This is a book of poetry about trauma, depression, and PTSD. This book is part of an effort to eliminate the stigma that surrounds mental illness and help people to seek treatment. The book will also help those who are curious about mental illness to learn more about it. This book also includes poetry in the Japanese style and original artwork.
This is a book of poetry about trauma, depression, and PTSD. This book is part of an effort to eliminate the stigma that surrounds mental illness and help people to seek treatment. The book will also help those who are curious about mental illness to learn more about it. This book also includes poetry in the Japanese style and original artwork.
Mild Yellow
Do you know mild yellow?
That deeply doleful Longfellow
Fancy rhymes does he bellow
In that tempo so cool and mellow
Deep and rhythmic like a cello
What is his longing no one can tell-no
That ever-mercurial mild yellow
Lament of Lucretius
What are the whims of gods and men?
Their own miseries to multiply by ten
Brave Rome in all her might and glory
Gave rise to this needless, tragic story
The sweet verses of our dear Lucretius
Ceased pouring forth over feelings so specious
For every beautiful, eloquent verse
Flowed from a man with a vexing curse
Oh lovely Venus, where is your blessing?
For his unrequited love so distressing?
Mischievous Cupid what misery did you sow?
When you let loose your arrow from its bow?
For only one heart was struck with love
The other cold without coaxing from above
Lucretius found no love in the one he wanted
Every day his mused soul it haunted
He celebrated the high words of Epicurus
Yet found the pursuit of pleasure so injur’ous
The conquest of a woman’s precious heart
A most difficult struggle from the start
Lucretius knew the delicious prize he lost
And what would be its enormous cost
To hold the affections of a woman did he try
For want of her love by his own hand did he die
Every man who holds this priceless flower
Please cherish it your every waking hour
A woman’s love, there is nothing greater
Endeavor with pleasure always to sate her
A World So Cold
I was born to a world so cold
I quickly learned I had to be bold
When you must stand alone
Self-reliance you must hone
Deep in my own world did I bury
Everyone else not to harry
At a distance beyond a moat
I would give no other a boat
My own feelings I entirely spurned
As the hate inside fiercely burned
A world of zombies tried to hurt me
Why could they never leave me be?
Trapped within a prison of my making
So many of life’s pleasures forsaking
I thought this served me to protect
I never meant others any disrespect
Yet from aloft did I often gloat
Cruelties arose from my throat
I meant no harm only defense
One too many jokes at my expense
One day my fortress was greatly assailed
At once my defenses wholly failed
She would not take no for an answer
Her love pierced me like a lancer
With love’s dagger now impaled
The ship of loneliness finally sailed
The walls came down all around
My aloof safety came to ground
Now with friends I’ll happily mingle
We’ll laugh and joke in rhythmic jingle
Friendships form and blossom gaily
I interact in the positive daily
If all show love to those who hurt
Great kindness and love will assert
Then the world knows less pain
Fewer of us walled off in disdain
The Sunrise
The darkness infinitely pervades
Despair endlessly my heart invades
The coldness of life does ever impair
I want to hope but I shall not dare
What is this in the distance I see?
The sky alights and I think to flee
Stand fast I shall to perceive the change
Not again shall my thoughts derange
In changing hues now violet now blue
I begin to see the light, could this be true?
A subtle warmth grows all around
Signs of life shine green upon the ground
A glimpse of happiness, contentment, and peace
For a brief moment my anxiety does not increase
What is the new unknown sensation
That creeps up to befuddle my vexation?
I feel the emotion mysteriously rise above
What is this? Could it be love?
But for whom? There’s no one nearby
Could it be love of self? Young and spry?
What lies down this new and happy path?
