,
No longer tempt my throbbing mind?

Ah, bitterness the shattered keel,
And fear the useless rudder;
I am an aimless ship adrift on a sea, carried along
On currents of emotion.

Whither I go? I do not know!
But all my strength is sapped from me,
Now flowing into the gutter.

(And, O how I wish for one bye gone day of devotion and faith!)

"But," I say, "perhaps safe harbor
Lies up ahead? A secure mooring;
A port of joy!"

Or perhaps," say I,
To me self in reply,
"A reef of crags lay hid in the dark,
And the sweet sound of the Siren's luring!?"

Aye, Seemed simpler in ages ago
When men rejoiced in their labors;
Not merely to feed on some grand repast,
Neither to fill up with idle pleasures.
For what hope is left to a selfish narcissistic world,
Where even the blessings of God go unheeded
As some oddity of the past?
For there are nobler men, and more devout than me,
Have I missed the mark of the fruition of my love, my labors,
Mistaking affluence for God's blessing?

Though not comfort can be drawn from such reflection,
Yet my critique of men holy or profane
Is seen through a poet's natural eye:
It's the helplessness of man's bane for which I weep.

Perhaps this prophet's soul;
This poet's heart is poisoned by self-loathing?
Perhaps I should stop, to sow love,
And then reap a harvest growing?

Aye, perhaps, perhaps!

Perhaps there is still some elusive hope
That I may snare and have peace anon:
Perhaps I find it?
Will I even know it,
This illusive apparition I seek to find?

(O to taste the sweet persimmons
That grow among the lilac and the palmettos;
To hear the lonely sound of the Hermit Thrush,
Carried along the breeze, through the trees,
The Oak and the Ash!
Or the babbling brook in the Spring
As the last vestiges of winter is cast off,
And warmed by the rays of the Sun.
And the Black-eyed Susan, sprouting with a
Rejoicing all her own to her creator,
There where she makes her bed
Among the lilies and the wild flowers,
In the meadow beneath the cerulean sky
By the whispering Wood)

But here I stand in my melancholy,
Wooed and swayed with my impatient demands.

And what shall I choose?
To die a poet with feigned immortality,
Or live a life of obscurity?

Daughter of the Autumn

She sat alone in structures stone,
Peering thru one portal 'lone.
At her canvassed panning view.
She thought across her fading scape,
Of plush greens
To flaming sence,
Yellow, reds a mix of every shade:
But her moments were few.

Long she waited patiently
For here gift of creativeity
To perform,
And adorn
From her nimble hands, as each stroke
From her brush would provoke
The admiration of the North Breese.

Daughter of the Autumn gust
Had turned your color into dust!

Dani LaReaux aka Daniel Gary Roe akaDaniel Thomas Roe copyright 1998

Ode to the Summer

The sultry, sighing signs of Summer,
Season so superbly wistful,
Sings as youth, so restive, eagar;
Who runs thru fields in bliss and vigor-
Until daytime's closing hour.

Capture you the storm clouds coming,
Release the south Wind from her moorimng;
Ambassador of the Summer, quiet
All the tumult and the riot
That the restless sky is up-drumming?

Sweet fruit's succulent in summer,
Teaser of the tingling tastebuds,
Quaff and eat refreshment cool,
Each plump piece, t'is a jewel:
Gift from god's hand, filled with wonder.

Summer's bright cascading,
From the deeprocks; her laughter rising,
Yet mischief sparkles from bright sockets--
With eye's playful, her wit undaunted;
(Eyes of clever, wit sometimes flaunted!)
Summer ends; youth is never fading.

Spring

The ides of March had passed, and April Showers
That fall, brings life, revives that earth again:
Bees gather pollen to make thier honey from flowers,
When a choral erupts from thrush, and sparrow, and wren!
Tree blossom's bloom, then upward rising, they're sending
Thier sweet aroma, mingling thick in the air,
As the prayers of saints to heaven's Thorn, Accending,
Refreshes woods that long Winter's siege stripped bare!
Birds flying north from southern capes and glades,
Where they all hid while long, cold Winter had clung,
And return to homes they've held as their's past age,
To mate and rear another brood of young:
As the welcome signs of Spring pervades,
The spiral of life through weal and woe go on.

Danielle LaReaux/aka Daniiel Gary Roe copyright1998