The Poetry of D.W. Peterson

Page One Page Two Page Three Page Four Back to Main

Ten Thousand Reasons	Circle of Life
A Cold Snap in the Fall	Enlighten
A Prayer for Freedom	Fear Itself
A Thousand Clocks	Fretting
Aging	In Dreams
Broken Man	Overcome
Cheers!	Rage

Ten Thousand Reasons

Ten thousand miles of screaming
Ten thousand years of dreaming
Ten thousand lonely hearts do cry
Ten thousand days to kill before I die
Living a life without ever knowing just why
Ten thousand questions
The answers hidden in the light
Ten thousand reasons
Never knowing which one’s right
Ten thousand people are scared
Ten thousand excuses as to why
Ten thousand ways to die
Ten thousand reasons to just let go and fly

TOP

A Cold Snap in the Fall

A moment of strife
The sorrow of life
Such a bitter thing to bear
To ride the crest of the Tsunami
Or to just simply stare
Despondence
Aggression
Sympathetic intentions
The spring is winding down
Alarmed to find
The time was set
The wave just ended now

TOP

A Prayer for Freedom

Everything dies
Everything burns in the sun
Everything grows itself undone
Everything we’ve become
Tomorrow has been a long run
Destiny burns on my tongue
But isn’t destiny’s call, its master’s?
Though Fate controls the disasters
How will we know the truths?
To scale the walls of living plaster
Behind these cold eyes
Is not to despise
Frank, but meaning thee well
Well sometimes I feel blue
Like most of us do
But the sadness lingers, it does
So I say now to you
That whatever you do
Cherish what is
Remember what was
And all will fly free as the doves

TOP

A Thousand Clocks

A thousand clocks
Not one of them ringing
A thousand bells
Not one of them singing
A pity for fool
Empathize the cripple
Console the downhearted
And damn the devil
When all else fails
Return to the womb
An impossible task
So wait for your tomb
Like the wincing pain of a pinprick
The distress shall soon be over
Like the blink of an eye for a thousand years
Till you find rest behind the clover

TOP

Aging

Dark places
Empty spaces
A thousand years of forgotten faces
Marching in time
Continue to climb
Searching for an oasis
Desert sand
Falls through the hand
A precious stone to find
To comb a desert
In search of such
One may lose his mind
A forgotten truth
Of a spoken word
The past is left behind
Stuck in time
Searching for youth
His pocketwatch
He forgot to wind

TOP

Broken Man

Wounded is the heart
Broken is the man
Will he ever heal?
To learn to dream again?

Scarred is the heart
Riding hate’s caravan
Will he ever learn to live, to see the major plan?

No more song in his heart
Torn a world apart
Forsaken are his cries

This young man old
No longer does he see
Views the world only through his eyes

Not a day goes by in unraveling time
Watch the world spin on a string
All puppets you and I

No more song in his heart
No more dream in his eye
A broken winged bird simply, cannot fly

TOP

Cheers!

Still knocking
The fuzzy guzzleburys
Reachin’ out to spin
One more round of a decadent debate
Could you call me a Cab and tell him I’ll be late
Last trip that cat took us on, he forgot how to keep it on the ground
Seven spots in seven slots, and sleeping way too long
“Yippppeee Cai-ay! Gitt-a-long Baby!”
The crazy man with the patch cheered
A tossed salad of exaggerated inflections
From a voice of 6000 souls
Sustenance for good vibes
The din roars into the cool blue sky
Echoes and reflections bounce off the sea
The feeding fish jumping as if trying to dance in the moonlight
Such a boost of adrenaline they could taste
Nitrous Oxide for the heart
Gasoline for the soul
Fire off the ignition
And let’s get ready to roll!

TOP

Circle of Life

Can we not become, that which once we were?
To purge this scourge and make our hearts as pure?
Alas a man, simply trying to be
Can turn so weary, so afflicted
Like lightning hits the tree
Stricken down, trunk asunder
Yet still trying to attain the sky
It grows and grows for years and years
And then just simply dies
As once an oak, so strong and true
Felled and is no more
It gives its bough unto the earth
And turns to simple lore
Such a tree so strong in might
A faded memory
Yet up springs grass and shrubs and things
For every man to see
So what once was but is no more
Still is here today
This never-ending world we see
That changes in every way

TOP

Enlighten

Waiting for the dawn to break
Forever so it seems
Restless I sit and I ponder
As my coffee sits and steams

A thousand thoughts have passed their way
Through my aching mind
And still I sit and wait the dawn
Will it rain or will it shine?

If the rain decides to fall
And the sunshine hides its face
Will I choose to see it well?
Or will I lose my grace?

If the sun decides to shine
As I attend to my labor
Will I chose to see it well,
Or will the daytime lose its flavor?

Will I dance and taste the raindrops,
If the Earth decides to shower?
Or will I sit and stare from the windowsill
And waste away the hours?

Is the cup half-empty or is it half full?
Always it’s been said
With a half a cup of steaming coffee
I have my daily bread

TOP

Fear Itself

Wincing
In certain anticipation
Though pain had not yet let itself be known
Now all the more real
In mystery the foreboding has made it fully grown
Awaiting death’s imminent bittersweet kiss
For ten thousand years it seems
It cannot go on like this
Like a frightened rat scurrying around the cage
Arms flailing in futility striking at the phantom snake in dismay
Digging to nowhere but never to desist
Encumbered beyond return
Forever changed
The mind is weak
The body frail
Awaiting death’s imminent bittersweet kiss
It cannot go on like this

TOP

Fretting

Out of sight
Out of mind
Some things gone
To never find
Hidden here
Hidden there
A precious thing gone
So much to bear
Come across to finally find
Put it where there’s peace of mind

TOP

In Dreams

Tonight I will ride a thousand moonbeams
With thoughts of stars in my eyes
Tonight I will travel to distant dreams
Where magical things shall never die
To step beyond the curtain of the daytime’s stage of stars
Tonight I will sail like a comet above the sky so far
To drift in peaceful bliss
So far from the daylight din
To glide around till daybreak comes
And brings the morning in

TOP

Overcome

Leave the past in the past
Or you know you just won’t last
All the years go by so fast
Better dreams and the daydreams surpass
Always knowing
Never showing
The dead hand of the past
That hated thing of yesterday
Was only in a name
If thrown at you
It would not leave a stain
How long will you remain
In this place like you were slain?

TOP

Rage

Bleeding out
The color red
A moment of intense pain
Thoughts of dread
A silent thread
Whispers of remaining sane
Pangs of malice within my brain
To fall into the dizzying depths of red
To think of angst
To drink of pain
To breathe a breath
Of the air deranged
To kill the quell
To whet the rain
To sink and swim within the drain
To search the mind for something to blame
To lie awake in a nightmare’s game
The straw shall break before it bends

TOP

Page One
Page Two
Page Three
Back to Main