The Silence

~Krystn Raedly
The silence will be my doom
The silence will destroy me.
No music in the air,
No life can be found here.
Breathless, lifeless, tearless,
I lay beneath the deep.
Awaiting a whisper
While I silently sleep.
All night I will whisper,
Only in night black and gray
I wait here for the dawning
Silent, for the crack of day.

Byzantium

So we grew up with mythic dead
To spoon upon midwestern bread
And spread old gods' bright marmalade
To slake in peanut-butter shade,
Pretending there beneath our sky
That it was Aphrodite's thigh ...
While by the porch-rail calm and bold
His words pure wisdom, stare pure gold
My grandfather, a myth indeed,
Did all of Plato supersede
While Grandmama in rockingchair
Sewed up the raveled sleeve of care
Crocheted cool snowflakes rare and bright
To winter us on summer night.
And uncles, gathered with their smokes
Emitted wisdoms masked as jokes,
And aunts as wise as Delphic maids
Dispensed prophetic lemonades
To boys knelt there as acolytes
To Grecian porch on summer nights;
Then went to bed, there to repent
The evils of the innocent;
The gnat-sins sizzling in their ears
Said, through the nights and through the years
Not Illinois nor Waukegan
But blither sky and blither sun.
Though mediocre all our Fates
And Mayor not as bright as Yeats
Yet still we knew ourselves. The sum?
Byzantium.
Byzantium.


~From Ray Bradbury's Dandilion Wine, one of my favorite books (Along with The Illustrated Man of course)

Islands

Fripp/Sinfield

Earth, stream and tree encircled by sea
Waves sweep the sand from my island.
My sunsets fade.
Field and glade wait only for rain
Grain after grain love erodes my
High weathered walls which fend off the tide
Cradle the wind
to my island.

Gaunt granite climbs where gulls wheel and glide
Mournfully glide o'er my island.
My dawn bride's veil, damp and pale,
Dissolves in the sun.
Love's web is spun - cats prowl, mice run
Wreathe snatch-hand briars where owls know my eyes
Violet skies
Touch my island,
Touch me.

Beneath the wind turned wave
Infinite peace
Islands join hands
'Neathe heaven's sea.

Dark harbour quays like fingers of stone
Hungrily reach from my island.
Clutch sailor's words - pearls and gourds
Are strewn on my shore.
Equal in love, bound in circles.
Earth, stream and tree return to the sea
Waves sweep sand from my island,
from me.

Maeglin:
I anar lairenna ve úrime ná,
Ar lamnion mírimalin,
Nan hosta yomenie raumova,
Nuórali near nin.
I aldaron rámar lailassie nar
Or Sirion harmealin,
Ardasse ve kalma úkenuvar,
Nuórali near nin.
I lapse kaimasse sí murmurula,
Ve súma ye lós niesin,
Nan eques ómainen amortuva!
Nuórali near nin.
Ai atar, ai amil, er tengwelion
Rendilyar amárier lin,
Amaurea tuluv’ ardanyaron,
Nuórali nar, nuórali nar,
Nuórali near nin!
Ai atar, ai amil, i tengwelion
Rendilyar amárier lin,
Amaurea tuluv’ ardanyaron,
Nuórali nar, nuórali nar, Nuórali near nin!

Book of Saturdays

~Fripp/Wetton/Palmer-James

If I only could deceive you
Forgetting the game
Every time I try to leave you
You laugh just the same

'Cause my wheels never touch the road
And the jumble of lies we told
Just returns to my back to weigh me down...

We lay cards upon the table
The backs of our hands
And I swear I like your people
The boys in the band

Reminiscences gone astray
Coming back to enjoy the fray
In a tangle of night and daylight sounds...

All completeness in the morning
Asleep on your side
I'll be waking up the crewmen
Banana-boat ride

She responds like a limousine
Brought alive on the silent screen
To the shuddering breath of yesterday...

There's the succour of the needy
Incredible scenes
I'll believe you in the future
Your life and death dreams

As the cavalry of despair
Takes a stand in the lady's hair
For the favour of making sweet sixteen...

You make my life and times
A book of bluesy Saturdays
And I have to chose...

Moonchild

(Fripp/McDonald/Lake/Giles/Sinfield)

Call her moonchild
Dancing in the shallows of a river
Lovely moonchild
Dreaming in the shadow
of the willow.

Talking to the trees of the
cobweb strange
Sleeping on the steps of a fountain
Waving silver wands to the
night-birds song
Waiting for the sun on the mountain.

She's a moonchild
Gathering the flowers in a garden.
Lovely moonchild
Drifting on the echoes of the hours.

Sailing on the wind
in a milk white gown
Dropping circle stones on a sun dial
Playing hide and seek
with the ghosts of dawn
Waiting for a smile from a sun child.

