Original Poetry: Muse

The following poem is one that I wrote, inspired by an evening storm that was gathering on the horizon and also reflecting on some of my own experiences with emotional distress, taking a cue from the opening verses of Psalm 39, which I used as headings.  This poem could be an example of metaphor and allegory, as discussed in my previous blog about reflection.

Muse

.:I was mute with silence:.
Within the mind span crystal skies
And stars like tiny watchman-eyes
Stare forth upon benighted gray
Twilight, where unpropitious lay
The brooding, crawling mountain-guise.

Without a sound it moves toward
The fledgling watchmen's twinkling ward.
As lightning flares 'neath shadow'd arch,
All living creatures flee the march
Of clouds bellig'rent waging war.

.:I held my peace even from good:.
Still silent-keeping--thunderless
The beast rolls onward merciless.
Expecting rain and benefit
The land instead like tinder lit
Becomes embroiled in distress.

Mounting up with lightning thrown
Upon the dismal landscape strewn
The warring clouds make not a sound.
As thoughts unspoken fall around,
Not one alights from hot breath blown.

.:And my sorrow was stirred up:.
The thoughts are mine, the key bestowed
By right to muted muse-abode,
Where, sad and weary, I descend
Misunderstanding how to send
The storm away from whence it rode.

And in my desp'rate countenance
I stir the clouds to insolence
Beyond e'en what I saw before!
The terror silent spreads the more
Without a thought to recompense.

.:My heart was hot within me:.
Beneath the waves of wild ire
I am compassed in the fire
Of my own creation; Oh
That I had seen before this woe
A means to grasp the bounding-wire!

My heart within me clenches tight
E'en though the fire's heated might
Is tempered now by gray rainfall
I feel the caustic lightning's flight.

.:While I was musing, the fire burned:.
The water's numbing, drenching fall
Becometh my recanting call
When senses thus constrainéd start
To listen to a voice impart
The only sound I've heard at all:

The nightmare was at last just that:
A dream, though thoughts and fears begat
Its temper true into your heart
Where vortices bade fall apart
The peace of meditation flat.

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May your pen be always at the hand of a ready mind,
- J Cole