Poetry
You Don't Get to Rest If You Are Poor
Stephen Taylor
Photo by José Martín Ramírez Carrasco on Unsplash
You don’t get to rest if you are poor.
Hard work for holidays doesn’t exist;
Come home—if you have one—Grandfather’s mattress
Collapse and sleep and go again.
Children choose hunger so parents can eat.
Stomach growling silently filled with watery soup;
Fantasy fills the void.
Mocked for clothes that do not last
Worn to rags and patched up again.
No newness is no news
Tomorrow walks in worn-out shoes.
Stress of survival draws lines on the soul
Children who grow up are older than all
Repeat the same lives as their parents have led
World on their shoulders a heart made of lead.
Pull up your bootstraps and chin to the sky
The rich ones have promised and they wouldn’t lie
A lifetime of hardship with pennies in hand
The poor must be fallowed to harvest the land.
As Life Sings
By Stephen taylor
As life sings
About birds on uplifted wings
Mighty emperors, strong kings
In the midst of all these things
Who remembers what disaster brings
Upon the weak?
Or does grace not leak
To the downtrodden or the meek
As they strive, work and seek
To become the bird with wing and beak
As life sings...
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Photo by James Bekkers on Unsplash
I Cannot Dance Without You In My Arms
Stephen Taylor
I cannot dance without you in my arms.
Come embrace me sweet love
And move with me through mountains
High and crested as waves
We plunge beneath to find calm
Of soft hills underfoot blanket
White snow covered landscapes
And spring forevermore.
Dance with me, my love
And find the rush of life surround
Our joined souls.
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Photo by Abdul Gani M on Unsplash
This is where the dragons live
Stephen Taylor
This is where the dragons live
Beneath the lies that don’t forgive
And untold burdens of the heart
Never heal so never scar.
This is where the dragons live.
Deep beneath the burrows bare
Ever feasting in their lair
Inescapable in their thirst
Always ravenous for the first
Sign of life beyond the grave
Hope that future could be saved
Devoured and burned they will consume
Every chance they will assume
For this, is where the dragons live
Deep down inside
Where you can’t forgive.
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Photo by Cassi Josh on Unsplash
