Poems by Tobin Marks
Of love's and friends
I've left behind
On roads that would not bend
Resolves left shaken
From roads not taken
And quail what might have been
Songs of a Mute
I have no eyes
But I must see
I have no voice
But I must sing
Unconsoled by the dark
My mind how it seethes
For my forest stands naked
Stripped bare of her trees
Chained to these stumps
Blindly groping the wind
Singing testimony in silence
Comes that rage from within
But no one can hear
These songs of a mute
For in my guise as a statue
My message cries moot
So, I need to escape
This quiet cacaphone
But I have no feet
And I must run
***
The Long Walk Back
On the long walk back from Eden
On a day much like today
I was banished broke and bleed'n
Not a nickel to my name
As I stopped to rest and wonder
About the direction of my path
The clouds began to thunder
As the heavens rent their wrath
Left crucified and naked
I pined from whence I came
The past then seemed so sacred
Like that garden at Gethsemane
I remembered days of glory
Full of friends and wine and song
Back before my path was buried
By the ashes of bridges gone
Oh martyred road of paradise lost
Once paved with pious plans
You took your toll at twice the cost
From whence this trip began
Then that multitude of questions
Left pondered in that rain
Read...the rewards of discretion
Are the torments of the sane
In my minds secure cognition
From an unreconciled past
Offered one final recognition
That my welcome didn't last
So, this self inflicted exile
That seemed so righteous at the fore
Had me marching many miles
With that heavy cross I bore
And in all my questions concert
About those reasons that I'd run
Their answers gave no comfort
For their answers numbered: one
Thus on this steep and oneway path
Salvations found, but fleeting
That answer is...you can't go back
Once banished broke from Eden
***
Knowing No Colors
Knowing no colors
Nor borders, nor race
Given to blindness
Its license to hate
Expelled by the learned
But taught to the young
By the school of the ignorant
Where its anthem is sung
In these halls it is praised
By that choir of fear
Whose chorus is unreason
But tonal is clear
That man is a beast
Best caged in one place
By the plague of apartheid
And purity of race
But that purity is myth
And the bane of mankind
For the blight of the bigot
Is the mote in God's eye
For the world melts together
As blood begets brothers
And our only hope...
Is knowing no colors
***
Bereft of Sight
Bereft of sight
My senses took
Their resurrections leave
For blindness is
As blindness was
And shall forever be
What length live I?
Eternity
With focus borne obscure
And never knew
True vision quest
Bore naught that blinding cure
When viewed in full
Through windows past
Those darkened clouds converged
And closed abrupt
That clouded pane
With light so justly purged
So now in black
I contemplate
When time was clearly bright
Before my senses
Took leave and left
Me...bereft of sight
***
Now and Then
Every now and then
When I look within
The mirror of my souls left wanting
What reflections I find
As I meander my mind
Are recollections of ghosts still haunting
Why I buried my dead
In the past was to shed
The present of unpleasant recollections
For the mirror masked the lies
When viewed with blind eyes
Reflects the face of false circumspection
Chagrin had I known
What bitter harvest I'd sown
Planted deep with addictive carnal pollen
But my real demon seed
Was a shallow selfish need
Buried deep with the corpse of the fallen
For the truth will not stop
Until that bitter harvest crop
Grows tall at the tomb of abandonment
But my real ghostly pain
Was my penchant pride for shame
Where the grave paid the price of atonement
So, no unabashed repentance
Grants a pardon from this sentence
Guilt is mine for all time, by my hand
And in that malignant mirror I see
A man stares back at me
Wipes his eyes, as he cries, now and then
***
The Wall
I once found a wall
In the shadow of time
And perched on its edge
I protected my find
Built on a bluff
Its strength was its stone
Though its foundation was strong
It stood all alone
Like a Byzantine fortress
With ramparts and gates
I fought all invaders
Who assaulted my fate
As I bolstered my banner
And championed my cause
After every assault
I built stronger walls
From its edge I surveyed
My desolate domain
But my kingdom had crumbled
To just random remains
For so long its withstood
These storms of the stone
But I weathered my prison
On my wall...all alone
***
None But God
In the twilight of a season
One cool October Day
A single leaf departed
Its home since early May
It spiraled down so softly
In lazy arch's of grace
And found in maiden flight
Its final resting place
With a soundless whisper
It lit like Angels breath
