The Cure
Teach me the lullaby
for a heart that dreams too greatly.
Teach me to sing passion to sleep
and soothe the thirst which so innately
vexes me. There must be some way
to calm the aching,
to distract the fervent mind,
and coax the spirit into breaking.
Write me a prescription
for reality, and insist that I take
my daily dose. Inject me with vaccines
of harsh fact. Ensure I stay awake.
Surely you know, you must,
so stable in your comfort, so secure
in your routine, ordinary life…
Yes, you must know the cure.
– s. Clark
You are More
You are not only your muscles and bones
You are spirit and will
You are fire and stone
Life is not made of just blood in your veins
You are anguish and rage
You are lightening and rain
You are not built of synapses and skin
You are made up of dreams,
Oceans storming within
How could you be broken, or fear the night?
You are stars in the dark
You are warmth, you are light
No one can box you, or measure your worth
You are spirit and song
You are wide as the earth
Though life will hurt you, and paint you with scars
Let no one convince you
You are less than you are
– s. Clark
Give Me the Hills
Give me the hills where the giants are!
Give me the river that rages
Send me to reach for the furthest star,
Upon the road that extends too far
Don’t leave me to my cages
Give me the battle that can’t be won
Give me a fire still burning!
Tell me the course that I cannot run
The place where others have come undone,
Help me to fill this yearning
Send me to fight in the hopeless war
To shatter unbreakable chains
Send me when others can fight no more
To storm the deepest and darkest shore
Choose me, and I will not wane
I will stay true when all others fade
I will stand, bold and defiant
Only through pain are warriors made,
Yet I will still seek the endless raid,
Give me the hills with the giants!
– s. Clark
I will not sleep beneath the breath
Of ice, that freezes. “Wait for death”
It soothes, as though that is the goal
That waits my writhing, striving soul.
“I’ll set this soul ablaze!” I cry,
“And soar to cinders through the sky!
I’d rather burn to ashen dust
Than die within this frozen crust
Of apathy.” To pierce the night…
My purpose is to shine, to fight!
And not that I should safely stand,
Unchallenged, in this tundra-land.
Not so! This world will burn along
With me, and learn to sing my song
Of light. And should the fire die,
At least I will have lit the sky.
– s. Clark
Mortal Needs
Food and rest are mortal needs
No self-respecting hero heeds,
They simply keep my strides at bay,
And slow me on my questing way
So what need I their burdens for?
They are mere trifles, nothing more.
– s. Clark
This is the life I chose
While waiting for life to begin.
And there are always those
Who tell us only now is when
We live. So why do I still wait
For it, for everything, to start?
Hearing my voice reverberate
Within a hollowed heart
Still waiting to be filled.
And all my dreams still there,
Out to be caught or killed.
Then twist-and-pinning up my hair,
I ready for existence now
That passes time, awhile I wait,
The captain standing at her bow.
I work, and set my course to fate.
Unsteering search for land,
Blown to-and-fro nowhere,
The wheel has yet no able hand
To guide, I would need to know where
I head. So I survey the sea
And wonder where this ocean goes
I do not know what life should be
This is the life I chose.
– s. Clark
Someone tell me that there is hope
Still left to wake the world,
That in the voices lost to scope
Remains a victor’s chance.
And tell me, have they sounded yet
The woeful call, “Retreat”?
To pull back hands that have been set
Upon the tired task?
I have not heard them cry the call,
Yet look how fast we flee!
And leave the stoic few to fall
Abandoned at our heels.
How can our moral ears abide
A people’s dying gasps,
While we, disgracing all our pride,
Give up before we’ve lost?
Now let us rip the curtain back,
The wizard bear his face!
That we surrender, in our lack,
Before we face the charge.
I cannot bear the hollow chest
That marks a craven soul
Of one who broke the line when pressed
To let conviction die.
– s. Clark
She gazed upon the fractured sky,
And raised her fist in wrath
To see the crooked cracks that marked
The violent aftermath
Of meeting her. Its fabric torn,
This was its fitting fate.
How could it promise endless heights,
And liberty so great?
How could it boast of boundless reach,
Of aeon twixt the stars,
And, having done, so cast her down
And leave her only scars?
A curse upon the painted vault!
A ceiling, nothing more.
Its searing hues of blacks and blues
Have bruised her to the core.
If, looking up, she had not thought
She heard its thrilling call,
Then she perhaps would not have risked
The rise…and more, the fall.
And now she fears to walk the world
Beneath its fissured face,
Condemned to ever scorn it for
So casting her from grace.
And yet… gazing upon the rift,
Despite all she has spoken,
She cannot help but think that if
It cracks…it can be broken.
– s. Clark
Shigé Clark Writing 