Scars and Stories: Poems

By Don Edwards

Don Edwards grew up in rural southern USA. There, among few distractions, he learned that life can be lived and that love may be found, but both are ultimately taken by the “chronic Tick-Tock” of time. Based on this, he has been trying to clarify his purpose with the help of poetry. Scars and Stories is his first collection and, within its pages, he tackles love and death, since these are all that really matter. His poems show us that love can elevate us above the gravity of everyday life. At the same time, we are reminded that, despite our sense of decision-making power, we live with a mere illusion of control. Of course, ultimately death wins all battles. The clock is constantly ticking but we can offer and accept love and, in doing so, not fear the darkness or the final day.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Jun 2, 2017
• ISBN: 9781483468372

Don Edwards

Don Edwards has previously published four books of poetry. These are Scars and Stories — Poems, More Stories — A Book of Poems, The Third Book — A Book of Poems, Mostly, and To Warm The Solitary Night. The third book is “mostly” poems because it includes a handful of stories at the end. Everybody Wants To Be Loved is his fifth book of poetry. Mr Edwards is also the founding member of True Gospel Bookstore which records his poems as songs. These songs can be heard on all streaming services. Also, he has recorded some of these poems for the True Gospel Bookstore website. If you would like to hear them, go to the “Book of Poems” page at www.truegospelbookstore.com. Most of these poems consider the topics of Love and Death, which is all that matters, and also the M poems. Mr Edwards lives in Los Angeles.

Book preview

Scars AND

Stories

POEMS

Don Edwards

Copyright © 2017 Don Edwards.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-6838-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-6913-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-6837-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017906271

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 05/08/2017

This is our purpose —

Not to endure

But to gesture calmly

And with love.

From Right and Wrong

Contents

Volume One

A Woman Will

Wolfman

Hymn To Love And Death

Rhythm And Movement

Hymn Again To M

Only M

Song Of The Wind

Thanks

Prayer For A Life Descending

Each And All

The Exploding Man

My Mom

Volume Two

M — You Make Me Alive

Until That Night I Was Immortal

Just Muscle And Skin

M — Woman Perfected

M — Hold Me Quick

M — I Hate Gravity

I Have A Question Mark In My Gut

I Love You

Come On`

How Much?

Yet

Life Under The Mimosa

Volume Three

Life Is Hard

M

Tied To The Wheel

What Good?

Touring The Glory In A Thousand Years

A Prisoner Of Time

Leaving

Contrary

You Oughtn’t To Treat A Fella That Way

M — I Dream Of You

Say Goodbye

The Buttercup Thug

Volume Four

How To Take A Punch

A Poem

I Prefer The Company Of Women

Sophie’s Song

Rural And Urban

How To Succeed

Love Lessons

The First

Geometrically Challenged

A Day At The Beach

Why, M?

My Old School

Volume Five

A Saurian Menace

Life With Apples

M&M&M&M

She Knows

Hymn To M

M Ode

On A Clean Well Lighted Place

Tinkin’ Is Hard

Songs Of Life

The Way To Catalina

Something Surely

Football Saturday

Volume Six

Next Time

A Slave To Time

5-4-3-2…

Telescopes And Microscopes

In Memoriam — Scattered Thoughts

Here Then Gone

The Promise

Sunday

You

When Will We?

The Final Threat

You, The Voice

Volume Seven

Tri-M

Women With Tats

The Great Disruptor

Driving Home

Left Right

Words

Your Lips Are Electric

Right And Wrong

In Praise Of Adoration

Wasted Efforts

Cat In The Corner

Take Me

Volume Eight

Time To Stop

You Left

A Dream Without End

You Just Know

Floating

The Music

Drifting Darkly

Alone Among The Pines

Messy Messy

Sunshine

Going With You

The Bully

Volume Nine

The Shadow

Living For The Past

Less Than Love

For The 100Th Time — The Taste Of M

It’s March That Kills

Eating Apples

A Poet Is

Always Pushing

The Meaning Of Storm

Near And Far

Life Afterlife

If I Were Yours

Volume Ten

Tick Tock Mutherfucker

Feel

I Have

You Are A Woman

He Is Not I

The Final Call

The Story Of My Life

Silence Awaits

This Was Once A Nursery

Journey To M

You Are So Young

The Dash

Volume Eleven

We The Faithful Have Pursued Humble Jihad

I Wish For Death

Before The Shadowed Starling Swarm

Ta Ben Ou Nah

Where My Life Began

Lady In White

Old Men Like I

The Eternal Feminine

Life On Mars

You Were Always

At The Broad

The Call

About The Author

VOLUME ONE

A Woman Will

You will be the guilty one,

You did it!

Because of you the world burns hot,

Ices over, dries to cinders.

You toppled trees,

Burned the sage.

You plowed the prairie,

To feed the brood

Who denied the pain

You destroyed with toil.

A woman will make you weak

Pull you into a world of requirements,

Expectations,

Make you care,

Make you responsible, at fault, important,

Make you love, make you cry.

You will be nothing manly,

All things human.

You are the responsible one --

You get to worry about cancer,

The dreaded death of a child.

You are the huge gray stone slab

That blocks the flood

To save those close

Who never knew the threat

While you smiled and played the expected part.

You did it in silence --

So you won.

A woman will make you weak

Pull you into a world of requirements,

Expectations,

Make you care,

Make you responsible, at fault, important,

Make you love, make you cry.