Upon a pool of glass
And quivered to its rest
Then tiny silken ripples
That sparkled in twilight
Shimmered towards the shadows
Of the fast approaching night
As with that golden leaf
Those ripples came and went
And noticed none but God
Another Autumn spent
In perfect revolution
The season's axle spins
But season's are but a ripple
In the lives of leaves and men
***
Blood On the Page
All the ages have cried
Bade the bard and the scribe
How the world doth love her a poet
But are unknown are their souls
From Sexton to Thoreau
Even purveyors of prose don't know it
How could we know
The heart of a Poe
Nevermore our understandings not able
Weep the poets haunted mind
Their ghosts are not kind
Like specters these spirits are unstable
From whence it is found
What bridled breeding ground
Are these anthems of answers always seeking
More often than naught
Its the wounds of the heart
That are written from loves helpless bleeding
So, with blood on the page
Dripped from scars of the sage
Flow bemusement and alternate sadness
Beloved poet cried the ages
Grant asylum from our rages
Brief respite with your wisdom and your madness
***
Behind the Village
Beyond the hills and shadowed wood
Beyond the forest glen
Beyond the breath of consciousness
Lay the village Potemkin
Her houses grand with ornate gates
Her walls washed pearly white
But if you seek her audience
Her doors slam bolted tight
For beyond those doors and ornate gates
Beyond those white washed walls
Lay the truth of peeled veneer
A truth that reveals all
For we marvel at her buildings grace
So grand for all to see
But only from a distance
Lest we know her poverty
So, how we leave this hamlet
Burns that question posed of men
Because the answer lay in ashes
Behind the village Potemkin
***
Thunder Gulf
In a full moon fervor
And a tropical tremor
Thunder rolled over the gulf
Once the moonlight delivered
And calm waters shimmered
Now clouds collide in the dark
Like a sparkling white wine
Fresh from her vine
The moonlight imbibes all her minions
Knowing I am one
With no place to run
A prisoner of Luna's dominions
Like a stone looking out
In silence I shout
My spirit escapes with the breeze
Trapped on this deck
With a castaways net
I fish across endless seas
But my prey is elusive
Its freedom exclusive
I know naught where it is found
Distant seas are my tack
No wind at my back
Sailing ships to nowhere are bound
Anguished tides of regret
Wash over this deck
That lists in lonely self pity
But the seas of the night
Care naught my plight
Their temperance is fleeting and giddy
As humid heat surrounds
My vigilance absconds
Campeche succumbs to a trough
Clouds crash overhead
As I lay in my bed
While thunder rolls over the gulf
***
The Grey Mist of Dawn
In the grey mist of dawn
Near the shoreline of life
A man walked alone
His companion had died
I approached him with caution
With his eyes deep and drawn
When he looked right through me
And then he was gone
As I stood there unmoving
He fled with my soul
Then those waves crashed around me
With my spirit in tow
Then those waves washed his prints
From the sands and from time
And I realized quite suddenly
That those footprints were mine
From up above bled a cloud burst
And it started to rain
On my cloak of concealment
And this dull veil of pain
I began running backwards
Up these sands known too well
Seeking shelter from this storm
And my own living hell
I finally found refuge
Where happiness rings
Heard the songs of my children
Felt the joy that that brings
Through a window I saw them
And I shouted with glee
But they stopped laughing and singing
When they looked back at me
Then that window did shatter
In their eyes so supine
In its place stood a mirror
But the face wasn't mine
Twas the man from the beach
All stoic and stone
Still walking on sand
Still walking alone
I saw a man walking
In the grey mist of dawn
'Life's a beach' he cried out
And then he was gone
All the ages have cried
Bade the bard and the scribes
How the world doth love her a poet
But unknown are their souls
From Sexton to Thoreau
Even purveyors of prose don't know it
How could we know
The heart of a Poe
Nevermore our understanding's less able
Weep the poets haunted mind
Their ghosts are not kind
Like specters these spirits are unstable
From whence it is found
What bridled breeding ground
Is this anthem of answers always seeking
More often then not
It's the wounds of the heart
That are sliced from loves helpless bleeding
So with blood on the page
Dripped from scars of the sage
Flow bemusement and alternate sadness
Beloved poet cried the ages
Grant asylum from our rages
Brief respite with you wisdom and your madness
It spiraled down so softly
In lazy arch's of grace
And found in maiden flight
A final resting placeIt
In