Selected Poetry by Matthew Wilson

Photo Source: PxHere

Former Friends of Royalty

Dance with me

For I do not wish to sleep

For she only dances there

In memories I wish to keep.

I had no time for royalty

Until she stared with lovely eyes

And I helped her from the wizard

Whose hatred burned the skies.

My anger got the best of me

When he turned the girl to stone

This princess who won my heart

And in doing so lost my throne.

But I have killed the evil wizard

And I cannot undo his spell

That made her flesh like concrete

And I curse the wizard’s soul in hell.

Hermes of the Mountain

Hermes is a fellow fast of foot

Who by now is halfway to the mountain

Holding a letter detailing my crime

Of how I poisoned the holy fountain.

Even Gods can be such petty things

And I did not receive my invitation

To the wedding of the happy couple

Although I had dutifully manned my station.

Now I sit in a grand hall of the dead

Surrounded by fallen

friends of the groom

But Hermes runs to spoil my fun

And the great Zeus would bring about my doom.

But my ship is the bringer of dead men

And I set my sail toward the sky

Thinking of murder when I meet him

How the poor winged messenger might die.

A Crown of Gold Leaves

I was a boy when the woods had life

Birds of paradise singing in the trees

Before the bulldozers ripped their roots

Like a doctor extinguishing some disease.

Those branches were

my escape from home

Feeling the setting sun warm my face

Safe from unloving and angry parents

Who wished for me to know my place.

A stick in my hand

would make me a pirate

A crown of gold leaves upon my head

Battling imaginary monsters in the trees

Returning reluctantly to my home and bed.

Now machines have

done away with the woods

Where I’d dip my toes

in the freezing streams

But still I play pirate in my memories

And birds of paradise sing in my dreams.

Seasons Lost in the Stream

The sound of running waters

takes me back

To those lazy summer

days that never last

When my daughter chased

tadpoles in the shallows

And scattered multi colored

pebbles with her toes.

No good season seems

to last an evening

And now I’ve lost the ebon of my hair

My daughter does not

reach out to call me

And I have forgotten

her children’s names.

But still I recall the

quickness of the stream

The flick of a trout’s tail

chasing dragonflies

Besides weirs that swallow

lost wedding rings

And reeds that grow

over scattered pebbles.

Now the water is cold

in my awful winter

And there are no fish

to distract my miseries

But still the sun gleams off the surface

Coursing quickly into a spring I will never see.

Matthew Wilson has been published repeatedly in Star*Line, Night to Dawn magazine, Zimbell House Publishing and many more. He is currently editing his first novel and can be found on twitter @matthew94544267