My dolor to be washed away in a bath
I’ll take the step, I’ll commit to this course
To overcome my terrible remorse
The bright disc rises upon the horizon
Like the changing of the season
Warmth on my face washes away
So many a dark, depressing day
Color abounds in this new world found
I am like a king who has been newly crowned
The beginning of life without chains
The light does cleanse my many pains
The day has come to start anew
To new found confidence this is due
A smile slowly spreads across my face
Thank you G-d for bringing me to this place
I Wanted To
Today I awoke and stood
I breathed because I could
I spoke and laughed dryly
I walked and started handily
I kissed and caressed
I held tightly and finessed
My eyes said come hither
I acted and did not dither
I worked and played
I left then I stayed
All as I had many times afore
But today it was not a boor
I lived because I wanted to
The rhythm of life as I do
What changed for me today?
I wanted it to be this way
Suddenly Sweet
Life was bland and full of pain
No matter the effort there was no gain
I suffered those years life seemed for naught
Could there be something worth living ought?
One day the sun finally shone
I saw life’s worth in her eyes alone
For the first time my breath was welcome
I felt love and pleasure as before seldom
The bitter fruit of life’s wicked plan
Turned suddenly sweet I am a fan
Her smile and touch such happiness brought
From then for her I struggled and fought
Snakes Intertwined
Like snakes intertwined
Her future and mine
We’ll give this life a go
Through the years
In the joy and tears
A greatness we will know
We’ll create cool little people
Though our patience feeble
This seed we shall sow
And in our last winter
We shall not splinter
Our love it will glow
Sweet and Sour
Life was sweet, it turned sour
It was a treat, it lost its power
I had a seat, I passed my hour
I had the beat, now I’m dour
When we did meet, I did not cower
You were a feat, a blooming flower
I was complete, now I glower
I’ll use my feet to leap from a tower
Life was sweet, it turned sour
The Rose
Lovely is the flowering rose
In its poised, pristine pose
Yet many a sharp thorn
Does her long stem adorn
Beware of her beautiful bud
The stem below may draw blood
Though she look like terrific fun
The painful process already begun
As you draw near her lovely petal
Know she’ll surely test your mettle
He who can surpass her defense
Will be blessed with recompense
For none is more comely in her pose
Than the thorny, blooming rose
A Poem Not
'Twas a dank and rainy gloam
When I sat to compose a poem
Lacking inspiration I deigned
To sit and ponder as it rained
Alas naught came to mind
No matter how much I pined
Try as I might to find a muse
I'd struggle, contend, and lose
How could I compose a tome?
Without a subject clear as chrome?
My mind ached, pulsed, and pain'd
How might my talent be unchained?
A purpose and direction I must find
This poem must be composed and lined
I look down in shame and see only shoes
A poem as wasted as a baby's coos
This poem is not a Japanese style syllabic poem, but I simply composed every line of seven syllables with rhyming.
The Heart in Twain
When thine heart is drawn in twain
Ye cannot help but feel pain
It might drive any man insane
What decision can ye deign?
But render that old refrain
Naught can be but drawn in twain
If ye choose one way in main
You’ll send another down the lane
And if not how shall ye feign?
Loving two at once does drain
Ye be tied and bound with chain
So like the blow of the cane
It will ever be your bane
To stay in this loathsome vein
So full of bile and disdain
To drown in the deluge rain
The choice begs to one attain
Not from the decis’n abstain
To one ye cling in campaign
The love of the other wane
The love of two must arraign
For one passion does constrain
A second love one detain
When thine heart is drawn in twain
I Did Not Seek
I'm in a haze, the world's ablaze
My anger reaches peak
Yet from afar, a tiny star
My mood to make meek
A light does shine, it is mine
A love I did not seek
This poem was inspired in part by L'Allegro by John Milton. A friend issued a challenge to compose a poem in early modern English and this was the result.
