Book cover for Walter Crane. A Floral Fantasy in an Old English Garden.
The poise with which We must live life Oft eclipsed by its strife Is to embrace all The Autumnal shades As the wisest of us Have eventually learned It can’t always be Spring
Poetry inspired by the book cover for Walter Crane. A Floral Fantasy in an Old English Garden. London: Harper, 1899
Delicate cotton whispers Caressing my lonely soul With promises unspoken; I sink deeper into slumber Where my dreams are of The stars, moon, and you.
If the Earth spins backwards And Time turns anti-clockwise Would you still wait for me At the other side of midnight Under the shooting stars And the lonesome skies?
Under the twilight sky I spread my wings, Beyond the haze of restrain My mind melts like Floating ice on sherbet Under a pink moon In a summer glaze A resolve that breaks A resilience that fails Poison on the rocks Trickles into nooks Submerging my soul In a golden liquid Trying to soothe With shallow intoxication My drenched heart That bleeds crimson!
Poetry inspired by the book cover of The Magic of Science: A Book of Amusements by A. Frederick Collins, New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1917.
All through the days so cold I wanted to write But the words had died Slithering away in a whirlpool Of frantic anxiety;
I stood at the threshold Surrounded by the bellows of Unrelenting stress and misery I could barely stay afloat Wallowing in fear and self-pity,
When they knocked at my door I struggled to make sense Of those jumbled letters. So, I shut them all out – Now no one will ever know The stories those words told!
Book cover of Das unheimliche by Felix Schloemp Buch
Darkness whispered to me Secrets from the ghastly depths A smirk on her lips A spectre of disdain She laughed at my troubles Amused at my failures.
“I saw it die a thousand deaths Ages ago it heaved its last breath Goodness is a cadaver Goodwill a misnomer It’s the time of the Black Serpent Slithering on slippery slopes In and out of its slimy scales; Let me teach you the spells From the bowels of hell To charm Beings of the Night For they are all that survived.”
I embrace the inky silhouette, “My dark friend, I heed your advice.” I summon them from within Pettiness, dishonesty, slyness – Throbbing, waiting to be spawned I befriend the shady shadows Blind like the bats betrothed To deepest caverns and gallows They tell me how to don a mask, This masquerade I join with pride, Of the deceitful who have thrived.
Poetry inspired by the book cover of Das unheimliche by Felix Schloemp Buch. Munich: Georg Mueller, 1914.