You will be nothing manly, all things human.

You are the loving one --

You fed the hungry, clothed the naked,

Held the sick,

Enveloped them in your hard embrace.

You carried them until death’s bright separation.

You deserve it, you go on.

A woman will make you weak

Pull you into a world of requirements,

Expectations,

Make you care,

Make you responsible, at fault, important,

Make you love, make you cry.

You will be nothing manly, all things human.

And that is why you need her.

Wolfman

When the fiery sun goes down

And the cold moon rises full,

Sight fails as molecules transfigure

While the indeterminate shadows loom and threat.

Awareness flickers replacing doubt --

Fear is no more.

A heartbeat accelerates and dissolves.

A howl blasts the night chill.

Man turns to brute in the unguarded dark --

The beast comes out.

A fever crawls my neck --

Death is nothing, nothing, nothing.

Stasis is death et versa vice

But whitely perfect you I await.

Now is my beginning;

I was not before --

Yours the first face I see

Yours the throat I seize and cling to

Yours the first lips I kiss

Yours the only name I know or trust.

Anything before is not

And never was.

A heartbeat accelerates

A howl blasts the night chill

Man turns to brute in the unguarded dark

The beast comes out.

Now is the dark and the future a futile concept --

Gone is the light of the past.

Now is the itch and propulsion --

Gone is knowledge of self

As I dissolve into you

And was and will merge into now.

And Heaven waits.

A heartbeat accelerates

A howl blasts the night chill

Man turns to brute in the unguarded dark

The beast comes out.

hymn to love and death

to dance again

to eat and drink again

to hear again life’s strident call,

awake now, aware now

of the songs, the cries, the laughter,

that paint the world’s blank moments

creating the art that becomes a life.

poetry is only truth

but nothing comes of it

silence is as good

but engenders both guilt and reprisal.

the old man teeters and falls

unnoticed by those around

until they trip over his crumpled pale body

and swear him a fool,

missing the answer that lies with him.

your lips are pillows for the needy

your hair a blanket for the lost

your body warmth for the forsaken

your glance the reason to go on.

help me to see my purpose --

give me a hint as to where I should be

and I will live to take your direction

to find an ending fit for the life you propose.

poetry is only truth

but nothing comes of it

silence is as good

but engenders both guilt and reprisal.

the old man teeters and falls

unnoticed by those around

until they trip over his crumpled pale body

and swear him a fool,

missing the answer that lies with him.

impressions float and drift.

as when a child turns his back

and the past disappears,

so when memory fades,

the eternal party begins --

but not for me, the adult cemented in time and

weighted by love and expectations.

I carry their ghosts on my back.

because love and death is all there is,

teach me to see, to hear, to know

enough to do the right

and I will not be among the superfluous.

poetry is only truth

but nothing comes of it

silence is as good

but engenders both guilt and reprisal.

the old man teeters and falls

unnoticed by those around

until they trip over his crumpled pale body

and swear him a fool,

missing the answer that lies with him.

rhythm and movement

the drum beat of my heart

guides the keyboard of my breath,

as the rhythm of my body

steps to the pattern of your voice.

while my own melody strikes out against cacophonous life

which is measured not in octaves only

but in irregular lengths of time and of space

as daily repetition overshadows rhyme,

I try another day to join the dangling ends of discord.

we cannot sing louder than life

nor can we outlast it.

but one final wedding we will hold --

one last man

one last woman

one more joining.

then we’re done,

the lights will dim,

and the end will near

and all will be one again.

the song itself is all that matters

quiet is where truth lies

and from here come the melody and the lyrics

which limn the unseen structures of fate’s rigid dimension.

While we are on this twisting highway

learning to drive on a strangely marked dirt road

brightly lit in shocking contrasts of the clean sharp air.

glossy and slick, we ride

down the long descending coastline

until we rise again unexpected but right and constant.

we cannot sing louder than life

nor can we outlast it.

but one final wedding we will hold

one last man

one last woman

one more joining.

then we’re done,

the lights will dim,

and the end will near

and all will be one again.

then climbing we begin to see,

one step closer to the end of the beginning

learning to ride again

maintaining the speed prescribed

then ride it down again

and turn each word to purpose

every note to peace and joy

make the choice or cease to be

and watch as the deluge of dissonance

drowns the world.

we cannot sing louder than life

nor can we outlast it.

but one final wedding we will hold --

one last man

one last woman

one more joining.

then we’re done,

the lights will dim,

and the end will near

and all will be one again

then silence.

Hymn Again To M

I seek life’s sustaining purpose

why I should eat and drink at mother earth’s fine table

why I should take up her space, use up her gifts to stay,

why not take the road down and out of here

why not save the world this pain?

why I should, why not?

knowing you for this moment

makes my being bearable

and is the only value I can find

the only fortune that is worth it

the only reason for me.

I’ll be dead in a minute anyway

which will last a lot longer than my life did

whatever good or ill I have done

will fade with the coming winter

but unlike the world

will not return

knowing you for this moment

makes my being bearable

and is the only value I can find

the only fortune that is worth it

the only reason for me

How do I deserve the world?

How do I find my place?

How do I give more than I take?

How do I explain this to myself?

knowing you for this moment

makes my being bearable

and is the only value I can find

the only fortune that is worth it

the only reason for me

what have I to give in exchange

for the joys and sorrows that are here?

what can I offer in place of