The Lovers’ Tempest
‘Mong the clover she be laid
A bright and lovely maid
Whose flower does bloom
In the balmy gloom
Ere my touch does fall
She’d giggle and smile all
Playful are the words used
That keep my lover bemused
Likened to a pleasant dream
‘Long some lonely stream
My hands upon her legs caress
The birds and bees doth confess
Upon her gentle slopes to play
In the warm grey of the day
To ignore the worldly cares
As in raunchy Irish airs
My perfidious need
Does she quickly heed
She be upon me in an instant
My immortal seed to implant
Wrapped in wanton complexity
‘Tis pure an’ heavenly ecstasy
Be we without remorse
In heated intercourse?
In treacherous battle engaged
The bawdy tempers enraged
Locked upon her eyes mine interest
She thunders a womanly tempest
As if too soon the deed be done
An awesome victory hath won
Thy rosy face dishevel’d
The great lovers level’d
Awesome intellects converge
‘Twas two lofty minds at merge
All creation bows
Upon these sacred vows
How feels thou, my child?
Now free and wild
A cool breeze descends
Then stillness offends
The day so grey and plain
Ere there be time to storm again?
Despair and a Love Affair
Neither the finality of death
Nor the happiness of life
For naught the least I careth
I have not the will for strife
Nothing ventured nothing gained
A bright young woman light in her eyes
But I feel naught, I'm utterly drained
A fleeting interest in her dies
On this day I am not here
I truly have no wish to be
To me there is no worth, nothin' dear
Little in it but bother to me
Why has G-d made me such a waste?
I contribute naught and give little
For my very life I have not taste
I am a curiosity, a poorly made riddle
What might be His purpose?
To make me suffer life so
My mind is perfidy below the surface
There'd be no loss if I go
There are but few things I desire
Occasional beauty, passing color
I'll heap them up for the fire
It is emptiness in ghastly pallor
I would seek oblivion in a heartbeat
A tiresome effort not worth a try
I'll cling to life as with a cleat
Too much trouble just to die
I'll venture a smile I'll attempt a jest
I will make a go and be clever
I'll botch it up and fail the test
Head in the guillotine and pull the lever
If only in a war I could die in valor
Upon a battlefield I'd charge like a hero!
Alas no conflict for me has allure
No chance of heroism, just zero
Then upon the horizon appears
My adorable lover comes into sight
My sour mood in an instant clears
For her I'd work, labor, and fight
The light plays upon her hair
Softness around her eyes a pleasure
For her slight happiness ends my despair
How did I come by her, my treasure?
The one thing given me by holy G-d
Oft mine opponent, my nemesis
When one thinks of it somewhat odd
That He'd give me her and so much bliss
I suppose this life I might accept
As long as at the end she is left
I might have a go and be adept
So long as from her I am not cleft
The Web
Behind eyes so cool and clever
The spider crouches ready ever
Into his thick web of sin
He does beckon her come in
It’s tough fibers do tightly restrain
His wonton desires to her appertain
Her useless efforts to escape
Do only his trap ever escalate
She’ll not get free she cannot run
Until with her he’s had his fun
Youthful innocence he pierces through
To consume her beauty a time or two
The virgin ground being once disturbed
Still frequently she’ll be perturbed
The sweet juices of young beauty
The delicacy is his life’s one duty
She’ll not fret or fight his yoke
For in her, traits unknown were woke
A clever woman at once reveals
It was not her beauty that he steels
He thought was prey he’d bit into
Only too late did he learn what’s true
She tasted to him of colorful prideaux*
Only to unmask a black widow
*Prideaux is an ancient Cornish word that means rainbow or meadows of water. Also a surname and place name.
I Bring the Chaos
Wherever I go I bring disruption
I cannot behave there is destruction
Try though I might, I cannot contain
My lawlessness, rules do not appertain
Others so easily confine
To the rules and laws that define
The limits of acceptable behavior
No curiosity about their savior
Why is it I cannot conform?
Why do I ever resist the norm?
