This is a collection of original poetry. Some of it's mine, and some of it's by friends of mine. You can email me about the page itself, or my poems, or you can email the other authors about their poetry. All poems are copyrighted by their original authors, including mine.

Warning: Some poems contain potentially objectionable material. Those that do are marked with an asterisk (*).

• Paper Clip Person
• Untitled 1*
• Hearthfires
• Funhouse
• Gazing at You
• Natchitoches, after a year has passed
• Driven

Shamanatu's Poems

• By the Roadside

Paper Clip Person

by Amy

Red plastic
Over twisted metal.
Symbol of a friendship
As tattered and resilient
As itself.

Red plastic nostalgia
Wears thin
But underneath, 
Twisted metal core
Remains unchanged.
Separated by time
And distance
Like calls to like, and
A piece of us remains close.

Caught in the twisted red paperclip.

Untitled 1

by Amy

I pulled the trigger
Seeking silence
And in the last moments
Reveled in this final ugliness.
The blood, brains, and shit
Seemed a suitable portrait
For the hell I had lived.
The pain of death 
A mirror for the pain of life.

Years have passed,
I have moved on 
To whatever new hell I have made for myself.
You remain,
Stumbling towards closure
My absence a festering sore
A litany forever echoing in your soul
'why, why, why'
In ending my own hell
I have created yours.

Hearthfires

by Amy

The role of the lighthouse keeper can be a lonely one.
When staring at the rocks and the surf has grown old
And the ships and hearts you protect don't seem to care
Come to me, and share my hearthfire.
Warm yourself in its heat
And light.

Who protects the protector?
A sister not of blood, but of circumstance and choice.
When all other hearthfires have gone out, let mine be your    beacon.

And though my own loneliness sometimes seems too much to bear
I know that somewhere in the world
You are keeping your hearthfire lit.
And even from miles away
I fancy I can feel the warmth and light 
Of the lighthouse keeper I have chosen as my sister,
And her hearthfire.

Funhouse

by Amy

I spied the funhouse, decided to explore it.
To willingly lose myself, confuse myself 
Confident that the exit would not dare to elude me.
I thought I might collect
A trinket of madness 
Some small insight.

Now, lost, 
I have begun to doubt my identity
The reflections whisper to me
Assuring me of their reality.
My world has turned to horror
And I try vainly to recall
Who I was.
Am?
Have I become the twisted
Visage that now stares back at me?

Gazing at You

You entered my world
Quietly, unobtrusively.
I dreamed, but not of you.
Then you began to walk out,
And I woke up.  
Panicked, I saw for the first time
What I almost missed completely.
I called out,
You turned, smiled, and answered.
Capturing my attention
Catching my gaze
  
Now you've gone, and yet from a distance
You still answer.
My attention is still captured, 
My gaze hasn't wavered.
Still, I don't know who you are
Or who you think I am.
But I'm not asleep anymore.

Natchitoches, after a year has passed

by Amy

I have re-enterd the rabbit hole.
And have found that nothing has changed,
Yet nothing has remained the same.
The cat’s ears now appear first,
Pricked forward with mischeivious delight
And the caterpillar’s hooka has turned to crystal,
His smoke rings now smoke squares
But the substance he smokes,
He tells me,
Is the same.

The hatter has turned to knitting
Though he still throws his tea parties
Now decorated with festive yarn doilies
In all the colors of the un-rainbow.
The noose is now the queen’s favored instrument of death
And her cry of  "String him up!"
Is heard just as often as its predecessor.
The tweedle twins have lost weight.
But they still tend to bounce.

The white rabbit now shows some grey
And my dress has turned green.
Curioser and curioser.

Driven

by Amy

The priest with no God
Prays to silence
Dons his ceremonial robes
And sermonizes 
To no congregation.
Grants absolution
For sins that were never committed.
Goes forward knowing
Neither God nor mortal hears.

The soldier with no war
Seeks the enemy 
On an empty battlefield.
Obeys orders that were never given.
Conquers territory already held.
Cautiously creeping, advancing
In circles.
Goes forward knowing
He goes nowhere.

Without a God,
Without a war,
The journey must continue
As the serpent swallows his tail.

By the Roadside

by Shamanatu

In fields of heather blowing gold,
Sits a bonnie lass in velvet robes
With long brown hair,
And doe brown eyes,
She arrested her heart as I passed Her by.
Though fair of face and heart quite fleet,
Her beauty runs much further deep.
The soul within the body fair,
Outshines the face and eyes and hair.
When first I gazed upon Her bold,
A shyer heart did soon unfold.
Clumsy and brutish I must surely be,
When I am compaired to one fair as She.
So thus I sit eyes open wide,
To watch my Beauty by the Roadside
I watch and Dream; I hope and Pray;
that I might know her love one day