Solitude
by
J. Artemis © 2003

I've been alone, so long it seems
That for love and comfort
I no longer dream,
Shouldn't that trouble my heart?

Yet on into the fray go I
Alone upon my way,
Never knowing or caring why,
It gets easier every day.

A song of solitude, mine alone,
The Mantra of this soul's ease
The path before me, leading home
Hath it become its own disease?

But, none of this is new to me
Nothing to change my way,
Nothing to risk at all, you see
And naught to lead me astray.

Is solitude the answer then
That all the seekers claim
The truest of all tests of men,
To grow yet remain the same?

Apathy
By
Jolene Artemis December 2000

Distressed and drifting with the winds of time
Peace and comfort, never mine
Slowly sinking, the numbing chill
Calls to me when all is still.

I know not why I used to dream
Nor why I ceased to, so it seems,
I know that hope is broken, deep within
And no great loss, to my chagrin.

Simple thoughts assail me now,
With naught to tell me why or how
To fight the apathy that I feel
Nor how to find joy in what is real.

Mayhap the dreams are gone to show
Me what I need is a place to go
Where all is still and quiet as death
The moonlit night where the lonely pass…

Silent, brooding…

Waiting upon the day when peace may come at last.

Dark Night of My Soul
Or Sleepless Beauty’s Lament
By J. Artemis 2001

Just when I thought I’d never feel this way again,
The sadness deep within comes again to claim me.
It’s all I can do to hope it will pass,
Leave me in peace where I’d rather be.

I don’t know how to tame it this time, this emptiness.
My ideas, all failed, my trust in the gods failing too,
And all my dreams of love and happiness
With all the dreams of me finding you(?).

Have I dreamed too much and ceased to live?
Have I cared too much while unwilling to give?
All I’ve left is some comfort to share
And no one with magick to be found anywhere.

I wait upon the Will of the gods
While I fight each day to be willing to wake
And I tell myself, only time will tell,
And that my time will come for its own sake.

A dreamer’s dream, a lover wish,
A sigh in the night for just one kiss,
While the gods mock me, laughing,
I dwell in darkness deep, this vast emptiness….

Just wishing they'd let me sleep……

Sleeping Beauty was fortunate to sleep through it all…..
Would that I could be so lucky.

Destiny is Hidden—JA 09/27/01

I don’t know where to go from here
From where I stand, there seem endless choices
Yet no direction looks better than another
From here, they look all the same….

‘Nothing difficult is ever easy,’ how well I know
And difficulty has never frightened me…
Until now.
I think it must be that I have had enough and am just…

Tired.

A goddess, he said, you are a goddess… alas, how wrong are the young and
impressionable… but may all the gods bless them. Their dreams and ideals give
me hope that not all feel as lost as I.

We are champions of our own destiny, are we not…?
If that is as true as I have always believed it to be
Than I have failed myself in ways that I thank all my gods
I have not failed those I’ve loved, friends and family.

As for the loves of my life, they had the best of me
And they knew it; spoke so highly of it at the time;
‘Men speak conveniently of love when it serves their purpose and
When it does not, ‘tis a burden to them.’

So, I wait in my shallow pity pool today and wait for E
From a man of distances greater than I care to ponder.
In hopes he might ‘see’ me and henceforth want to
Come for me as in a faerie tale…. Ya, like that’ll happen.

All hopeful romantics such as I should be shot, or mayhap drowned at birth….
That would be the kinder end, yes?

But then, where would be the so many lives they’ve touched, all for the better
now for having been touched by the dreamer, and all they can do is
admire their friend who is alone and continues alone… ever on...alone…
until time and times are done and I am called to rest.

Known to them as the spirit who gave unselfishly… only hoping that one day the
gods would favor her in her one wish for simple happiness.
And having it not so, continues to give anyway as they made her thus
and it is just her nature to do so.
And today, she asks them, “is that all I am here for?"

It Rains
©Jolene Ramage Jan 2000

It rains and my soul is oh so weary
Broken dreams tumble through my head
Like collapsing stars that once shone bright
The darkness swallowing their spectral light.

The mist without on this mid-winter’s eve,
So like the shrouded thoughts of yesterday’s dreams
Faded to gray, faded to mist, faded to simple memories
As they dance through the night recalling the past, as if it had never belonged to me.

Was that me, the aspiring student of Medicine,
The scholar of arts and science, with dreams of saving the world
With hopes of being ever needed, however the distance to love?
Was that me, is there an echo left of the woman who once was?
Or, is she, too, just a memory?

A light shines in me, when duty calls, whatever, wherever, it may be
To heed that call is the best of me, so is there then more than an echo left,
Does the need remain to be needed? The rains call to the memory of who I was and
I have to ask myself, what has happened? Is it me still, just muted by the years
Of personal human hardship, thus hardened and immune to the call?

Yet, the writer, the thinker, the scholar remains.
Hardened and twisted to darker pursuits. In my own darkness where the light seldom
shines, where love seldom reaches, where apathy has replaced empathy.
And I wonder why…. Was it desertion by others…. or did my own impatience with cowardice or sloth drive them off?

Oh the pain is still hell, while partial deliverance is tempered by its cost to my sanity.
The sun and the rain, just backdrops for days that are all the same, though “sunny days
have funny ways of quieting the roar.”*
And to live, to try, to struggle yet more, I grasp my Will firmly each day
And force myself to live, to breathe, and breathe some more.

But nights like this, when rain falls down.
My life cries out for those days lost forever, behind me;
The struggle to win! Win! Win!, the push to be the best and the Will to fight.
Lost somewhere in a distant past, nigh on forgotten save nights like this, when the
yearning awakes and the Question consumes me, once more.

The rain still falls while the night is long And still my soul is oh so weary.
*this is just an excerpt from a much larger work

Sunrise
by ©J.Artemis 2000

New hope's promise,
Like a new sunrise,
That all-consuming
Grand surprise.

Its very nature,
Spirit sublime,
The heady scent
Of vintage wine.

You cannot hold it,
Touch it, see
What that promise
One day, will be.

Yet you know
Its reality
Is as solid as
An old oak tree.

Its substance may be
Thin as air
But, just like wind,
You feel it there.

To give me strength
For each new day
And move along
These feet of clay.

The mortal dreams
Of mortal men
When seeming lost
Were found again.

And I like them
Need only wait
Upon the timing
Of fickle fate.

More will follow...