Vernon Ward

[anirbas]

Of Dust and Stars

Of dust and stars
Man is made,
Of glowing sun
And secret shade,
Of dismal depth
And towering height,
Of weakness faint
And magic might.

Man is made
Of dust and stars,
Of freedom wide
And crippling bars,
Of tender kisses,
Jolts and jars.
A mortal soul
Of stars and dust,
Bound to earth,
Yet rise he must.

Who on earth
Can yet compare
Such potent strength
And frailty rare?
Throughout the stars
What mind could think
A soaring angel
So low could sink?

Body chained,
Head held high,
Feet on earth,
Eyes in the sky.
His finite spirit
Will not fade.
Of dust and stars
Man is made.

~Vernon Ward.

~*~

You-Plus Love

Now I see it can never be,
For I love you; you don't love me.
And all the wishing that I may do
Can never change what's really true.

You can't help what's in your heart.
Love isn't made by whim or art.
You feel one way, I another.
I'm your lover; you're my brother.

Brotherhood, beloved, isn't enough.
Love reaches out for equal stuff.
Still
One combination I couldn't improve:
You again--plus love.

~Vernon Ward.

[DavidMc]

I can't say I've come across this writer before. But these two poems were a pleasant read.

David

[anirbas]

Just another obscure book of poems, I came across in a second hand bookstore. Never heard of him before that, either. I get the feeling Vernon was a homosexual from the second poem...
Which bothers me not a twit...It just hit me last night, when I was typing the piece from the book into the box...The second one is romantically inclined...But, he's talking about a man, not a woman...Hmmmm...

[anirbas]

A Spark Once Struck
~Vernon Ward.

A spark once struck never dies,
But catches breath in quick surprise,
Lights in loving human eyes
And makes the startled spirit rise.
The flame that kindles cannot die.
Years may pass, it cannot fly.
It warms each lover to the heart
Forging bonds that cannot part.
Lovers half a world around
Feel it's warmth, hear its sound.

Once a handclasp or a kiss
Strikes two souls to earthly bliss,
Nothing then can break the bond
Tied by bodies growing fond.
Removed by spaces or years,
Beaten down by earthly fears,
Through the struggles and the tears,
All the pulses of the heart
Are the bonds that cannot part.

Love will banish time and space,
Will every barricade erase;
Then shall we meet face to face,
Heal our hurts in warm embrace.
The throbbing heart will speed it's beat
When loving human bodies meet.

A million flames may yet awake
And not a single heart forsake.
A spark once struck never dies
But lights forever loving eyes.

~Vernon Ward.

[anirbas]

The Mating Call
~Vernon Ward.

Let me be the one to proclaim
That all love is good
And all hate evil,
That the mating call
Which draws mankind together
Is itself the divinest law,
More divine than all the fatal laws
Which separate man from man.

I do not deny the mating call,
And when it comes
I essay to enter
The sacred realm of love;
For love is the most essential poetry,
The utter crux of life.
And I curse the patterns
Which at times
Have held me apart from my lover.

Love is good for the soul,
And loving enlarges the soul,
But repression consumes the heart of man
And leaves a bitter shell.

Under palm trees or not trees,
Caressed by wafted seaspray,
out on moonlit beaches,
Beside the moonlit seas,
We have lain together,
My secret love with me,
By love welded together,
To unity welded inseparably.

All of the star-studded towers
Rising from the harbor,
All of the smoke of a thousand stacks,
All of the rumblings of the subway trains,
All of the heedless restlessness of the multitude,
I would not have
For one moment
On a moonlit beach
In my lover's arms.

~Vernon Ward.

[anirbas]

~Two Cats Make the World

Two cats at play in the periwinkle,
One attacking and one defending,
Pawing each other caressingly,
Rolling and tossing resiliently,
Skipping and tripping on soft-padded feet.
How wary she is!
Always retreating to be alluring,
Never to far and never too fast,
Always turning to watch his advances.
How sage he is!
Always pursuing and tantalizing,
Never aggressive and never impatient,
Always sure in anxious restraint.

The Empire State rises blue in the morning.
The church-tower bell is just striking six.
The trucks rumble past on their endless mission.
In the periwinkle bed two cats make the world.

~Vernon Ward.