To others I am so entirely alien
I may as well be Emperor Aurelian
With high anxiety I simply cannot
Obey others I become so distraught
Depression brings me down
My motivation sinks to drown
Wherever I go I bring the chaos
I am the destructive albatross
If you want a great conflagration
Call me in with my imagination
There is far too little work in the realm of art on the theme of mentorship. When one person voluntarily takes on the responsibility to help another. Not a parent who is naturally in a guiding role nor someone with something to gain. Just a friend who cares and has something of value to teach. I have had several important mentors in my life who were essential to my success. I try to pass on the same spirit to help others. I have mentored a number of others who have experienced the kind abuse that I underwent. This is a poem about one such young lady whom I helped. The poem also expresses the strange way in which I feel a self-love through helping others.
The Mirror
Anxiety is to me a constant din
A raucous feedback from deep within
My chest tight and hot does burn
Tension in my muscles, for an end I yearn
Yet for me the din never relents
My calmness and pleasure it ever prevents
Those around me do not see, all I do
Comes after coping with this milieu
I am understood by only an unlucky few
Who have terrible abuses been through
Our friendships do not to most look apropos
To those who do not our tragedies know
I see a teen girl whom I have never met
Something strange about her… I bet
Soon I know with an intense, sinking pain
That which words never could explain
Unwanted liberties with both have been taken
By those who should protect we were forsaken
Abuses of body and mind, horrors untold
Have made our very souls turn cold
Although before we knew each other not
Suddenly, we share in the same thought
We know each other now as for a lifetime
The instant connection entirely sublime
When into her deep eyes I peer
I see only myself as if in a mirror
My love for her is not her own
But for the child me, not yet grown
I share with her of my sacred light
To give her a strong reflective insight
The seed planted and watered to grow
The light nurtured soon brightly does glow
In time she flowers into a young woman
Shining bright and smart of many a lumen
But onlookers scoff and wrongly assume
That for some foul deed she I groom
Yet my desire is only to see her great
Some lofty achievement her soul to sate
If I can but relieve within another
That suffering that does my own happiness smother
My life will have purpose and meaning
Cultivating greatness in others and gleaning
I cannot believe myself to have value
Insecurity for confidence is in lieu
When I hear another’s cry for aid, a yelp
I cannot deny them my love and help
Those who know not such great abuse
For them I have but little use
Only those who have pondered their own ends
Can ever truly be among my friends
The cycle ends here with this generation
Not to pass on the pain to another iteration
No one deserves to know that which I share
With those for whom I most care
As a child the Challenger disaster had quite an impact on my subconscious mind. I have occasionally dreamt of falling from the explosion. The dream repeated recently and inspired the poem.
A Dream of Descent
I feel weightless and alone
I must be falling on my own
I open my eyes, a blur I see
Is that the blue sky above me?
It is then that I become aware
Of a large greyish cloud up there
A long plume of smoke in a stream
Comes to a ball of fire or so it seem
Two more streams of smoke
Out from the large ball poke
I am beneath the ball falling
I know a surface beneath is calling
The smoke is now farther above me
My sight returns more clearly I see
The shape of the smoke by wind distorted
Some great enterprise now aborted
As I descend I ponder what has happened
To the circumstance details I append
From the launch pad we did ascend
But an explosion our course did up end
The descent continues as I fall A certainty of the coming end does call There is nothing at this point I can do
I have no fear, I’ll meet my fate too
From the beginning life to me was cold
By now the suffering has gotten old
I look forward to the end of the line
Time to transcend to the realm of the divine
A smile spreads across my face
The certitude has found its place
I fall happily and content
More suffering to prevent
Peacefully I await the inevitable
A pleasant end so charitable
The spectacle above begins to fade
My dues in life now are paid
Forced awake I come to
Into reality from the dream in lieu
Grave disappointment sets upon
As I realize I am to live on
My dream so pleasant now interrupted
My happiness self-destructed
If only I could have that satisfaction back
For contentment I will ever lack
The Sky Is Falling
The sky is falling we are all to die!
Wail, shriek, screech, and cry
The latest crisis the latest fad
A very small number have died, very sad
What have surrendered for false hope?
