Poems of Jean Rojas

Mirrors of deception

Hang all over the walls

Writing shadows of

Vagrant reflexes

Writhing inside

And making me see

 

Things are not real

Reflections in hiding

Fallen images

In broken disarray

Lay before my eyes

The waste that I must

Sweep

Right there laughing

And mocking me true

 

Farther than the castles

I dream of in rhapsodies

Farther still the gardens

That grow the

Garlands of truth

I must persuade

This perception

That speaks of mirrors

Defying descriptions

 

I once had faith

But now, I am led astray,

Alone in the darkness

And half-light realities

There is a place called heaven

That carries no windows or doors

Neither floors nor walls

That separate sanity

From insanity

Only fools believe in

Fairy tales, so they say…..

 

I felt the sting of tears

Upon my cheeks

 

I no longer sing

Nor am I capable to dream

I am a one-man show

I am an empty tent

 

Beholden to the candlestick

 

I am the den of debauchery

And the freak

Of all freaks

In the land of the castaways

Inside the mirrors of deception.

 

1996

God’s little bud of rose

Reflects like a dainty prose

In lines that so sweetly glows

From veins that so lovingly flows

 

God’s little doer of deeds

Into souls might her goodness feed

The scroll of life

Unfolds and then reads

She is what this hopeless world

Sadly needs….

 

In life she moved a hero’s pace

Without doubt on her pious face

She who felt that holy embrace

Now is done with her ultimate race

 

Quietly rest, tender rosebud

Nurture that love in your heart

For us mortals alive,

We must continue to battle

The wars in ourselves

Never to know

When our precious sanity ends…

 

Fragrant rosebud of white

Gone-but not forgotten

You lived as soft and mellow

As the morning rain

Sowing your seeds of knowledge

And gain

As God’s own champion

You died not in vain…

 

 

In memory of Helen Lucille Seaboch

                2002

                                                            

 

Do not steal my moon

And leave me out to sea

With tears of passion….

Where is my moon?

The one that I pledged to

Of my undying love,

How has it covered the sun

And still be hidden from sight?

How has darkness

With its heavy footsteps

Come to knock at my door,

Yet leave the light

Craving for more

Of an empty musical score

Ina night without the rays

Of its breath,

Making it a cynical stage

In a meaningless world…

 

I have come to ask you,

In this moonless night of pain

Not to forget me

When you close your eyes

To kiss another lips….

 

Do not forget me

When you cradle another

One in a fervent embrace…

 

Such spectacular feelings

Of which I have never

Come to know…..

Nor my eyes have come

To see…..

Nor my touch has come

To taste……

 

Remember my name

And its sound of life,

Remember my song

And its words of woe

 

Oblivion is a death

In the hands

Of a twisted dagger

Piercing the heart

With a magnitude of sorrow

Unmatched…..uncontested

With blood in the

Wine of regret….

 

I ask thee only

do not forget me now

For I will always

Thee remember

Remember thy face,

Thy voice….

And all that in thee

I have come to love

 

For if my moon was there

Then I could swear

With all my might

And turn this lonely day

Into a moonlit night

Of chance

And romance…..

 

Where is my moon?

 

 

12 January, 1999

For: Jose Manuel Raposo Nunes da Silva

(also inspired by Federico Garcia Lorca)

 

 

 Talented and world-famous Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca became one of the first casualties of the Spanish Civil War."He was a mythical figure, a symbol of all political repression and fascist tyranny".His poetry is hauntingly beautiful.