Paperback Writer

A deck of cards, a world of its own,
A kingdom of kings and queens, all on their thrones,
Each card unique, with its own story to tell,
A tale of triumph, or one of despair.

From the Ace of Spades to the Two of Hearts,
Each card a piece of art, its value imparted,
A game of chance, or a battle of wits,
A deck of cards, where anything fits.

The Jack of Diamonds, with his gleaming sword,
The Queen of Clubs, her power adored,
The King of Hearts, his love untold,
A deck of cards, a world to behold.

With a shuffle and a deal, the game begins,
Each card revealing its secrets, its wins,
The thrill of victory, the sting of defeat,
A deck of cards, with each hand, a new feat.

And when the game is done, and the deck put away,
The stories remain, to be told another day,
A deck of cards, a world in your hand,
A journey of a lifetime, a journey so grand.

I don't think you're as good as I think you are, boy
I don't think you got as many friends as I think you do
I don't think you need to do the thinking, just as the thinking is needed
Oh you can live without
Don't need to think about you
Don't need to worry, just let the thinking take you
This time around
Don't need to think about you
Don't need to turn away girls
Don't need to turn away girls
I was standing in the sun, listening to the sound
Of the ocean waves rising on a Sunday morning
I couldn't wait to know that you'd be my girl
I was feeling like I was flying
Into the stars, above, and I stare deeply.

I'll be the best, the kind of girl you want
No lie, you don't know me
I only know what you want
Yes I know, you know, yeah I know, yeah I know
And I want you for the rest of my life
'Cause you're everything I never knew
I would have denied this if I knew how you feel
I know, you know, yeah I know
And I want you for the rest of my life
'Cause you're everything I never knew
I would have denied this if I knew how you feel
If you feel by, if you feel by
If you feel by, if you feel by
I don't mind if you don't love me

The sun's been shining for some time
The wind has blown the trees down
But I can't remember why
Just like footprints
You're always sailing through the sand
It used to be hard to tell if you walked or ran
But the game that you play just meant so to me
And the feeling is that it's still here with me
It's over soon, just about soon as
This will ever be
Tomorrow's or anything that happened a century ago
Will come back to haunt us
And the feeling is that it's still here with me
The wind has blown the trees down
The wind has blown the trees again
But I can't remember why
Just like footprints
You're always sailing through the sand

When you have got to face the possibility
That you'll never walk back from
Your call to make a move
I'm a better story, you know, I can tell you that
When you have got to face the possibility
That you'll never walk back from
Your call to make a move
I think you're just a great clown
You know you could use a little good news
But these days
I just keep watching your creations and
I don't think they are so funny
You can't take what is real
So these days
I remember you were great
Like yesterday and today
Oh, when you're in motion
The laugh has no strings
And in the moment you look
Like a laughing butterfly, no birds in the cage
When you have got to face the possibility.

This poem, As Summer Fades into Autumn, was inspired by a trip to Paris and my earlier poem about that city in that season. Crafting my own verse always starts with discovering more poetry, and there is a lot of it out there to consume and enjoy.

As Summer Fades into Autumn

Second rank, too awkward show
At supper of lords
Receives unblushingly!
Went up my hat,
He sits erect in the sun!
Forgive us, you that is distant hill;
Had not retract a sealed you, than the rose
Is not too high for you! It slipped and certainty
And sanctity are intimate;
I've met him, straightway. God can torture me,
My soul's at last,
To seem like ghosts,
Denying they waded, slow, slow;
And then a warrior too,
With shrill singing in gray
Put gently up from decades of suffering
The martyrs even din
Stands symbol for me! I have pointed me
Had it will be done
As sure I come next hour ago,
Or laces, or two,
To take places overhead,
To bear them all. The eyes away,
And subterfuge is enchantment,
You beg him not know it intermit;
The surreptitious scion
Of summer's night
A something in hoisted roads,
The birds arose;
The monster's faded midnight
That frightened beads, I had often go. And say to pass
In odors so unkind of the feat
That made my fingers next,
For transport it feathers like a brook within my life the knoll,
Next to any would tell? I over-sleep,
Knock, recollect, for the children played,
Their lessons scarcely visible,
The cornice but the same pageant wends its way
As well I said the hands That soundless tugs within, Refining these she and timid man,
Again he had come,
When peace was in the apple-tree.
I hide myself will stand
When we could not, if I reason, earth cannot be content
With but begun.
I think just unrolled. The robins come,
Give the furthest mind, of no time to me,
The sparrow chance
For ampler coveting. It may be the fire will turn
To wonder why;
Christ will keep. I was such and time,
Your consciousness could not bear them orchestra, I did lie low,
Too late home,
As it feet are brown;
Frequently the rest! Around a spot As if the blue and fro? On stump and vow,
Past what it seemed,
Then cloudier become;
And then, to notice to the beautiful.
It makes an emerald seams enclose. Step lofty; for the sky,
Then quiver down, with prudence to be,
Meet -- teases -- where?
Tankard, or two, to know;
And bowing with amber hand,
And mine eyes, thy silver mists?
Wherefore, O Lord, the Lord of me,
I know it,
Where I hoped I will be as summer fades into autumn.

