New Selected Poems of T.Byron Kelly

New Selected Poems

of T. Byron Kelly

iUniverse, Inc.

New York Bloomington

New Selected Poems of T. Byron Kelly

Copyright © by T. Byron Kelly

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ISBN: 978-1-4401-9268-5 (pbk)

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iUniverse rev. date: 11/23/09

Contents

Selections from Notebook Poems—

10/1/1987-1992

Selections from Faith Of Heart—

Spring 1993-Winter 1993

Selections From Poems of The Infinite Dream—

Winter 1993-Summer 1994

Selections from Midnight Poems—

Spring 1994-Winter 1995

Selections From Wish List—

Winter 1995-Autumn 1995

Selections from The River of Swans—

Winter 1995-Autumn 1996

Selections from Advent (Alpha)—

Winter 1995-Autumn 1997

Selections from Advent (Omega)—

Spring 1998-Winter 2000

Selections from The Beginning of the End—Autumn 2001-Summer 2005

Selections From Light & Shadow—

Winter 2004-Present

Selections From

Virginia/West Virginia Poems—Remembrance & Reconciliation—Summer 2006—Present

Selections from Notebook Poems—

10/1/1987-1992

That Wind, can you hear

It’s beginning to blow

January winds of change

Winter’s icy laughter

Winds of my life

It’s starting to snow.

* *

Ancient River

Ancient Power

New Autumn trees

Gold as sunlight

Waving soft goodbyes

with wooden arms

I fought the current

Water lashing past

My struggle-

As pointed toes

Tried to touch

Something solid

Beneath a liquid death/

Black Angels

waited;

Their open

mouths filled

with

River Flowers.

1987-2/25/1990

October

Swift do you arrive,

O beautiful lady with hair of gold

and icy winds blowing cold.

Relief from miserable heat that your

Sisters July and August bestowed upon us.

You breathe life back into my soul

I stand in awe of your artful way.

Shimmering crimsons

Fiery Orange

Truly a feast for the eye to behold.

So let the exhibit begin my dear one

Embrace me with your passion of colour.

10/3/1987

Your House

Assumes an

Unearthly shade

Of Yellow

Or Lemon

As the Black

Clouds of August

Lethargically move

In from the 

Northern Oceans

Can I wander

Through your gardens

Of hot summer rain?

I know the joy of August

Lies in those pools

Of God’s sadness

Small white

Fences Provide

An Adequate

And Frustrating

Barrier for

Our Eight

Eyed friends

I’ll soon

Know your

Tender morning.

A country cemetery

Filled with tombstones

The color of an angry sky.

Lives

Turned to green weeds

In this strange garden

Summer 1988

Revised 6/12/2008

Longer than dying

farther than midnight

a fortune for magi told again

as you hold her

candle wick burn illusions

get us through to truth

we are proving our lives

through each mute instant

of (game) surmised

gold or purple flowers

swarm the sacred

mind try mystery,

pausing in blood we 

entwine you

They were all there

waiting

for something

to

happen

dark corner children w/ sleepy eyes stir

and fire light flies through 

windows

which lead only to black,

mad housewives fingering yellow

dishes and ruby coloured

curtains which smell of sin

or death

rising in the eyes

of all of them

fear sweat upon the beauty brow

of time’s sweet couples

clocks upon the wall calling

calling backward into 

nothing’s ministry, such is our 

fear, we are leering cowards

sleepy from sin…

Sleep children listen,

she is weeping

inside her 

castle

Convulsing as if he

had found it

the

poet pulled 

the drain plug

in Paris

the day before Independence

back in the States

Witches light the incense

light of fire burn

Speaks to the invisible soul.

1991

Revised 8/9/2008

My friend had a dream

of his own death

A wind shield gave way

To his fragile head

He watched his own soul

Dancing by flare light

Dancing in the red glow

Of his own blood at twi-light

Do you want  to know

My secret spaces?

I’ll show you all

of my secret places

Angel of golden ways

Angel of my every day

I’ve waited for you

For such a long time.

