Creative Writing (2 Edited Older Poems)

I've decided to start going through my archives of poems I've previously written in any attempt to find things that I feel are salvageable or not entirely bad, and then tweaking or changing them. I'll post the results as they come up here in addition to anything new I'm writing (hoping to do some this coming weekend).

I've got 2 edited poems to post today.

Imprint

I have found beauties leave a

Mark unspoiled, undying, spread

Like Arabic eagle’s winds

Across the brain.

Stays light, as a milky dew

Upon new-found eyes; refuses

To dim, flicker, no matter

Itself.

The thoughts still sting, swim,

Repose in blue; smiles, frowns,

Sweet songs and death knells,

All still, alone.

The wonder is bonded in image,

An old memory from the voice,

Some strand from the modern letter,

Silent.

Walking Past Midnight in a Small Town

There was nothing to be afeared,

There was nothing to cause a shame.

I was lone with but the lights,

The calmed forms of brick buildings,

Shines through the windows snuffed

Long since.

I dressed sloppily, in shack-like

Disrepair, feet bound with the

Flimsiest support, rankled shirt

Flown to the dark sky’s breezes;

None were looking, so, why

Would I bother with mirrors?

Only a faint memory’s flicker of

Headlights flashed by, no red

And pale gold to break the

Moon’s hazy illusions, the dying

Mists blanketed by clouds most

Ashen, most enveloping.

There was no shouting, no slamming of

Doors as now, only shudders of the

Maple keys, the soft songs of yawning

Birds; here is too heightened, I block

Out the window’s echoes with rattling

Speeches, just to sleep.

I am heavy as swinish iron,

With no more a light foot

To skip, no more strung along

From places pinned to the push-map:

My own way is to be now drawn,

And when I walk it is now but

The shattered pavestone, the bleat

From heated lamps, the stone

Eyes of the city-dwellers,

And no more the walking

Past midnight

In my small town.