Save Somebody

In the heart of the city
Is the beat of a soul,
And it stares out the window
As the cars come and go.
And it hungers for heros
And it dreams of open skies,
And there's no expectation
That the sun will rise.

You better save somebody
Before the moment slips away
You better save somebody who'll be lonely
When you walk away.

Theres a crack in the heavens
And a tear in the sky
It cuts through the shadows
Living in her eyes;
And the gates of the city
Are closed until dawn
When the ghosts of midnight
Have all come and gone.
And the hearts of the weary carry on.

I'm thinking on your silence
How the memory lingers on,
I wonder do you miss me
Now that I am gone?


Janis Ian, lyrics

The Court of the Crimson King (revised)

The Earth is captive to the moon
Some seek the rising sun
I walk the road on wings of change
The game has just begun.
The purple piper plays his tune
The choir softly sing
Three lullabies in an ancient tounge
For the court of the crimson king

The burned-tarred-ash suburban men
Put shudders on the dreams
I wait outside the pilgrims door
With insufficient schemes
The Black Queen chants the funeral march
The cracked brass bells will ring
To summon back the fire-witch
To the court of the Crimson King

The gardener plants an evergreen
Whilst trampling on a flower
I chased the wind of a prism ship
To taste the sweet and sour,
The pattern juggler lifts his hand
The orchestra begin
As frogs fly from the grinding wheel,
In the court of the crimson king

A Kiss Under Stars

You move me.
You haunt me.
You keep me alive.
I love you.
I need you.
I will hold you,
and breathe you.
I feel your kiss lingering
The moment I wake up in the morning.
I feel my heart race
When I hear your voice or see your picture.
No distance can bring us down.
No distance will conquer this.
Totus tuus. Totally yours.
I will be yours,
as long as it pleases you.
And when it does not,
I will love you silently.
One day I will steal you
I will steal you away from the demons of reality.
And we will go someplace peaceful.
I will watch you wake and sleep.
Hold you and love you. Forever.
To you, him whom I love.
Tears and silence and agony alone
Will cease to exist, and have
Because of you in my heart.

A Story

~Krystn Raedly

Now children,
I am going to tell you a story
About a girl who was depressed.
She cried the night through,
Her being was ripped and broken.
She cried when she awoke in the morning,
And she stopped breathing in her head
And in her head she died.
But reality she lived on.
The rest of her life she thought would be empty.
She was taken into the woods,
And God breathed life into her.
She opened her eyes once more and lived.
Then she was met with an old friend
Who brought with her old smiles
And old jokes and new jokes came.
Then she was met with a kind face
Who loved her with all his might
And brought her back to the stars
And with stardust kissed her.
She laughs now, knowing what God had planned for her
All along, this peace,
Could it have been gotten without Him?
She thinks not.

Kissed By a Rose

Come to me mine love
Soft and warm as velvet night
Trembling
As a new rosebud blooming
With unspoken, innocent delight.
Mine heart is fleeting
In crescendos mine head tis spinning
Mine loving heart beating,
Taking ritualistic flight
As on angel’s wings
Fluttering in sweetest ecstasy,
Soft songs of thee sing.

What hallowed sanctity
Arises in intemperate creations purity
Filling mine soul,
Making of lovers heroes,
Kissed by a rose.

Then pale whisper of morning
Rises in witness
To waves of heady joy enrapturing
Sweet imagining of far flung schemes
The intensity of the rose increasing
Mesmerizing honeyed dreams
With ebbing softness capturing
The image of thee delighting my morning

The kiss of a rose
Heavenly time slows
Building to a crescendo
Greater than anyone knows
Of fragrant innuendo
In a far greater life I suppose
Kissed by a rose...

Oh the songs come to mine heart thrilling
As a sparkling river over rock and rill
Melodiously trilling.
Songs of you flow over my heart
Wild and free.
Sparkling with heady fragrance I see
Lowering to bended knee
Before thee
So inspiring
Mine imagination in red glare firing
As mine enduring love in sweet glory composes
A room full of roses.

Thine fragrance doth in mine soul conspire
To build an empire
To thee raise a monument
Set in mine love’s firmament
When kissed by a rose
Oh can I thine love oppose
Where longing heart cannot fate decry
Or mine love greater than the sky
Deny,
Or yet with frail logic reason why.

All argument flies asunder
Giving fleeting to reasoning
Quickly dissolving
In succulent wonder
With the scent of sweet rolling thunder.
Nay, I cannot refuse the love I chose
Kissed by a rose.

Whose bouquets of roses lie as petals
Festering in my brain
With joyful music’s
Sweetest refrain
Making a life filled with rainbows
A blissful repose
Kissed by a rose.


~Gary Jacobson, Modern Poet and Vietnam War Veteran