1988

Revised

8/10/2008 

Tiger Lilies

time dispossessed

bright into orange behind a

Summer shade

of my

bleakest window-

inside window

fires of the old mind

fire brand burning

again here

in my May yard (garden)

of truth’s past

the sins or thoughts

or jeweled tasks unforbidden and

bright upon her

silken green boughs remembering

eternal calm/

See beyond personality tomb,

the lines traversing nothing into

smug calamity, diving deep into ready for

the grand fall again,

gold falling from the mouths of decadent children,

our hours were spent finding time’s delusion,

and who has fought? The frightened lovers of easy

rebellion leave inside green galleons

steeped with distrust or eyeloads of rueful cargo

and ready to sail the ravaged sea into no tomorrows.

Blood sail

the wetness of distress

pale mothers hands caress the infant valentine

I’m goin’ to meet the dark man behind my door

We are,

all of us leaving

We are

where they told us to be.

Summer

1992

Revised

10/23/2008

Did you see him,

Driving alone at dusk

in a four seat car?

The other drivers

glide by

Their cars filled w/ so many eyes.

He was going to the water

To see the old River’s

swell of Springtime

To listen to its soft word

To understand silence

Spring

1988

Revised

2/10/2009

What was it she said?

The girl,

A painting or vision

which whispers

anything-

Outside the shade,

the shadows dance

through  sun blood

pools of

scattered light

—

Come with me tonight

Each connection is half assured

Dark Photo negatives

claiming knowledge of only

a partially sworn

reality

—

Here is your answer

—

Thoughts are naked

dancers,

electric yet

defiled

in mute

procession

1990

Black trees stand against

a scorched orange horizon

crescent moon

pointed like delicate fingers

reaching for light

deep in the newborn liquid night

search ‘til dawn

Indian Summer’s Dawn

Flowery, Gentle

Smooth as dew

capturing nocturnal monsters

effortlessly, endlessly

White Winter fatality

White Winter’s discontent

A snowy accident

Names in stone

and epitaphs

Simple wants

Narrowly missed

All words are borrowed moments

each second jolts closer

to the endless ledge

Wouldn’t life change if

it were forever?

1988

Revised

6/13/2009

Selections from Faith Of Heart—

Spring 1993-Winter 1993

Time, joy, brief moments of discontentment

this is 

all as of knowledge kissing

turquoise heaven and all is

given

by you or me-I reach dark mornings

as you reach the untold said again-

A quiet figure strains in

a narrow corner of light

Night storm, around swirling, the

mind knows revelation and revulsion

Mind storm winning time-is this all we

really have now?

‘I’m just blue".

Truth the tangled fly

my eyes ranging eternities.

Our weakness is that we see far too much

Spring-Winter

1993

Revised

6/17/2008  

Poets haunt my window, amid nightshades,

w/in the sweetness of sleep they greet me

and each waking sound only moves me,

remembering the *epitaph by Rilke,

the sound of leaves caressing sunlight in the

Garden near Bowles beach house, an aged 

mirror and beer soaked bathroom

in Bukowski’s flat, life arriving like an 

Angel, the beautiful mind etching of W.Blake,

Soft breath, the second coming of Yeats’ 

Christ, the fearful wasteland prophets

smelling fresh ink, the solipsism of Eliot

and Pound.

Names breach the life game

nothingness 

stains 

these pure

pages.

And in the silence an

anointing-thunder closing in on this

rare garden where courage is the 

face of Summer hyacinth and something

in the distance seems to be drawing 

closer-chambers of the heart,

levels of muse music, a candle which

burns brightly at dawn, my Soul’s

pure progress, as we are all what is known, 

this ancient wisdom which

has sustained the life try

toward a millenia’s moving,

this stardom of proving makes

beauty a question and

birth the reason to

carry on.

Spring-Winter

1993

Revised 4/7/2007

Have you a revelation?

The excess of wanting does not prove you

power does not prove you

in fact it is no one thing alone

but a myriad tapestry of life.

This experience of Love’s action

above all things points to

a Heaven /The miracle of nature’s secret is justified.

and through calm walls of betrayal I am

moving us together

Shallow tides of shadow arch