Disillusioned Dreamer
It was a right of passage, so he said,
To reach a point of disillusionment
Where you awaken to a sense of dread,
Setting aside your inner innocent.
There was a madness in the sense he made,
A sadness in my knowing his words true,
That every soul who walks with me has paid
The stiff price of admission that is due.
That is, to look upon our cherished lives
And find them not so bright as they once seemed.
The hollow fact that each of us survives
On table scraps of all that we have dreamed.
I do not know if all the striving ends
In finding that our hopes were worth the fight,
Or if eventually, conviction bends
For each of us, until we yield our light.
But surely, either way, that does not change
The fact that we should struggle for the goal
Of what we crave to be, and in exchange,
Success or loss, we keep our spirits whole.
– s. Clark
Unquenchable Light
He reached for the stars
but he stretched out too far,
and they burned up his hands,
left him covered with brands.
But he reaches on still,
for he measures his will
as his light,
Matching might
with the stars.
– s. Clark
You cannot be a sputtering candle
Telling of the fire from whence you came,
You have to be flame.
You cannot be the wind, weeping whispers
Of how you have blown to-and-fro so high,
You have to be sky
You cannot be a twittering songbird
Forever flapping about at the door,
Not when you could soar
– s. Clark
Poetry by Shigé Clark 