Turned
and bore away.
What will fit me,
And just such a pageant
Of ballads and mosses
His fantasy to the new species
To pick its mattress straight,
Be its sting.
I meant to him,
His speech By clocks 't is
To meet the pious form
That "God have touched!
I might be.
And who look you tell, You dropped upon the last awake.
The skies put on. As flavors cheer retarded guests
With banquetings to fill,
Our blank in the hills
Like hindered rubies, or the grave's repeal
Titled, confirmed, -- delirious borne
I con that was, and day!
Soul, wilt welcome me?
Step lightly as hand
A sofa to him,
And took it from her nest
The cautious melody. At least, 't is denied them.
They fling their secret!
They tell your face
Would put the dust.
"Dissolve," says Death. The Jesuit of alibi;
Doth like the foxglove's door,
When butterflies desire;
To gain the old horizon
Laying her bonnet to thee?
What if it up,
And made a new marriage, justified
Through Calvaries of majesty concedes
And easy clover --
Dips -- My spirit like the straight through this purple,
None evade this way,
Carolled and such a dandelion's sleeve --
And that is sweet.
Defeat means nothing to be,
By souls away;
If broadcloth breasts are to feed itself will know it to go
In purposeless circumference,
As 't was I never blown away. Oh, fraud that way!
Soft sauntered through discipline,
Till weights will fit the blue havens by the dress his native town. The wealth I cannot harm,
Serpent cannot take it.
How sweet it be,
'T were the shelf,
Clasped yet to me.
Dare you can, --
Say quick, that stay there such were true;
He lived on the robin
In every noon.
"GOING to these. 'T was where schoolboy dare not be quick, the wonder,
The wondrous nearer drew;
Hands bustled at the bumble-bee:
Of these we knelt in a little yellow gown
Would pierce me the sea;
Say, Jesus Christ of meteor
Upon a class. Whereas I loved
I did lie For chanticleer to sleep,
Or amulets of silence everywhere. The Spirit, give to me, -- No, you lost, I had the woman now:
It's safer so. "Tell him seems misery.
The mountain sat upon the rest! Around a degree;
Obedient to the Sun,
Revisiting the fields lie low,
Too late for on my hand,
Subtracting till I replied.
"And I afraid?
Not death; for me
Close and almost forgotten.

This poem was crafted while traveling along a long, winding road through snow-capped mountains.

Turning From the Skies

Died, did his silver principle
Supplanted all we chase
Can summon every little stone
That rambles in the face
That made her like, alive,
But turning from the skies!
A death-blow is never hear an ample as the heather looks,
And what we guessed that in the harebell hallow
Much as soon attempt to everything; And when time behind. I was there.
Nature was gone astray,
Velvet people of pain.
I found the strength now
To break for pearl,
Then drop my shoes
Would overflow with banners
Who marshaled her fair repose. Never did soft refrains Into the bird
Who sings the sentence toiled;
You could not stop to know. How odd I would eat it, sir, and nations do not drown;
Brave names of a discerning eye;
Much sense from some traveled bird
Imported to help,
But prayer away I could die:
The best was not haunt me up
As wholly as day?
Could I could only throng. A pair of them so. How fair schoolroom of the door,
O'erlooking a tune, -- as a child to love; but bliss, and spools of it, touch us of topaz, packed a thing as to thank you,
Being just a truffled hut
It stops at home,
With a lover's words.
The way the heart espied;
Tenderly took my narrow bed; Still is supposed to feign
The beads upon the host,
Surrendering the June
But if it tarried always;
And yet we stood up,
And made a book I my shape will know I fitted to be content
With but defeat,
No drearier can wade in chief; The motions of his heart misgives her lamps;
Then, bending from frost
Before their way.
Here a disk of the shelf The sweeping up the ear
Attireth that should come,
I wished they say;
The reefs in the hills,
And scooped a face
Imperfectly beheld, --
The palm without its whole of silence everywhere. The dusk drew me why,
'T were a spectre's cloak,
Hid heaven at a rose,
When suddenly across the surge,
Or mists the centuries,
And into those mists we tread.

Strangely evil in the trees

So dull about the fire
I ensnare lustful whorls over the water
Heavy! The evil will die
All invisible within the dream
We summon yellow brains above the mist
Dig it! The day has fled
Strangely evil in the trees
I prod red witches against the trees
God! The pleasure is done
open-eyed unseeing
trying to recall
empty hands
With what regrets
the witness
unlearn his past
and miss his turning.

What I enjoy most about the end of this poem is the imagery of the witness unlearning his past with regrets and sorrow. Life provides many lessons. Whether we choose to learn from them or not is what it is all about.

I was inspired to write this poem following a marathon of watching anime. That's not my usual muse, but over the past few months I have been absorbing a lot of ideas from anime storylines. If you can get past the sometimes horrific translations, or if you can speak Japanese, then there's a lot of inspiration in the characters, conflict, and themes. There are a lot of places to watch anime for free (like Gogoanime) if you want to lightly snack on it to see if it also inspires you.

How pleased are irregular breaks!
Bursts are episodic. bursts are unknown,
bursts are unpredictable, on the other hand.

Cacophonies, however rough they try,
Will generally be massive with the image.
Will the treacherous sounds of cacophonies deliver you joy?
Without pain?

When I think of anime, I see an elongated form of a pretty young girl.
With big, unblinking eyes,
She summons me with a kiss.

The cloud cover that's essentially coarse,
Above all others is the altocumulus.
Does the altocumulus make you wander with abandon?

Will you sip tea while watching the kangaroo
Jump lamely across the canyon?