Our freedoms gone to their addictive dope
We have destroyed lives and legacies
Due to disastrous false prophecies
We live in fear and isolation
Our livelihoods now desolation
Cutoff from those whom we love
Taking orders from above
Can you feel the boot upon your face?
Everyone has surrendered in disgrace
Here’s to our greatest enemy: ignorance
Lost in our cognitive dissonance
For the greatest threat to all mankind
Is to be led like sheep, wholly blind
I feel it everywhere, it’s in the air
A palpable feeling of mass despair
Yet this crisis is only today’s flavor
Those who seek ultimate power to savor
Tomorrow it will be crisis anew
Whether a lie or partly true
Life has become misery unbearable
It has been shaded by something terrible
Are they wrong? What can we say? As we choose not to live our lives today
“You must stay home and hide!”
“You are going to die if you don’t abide!”
From an illness a little worse than the flu
Another excuse to subjugate you
Listen instead to your own heart
You should have trusted it from the start
Engage your brain open your mind
Consider that facts, leave none behind
For yourself safe choices you’ll make
Looking out for your own sake
Through struggle and strife
Together we will defend life
Not only to live and breathe
But also seek fulfillment to seethe
We will go forward hand in hand
Life will go on in our great land
Over the years many trials great
Mankind will overcome, don’t take the bait
The sky is not falling and few will die
The end is near is just a lie
Be calm and loving toward your fellow man
Everything has a place in G-d’s awesome plan
Cling to those whom you hold dear
Show them that you do not fear
Keep your watch, victory is in sight
We will not go quietly into the night...
The Date
I saw her standing across the quad
Brown hair and long skirt I did laud
I wanted to meet this gorgeous lass
She held herself with such class
One day, while with a hacky sack we played
Opportunity struck when near her it strayed
I sat beside her to say hello, and just like that
I had her number and she mine after our chat
I took her on a date a cool November night
An Irish pub and to a flick to her delight
I was with her a gentleman, quite pristine
She had a great mind like a queen
I did not know I could not foresee
With her I was forever to be
I loved her so from the very first day
True love would have its way
Cherry Blossoms
In spring cherry blossoms bloom
Many vibrant colors they assume
White, pink, and velvet red
Soon sweet fruit shall be bred
Many cherries will begin to dangle
In due course they’ll drop from every angle
Seeds will implant new life
New trees rise through the strife
Autumn brings an end to the leaves
Soon winters bitterness will receive
Spring comes again with life renewed
Cherry blossoms sprout in beauty reviewed
Isaac Knight has a lyrical flow that elevates his poems. Some of the poems are short but carry enormous emotions. Knight's first poem "Mild Yellow" is just that, and also accompanies by a beautiful photograph taken by the author. Beautiful yellow bursts from trees that match the golden leaves on the ground. He writes:
"In that tempo so cool and mellow
Deep and rhythmic like a cello"
Knight continues through the book with a flurry of emotions. He tackles love, pain, depression, beauty, and more. The combination of photos and art pair words with a lovely visual aesthetic. Knight also takes time to explain some of his poems to his reader and why they mean so much to him. For the poem "Mirror", the author describes the theme of the poem at the beginning, providing insight for readers. He says:
"There is far too little work in the realm of art on the theme of mentorship. When one person voluntarily takes on the responsibility to ...Not a parent who is naturally in a guiding role nor someone with something to gain. Just a friend who cares and has something of value to teach."
The passion Isaac Knight has for giving back to the art community is heart-warming and much needed. He explains how those who mentored him inspired him to give back to those in need of a guide. I believe this is a crucial circle that keeps the art and writing communities flourishing year after year.
Dark Recesses of the Mind is a memorable collection of art and poetry. I recommend you read this book slowly and savor every stanza. With classic poets to inspire him, he honors the cadence of rhyming and tosses in a modern feel. Knight curated the book delicately and I implore you to take your time.