HAUNTED (A Lucius Poem)

He is haunted,
they whisper behind my back,
never found the right girl,
lost touch with the real world,
a spectre of the past,
ghosting through life,
dazzled looking through
tomorrow eyes,
dreamer, dreamer,
haunted.
I smile and peer through
broken holes in my spectacles
made by rocks thrown by
bold children, and it
gives me new vision.
So sad and lonely, they say,
haunted.
But to me it is
tragically hip
for I live and run laughing
under the feral moon at midnight,
dancing on petals and green,
in gentle April rains,
and dive into the depths of
summer, soaring like Icarus
with burning wings of passion
on gusts of exhilaration and
on crisp cold nights, I breathe deep
the raven's breath of November,
inhale winter bursts of vivid January razor air
and I live.
Haunted, they say,
the look of autumn trees,touched
with childhood halloween magic,
he possesses the feel of September
and smells of sun and stars.
Haunted, they say.
But sitting here after
mind alterations,
clutching pen and paper,
flying beyond the edge of extremes
I revel in emotion so hard
I may burst and fade away,
like cloud wisps on the
blustery March wind, gone
like a lost kite.
Haunted,
lucid eyes shed fierce tears,
I'm just exorcising my demons,
just exercising my demons,
just gleaning the gleamings
from my dreamings
and these
stark thoughts stand alone,
burning bright
in the darkness.

January 26, 1993

(NOTE: Many readers, editors, friends, etc. have asked me about my Lucius poems. I came across the name when younger, it means 'of the light', and I liked that concept. The Lucius poems are usually short pieces and they have great personal meaning to me in many aspects. They are among my favorite poems I've written and have been well recieved and published in various chapbooks and small press literary magazines. There are 15 Lucius poems, a series of maxims entitled the Proverbs Of Lucius (which also has 15 parts) and various other poems with the subtitle (A Lucius Poem)).