The Instinct Poems
The Instinct Poems
or
The
Awakening,
Quickening,
Frustration,
Demise
and
Resurrection
of an
Instinct
by C. K. Garabed
DEDICATION
There are women who can make a fool of a man,
and there are women who can make a man of a fool.
It has been my good fortune
to have romanced the former
but married the latter.
Das ist alles!
Copyright Ó 2001 C.K. Garabed All Rights Reserved
The Instinct Poems
or
The
Awakening,
Quickening,
Frustration,
Demise
and
Resurrection
of an
Instinct
by C. K. Garabed
Tender flower, O! delicate creature:
How enamored is my heart to thee;
In my mem’ry’s bosom will I place thy image
For she hath blessed thee with her kindly glance.
Thou art:
Innocent; lovely; beautiful; fair.
Where can I cease this
If I but breathe thus?
Thought that doth tease-kiss
Tempts to enwreathe us
Heaven-sent; dovely; dutiful; rare;
art thou.
If I knew
that we would live again
in other shape or form
I’d wish to be the radiant sun
And you,
an only little flower
on the dark side of the moon.
Just a plain girl
Artless beyond measure
Her innocence would move the gods
To question their own pleasure.
To seek her hands my hands inquire,
To seek her lips my lips desire,
But in my heart’s instill’d the fire
To seek her heart and there expire.
If ever there should come the time
When I no longer gaze on thee
‘T will be a grave and heinous crime
Surpassed by Divine memory.
When you cease to be
materially
You will still exist
in my memory.
Question me not how,
I intuitively know
That that memory shall live on
Even after I am gone.
The language of your facial impression
Holds not to me alien elements;
It speaks, and my eyes are attuned the expression
Reaping your soul of its beloved contents.
I worship your pure light, still purer core
Thereby adding my own feeble shadows;
O! earthly beauty, who’ll return no more
I’ll search for you in the flowers of the meadows.
Henceforth shall be my life:
A bountiful record of mem’ries sublime,
Of indelible passions quietly borne,
Cherished in holy and sensitive rhyme
In my Bible of Virtues so recently born.
Great are the moments you’ve spent in my heart
Lost but imprisoned, enshrined in their art
Always inside me wherever I rove
Dwells a bright image, no god could envisage
You can perceive it, if you conceive it
Seething in beauty, imbued with one love.
The beauty of your soul escapes me When with others your company I share; I blame not you nor my estimation It’s personal - I’m glad it’s so.
Futile it is for me to endeavor To put my love into common words, And yet only then do I grasp the boundless Reaches to which my love extends.
The darkness and emptiness of my moral being, Much like that of the universe, Has been filled with your light and its blessed glory: Scattered throughout with suns and stars.
I dare not look into my heart For fear I’ll recognize what’s there; But then I feel that such a change Merely conforms to nature’s law.
Without your knowledge you have entered my soul And left your impression there, ‘Tis like a golden thread throughout Revealed in all my thoughts and actions.
You have made a heaven of my body Where eternally there rests The perfect artist and the perfect image United in fruitful love.
As I gaze on your portrait and ponder your smile
I feel a bright presence about me the while
Enticing me on to remember anew
A dear faithful heart, now I’m smiling too.
My quest for love has led me far astray
And kept me from the very thing I sought;
Revering reason thus I sought to prove
God’s gift of love. The human qualities
And virtues which I paid great tribute to,
Remain ideals to which I must aspire
Except in love, where there’s no moral choice
To guide the heart, but only the unknown.
My soul shall read the quiet depths of love
In all the words that pass those wond’rous lips:
Caressing sounds that softly touch the ear and
Hover, linger on the edge of doom
Ere passing on to dark oblivion,
Like tasted joys that never shall return
Else live apart in love’s eternity.
Like a sunless tree embittered by the recurring frost
of wintry nights
I welcome myself home to the spring of your
glorious dawning.
I pray that someday you and I
May make our way up through the sky
Transcend the earth and ocean too
And found our home up in the blue.
That wish is for the future, dear
But for the present this I pray:
That love should move you bid me near
Ah! please consent with me to stay.
A Turn of Events Anticipated in a Dream
I love the night
It’s calmness brings you near
Though distant you may be;
Your eyes I see
Illumed yet grave with thought
Foretelling some deep sadness
Soon to come
Then like the very night
Creep on in silence
To its secret destiny.
Sigh again and play for me a tune
Else I must rest with thoughts I can’t contain
My sorrow blends with plaintive melody
Take care that you avoid a brighter strain.
Has life so dulled the mind that I should fail
To take a lesson now from my travail?
For music sad and tragic tales are sweet
And love impaled on reality is neat.
Lately I have come to know
Despair in hopeless love
My heart knows well my soul’s desires
Alas, my heart’s not eloquent.
My wishes are quite simple
For they would naught require
But mutually felt desire
And love exchanged for love.
A Study in Metaphor
The cry for mercy meets with cruel disdain
As near the heart the lover’s wont to stray
Not knowing whence he plods his weary way
Nor wherefore tries he sorely to obtain.
He feels the tide of love within him swell
Drowning straight his wits; engulfed in hell
Entreats to her who would command the flood
To stop the wound that freely lets his blood.
His sigh is rent with cold and puerile pride
To crease the plain of love’s apparent ground
Unlike the wind that strews asunder rain
A tender act would fuse the cloven side
But no, no deed comes forth, e’en less a sound
To comfort, soothe away this grossest pain.
Life is strange Love is a mystery Who can fathom the depths of each?
Man is a beast Yet deep in his soul Resides an ideal eternal.
“Oh God!” he cries, “That pain should be.” He seeks in vain the perfect deed.
Side by side And within one another Lie pain and pleasure, love and death.
Despair is here And hope is there But there is here and here is there.
My part I’ve played
In life’s mad game
And yet my part will never end.
I die today I wake tomorrow You are me still I’m not free.
Oh love in life It seems so real I love ideally, miserable me.
The sages might have said: “He whose heart is faithful Shall know eternal love.”
But the sages really said: “He whose heart is faithful Shall live in misery.”
Look long, my sweet, our castle’s built on sand
Our love dies young, therefore will I; and when
The hour draws near, death takes me by the hand
And leads me straightforth to his solvent den,
Be your love a task so dear unto you
As to place upon my bier sweet flowers
Scented with those tears of grace I once knew.
Dirge
I seek the lonely wayside
I stalk the barren shore
My gloom I cannot cast aside
I care for life no more.
I wake each morn from troubled sleep
To find my heart still sore
And yet I know not how to weep
I care for life no more.
A cruel fate is given me
I’ve lost what I adore
Death alone can set me free
I care for life no more.
Truly I have suffered long enough
And as the darkest hour precedes the dawn
So, too, does my dejected heart despair
When Lo! before me I behold a friend-
As she draws near the world recedes
The high ground falls and I take wings
So long as she my spirit feeds
I have no need of worldly things.
In happy times like these I feel yet sad
To know that farther on there lies an end
To all great times and rare and wond’rous things
As I should think deserved eternal life-
And then the truth of it illumes my brow!
(As many other flashes come and go)
A truth that serves me only for a time:
“But for what was, what is could never be.”
Aspiring Lo! I went my way alone
Like Zarathustra up the mount I fled
Immense, aloft my weary self I shed
Created all anew, did I atone;
Elated thus descended to my throne.