Visualizations
by Lead Savior
 
 
 

 
Terry Calen - 2001 01 450

 

Winter

Through summer and autumn the trees have sensed impending doom
The changing colors of their leaves reflect this,
but still they are reluctant to believe

The bright, life-giving jewel of the sky turns away from them
They awake to the grey dawn of winter

Not sunshine but deathly frost now descends upon them
Their leaves are relinquished to the earth, revealing their bare frames

They now more closely resemble skeletal hands
reaching out from the grave,
grasping at their betrayer

Time

Time passes through us like a thread
We are the looms which weave into that thread texture and patterns

They are memories, faces

But now, the thread moves through me unnoticed
It emerges out the other side featureless

 

Sandcastles of Days

Each day is mine
I often take them and build them,
only in thought, into what is possible

Sandcastle-days built upon a beach in the palm of my hand
"There will be joy here, adventure there, and love over here!"
I instruct the sculptor

It is not the wind, the relentless waves,
nor even the wayward hand of a careless stranger
that destroys what could be

It is my own weakness, indifference,
fear, and inability that reduces it to sand
It falls through my fingers again and again

Frost Scar

Happiness and despair are in delicate balance
Merely being within my home acts unfavorably on this emotional scale

I thus cast myself out into the elements,
into a freezing wind that carries frost from distant mountaintops
and deposits it onto my bones
That kind of cold is almost purifying

I sit until my muscles shudder,
struggling against it until they are exhausted,
until I am grateful again to return inside

“Lead Savior”

Prompted by sadness I leap to the rescue at your behest,
propelled by fiery gusto

Though it seems I may be hard, authoritative,
you find that I am soft, malleable as I enter

As I pass through, I expand and embrace all that corrodes you:
ailments, fears, responsibilities that weigh upon your shoulder,
and memories that weigh upon your mind

When I depart you, the cleansing of all of those ills reveals a deep void
Because I am the be-all solution, you are left with an end-all result
You have paid the ultimate price

Leatherbound Hero

The great sail upon my ship of thought succumbs only to the winds of emotion
Often, thus, she runs aground upon the shores of lingual redundancy

It is here that a great bellow rings out from the crow's nest,
the caller sinks his cutlass into the sail and glides down ever so gracefully
His details clarify as he descends: a thick, strong spine, leafy appendages

"To whom do I owe the gratitude of righting my course?" I ask the stranger

"Thesaurus" is his reply

Mesmerization

Hopelessly entangled,
not in sadness or madness, but within the grip of a siren
So alluring that all concerns fade into obscurity,
so radiant that all around her fades into darkness
A masterpiece that demands a kiss upon the hand of the creator

The beguiling form dissolves and I take in each curve
Like snakes they coil around my senses, I can perceive only her
They tighten around my lungs and my breath draws short,
this must be what 'breathtaking' means

If only I could say hello

 

Warmth on the Soul

Found within her own darkened wood and Lost,
tripping among its tangled roots
She emerged with understanding reborn
Having gained years of enlightenment for decades in darkness,
the empathy of One with a hundred hearts

Words are her arms,
with them she weaves the sunlight into my morning,
a smile onto my face from across rivers
When I fall to the soil,
from beyond mountains she picks me up
and brushes the dust away

A great joy it would be to meet,
before the earth receives me for the last time

 

We always appreciate your feedback!

 

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About the Author:

Lead Savior is a discovery of our very own Gabrielle Perreault. We'll let her introduce this Featured Young Poet in her own words:

"Jeff, a.k.a. Lead Savior, is a 22 year-old poet from Redding, CA who prefers to call his works “visualizations”. And indeed they are, with powerful and unique imagery, and style, conjured and described from his personal views on life, himself, and others around him."

 

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