‘Armor’ and Other Poetry by Sabrina Chen

Armor

Discard the anxious sheath which guards
The balanced song inside
Lest ballads deep in ebony
Reverberate untied

Forgo the throttling winds who sing
Their tainted, luring song
Face every punch along the way,
Distinguish truth from wrong

A standing shaft knows not to sway
Against the coming storm
Its grains were born, ingrained with strength
To brace its every form

An iceberg traveling towards its pole
May subtly melt in store
Its hardened shell will start to wane
And thus reveal its core

At times the masters of all might
Withstand each single blow;
Yet sometimes vulnerability
Must get its chance to grow

To steal away one’s harder grief
In bottles wrapped in chains
Is not a mark of dauntlessness
But a sign of one in pain

The warping path of terrors full
Of endless, stifled fears
May start to be combatted should
One freely shed his tears

The inner strength and balance lies
Deep down within our being
Innocuously temper seems
To heighten yet to wane

Some moments, worry threatens reign
Its pangs, armors disguise
But always man is worth the right
To soften, close his eyes.

Blank Slate

A bon mot says that time is true
Yet memories block their rhyme
In history lies our silent trust
Unsure to challenge crime

A thousand paper slips define
A sheet which rings of rain
Of melted passion out of love
That shoves against the grain

Upon the screen the shadows reign
A mocked, eternal play
Their wordless contours sense the fear
And watch their prey decay

Vindictive puppeteers perpend
Immoral masquerade
Lest rupture of their tampered shell
Allows for renegade

A master lets his threaded veins
Release the vanity
When unwatched murmurs do deploy
Into insanity

When angst allows its fury, pace
To thaw against the slate
The embers of its raging flame
No more shall dissipate

A flame is but a carrier
For unintended pride
In vain, a chance for empathy
Deserves to have its ride

To let the coolness of the now
Relieve the ends of past
Engender balance, softly wake
Transport, to peace let last.

To Watch

To watch the world reveal its trace
Through thousand grains of sand
To stand the rain that takes the pain
Away from shadow’s hand

To cry as peers crouch down in tears
Afraid to start the fight
To make the anguish, hurt, and strife
Evolve into your plight

To mold our sphere into a pipe
Whose inner hollow weeps
To change the day into the night
Through which the torment seeps

To watch, to stand, to cry, to mold
Helps not the greater man
To take the pain, create the rain
Shall not revoke the ban

A wizened soul might stop to breathe
Take time, collect his thoughts
But then, indeed, he dives right in
And soon connects the dots.

To Deserve

You deserve the stars above
To gently kiss like wings of doves
With every move a silent glove
Replacing pain with tender love

You deserve the rainbows wide
To softly sway from side to side
Enveloping your soul, a guide
To guilt no more, but flowing pride

I think I often turn to shun
What makes me laugh, my heart to run
I whisper deafly that I’m none
My struggles, tears, are nothing, done

Yes, wonder has a second play
When fields of gold return their hay
To hence replenish, sun and ray
No longer black and white, but gray

Beneath the cold lies frozen stone
Upon the which a broken bone
Has trembled soft while life has grown
Yet seeks not to itself condone

We deserve the stars above
To gently kiss like wings of doves
With every move a silent glove
Replacing pain with tender love

We deserve the rainbows wide
To softly sway from side to side
Enveloping our soul, a guide
To hide no more, but start to ride.

Inspired by S.

Alas my human blood is dry
With teardrops lost amongst the pain
No weeps can tame my wailing cry
From pillaging imagined rain

No longer does the stardust drape
Across my chest in ribbons free
For demons dark with dauntless shape
Beguile my soul, false harmony

Should bricks commence to rend the dam
Unleash the drops of hope behind
Perhaps my heart might shed its sham
Recall the warmth, relearn to find

With ebony to grace my lip
In ivory shan’t my life define
Yet if into the slate I dip
Ere long, my heart might claim what’s mine.

Sabrina Chen: I am a student who has been enchanted by the symmetry of both string theory and William Blake’s tiger since the age of eleven.  I relish the works of Lord Byron, Edgar Allan Poe, Percy Shelley, and Oscar Wilde.  My studies are in literature analysis and theoretical physics, with my heart invested in writing.

These poems are among the entries for the Society of Classical Poets’ 2012 Poetry Competition.

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