Kevin Olsen: Poet

“Girls of Concordia”
Sonnet 176
4/5/01

Well, I must away. Dawn draws nigh and this celestial dream
Of angelic visions must take its rest
In the daily burdens that cloud my mind’s searching gleam.
Until once again as the night’s silent mist
Awakens the sleeping wings of those aerial maidens,
And they wing their flight o’re dragon and fire
To caress my hidden senses with their sweetest kisses–
In the memory I cherish every night time hour.
The day I left my home for glory and the town
Was the day I found those faeries with the lacey eyes,
Who in their smiles I drowned
And found the perfect way to die.

“Butterfly on a Train”
3/23/01

Feelings of fetal vulnerability
Remind me of school-yard days
When all knew I wasn’t. I tried
Like the rest where the others played.
A butterfly on a train
Feels the way of lost, confusion.
Choosing signs he cannot read to fain
A pseudonym of fake delusion.
A puzzle piece from different worlds
Set and crammed to fit
A set with other girls
Who live there like the rest.
Scrapers rise like brick and steel
Over a concrete land in lost surreal.
The country boy can’t find his way
And to find his life is not more real.
A turtle with a glass shell
Feels just as well to float in a sea
Where the rough snapper couldn’t dwell
And finds the latter loser be.
In my deliberation I’m sure I’ll find
Along this L a fitting rhyme
To describe the fading feelings
That earlier described my life,
But praying with a hope
I’ll make it before I die.

“Silent Invasion”
3/19/01

Silence invades my very pours,
Sliding like the whispered moors
On walls of rock ‘long ivy knolls
Framed by stories constant told.
Celtic knots and green
Hang ’round like druids, silent,
Mean, but perfect in the quiet.
Play the songs that flow
O’re all the ears that pass
Along this row
Of silent standing grass.
Here the quiet take control
and sing its tale of old
In the center of you Gallic mind.
Sit, listen to nothing, hear, unwind.

“Intertwined”
3/14/01

Religious strands rise
intertwined
with the steam off the cups,
dripping neatly from the lips.
Poetic hands write
inscribed
on books in pages blank
describing what he feels and thinks.
Droning music tries,
undermined,
to fill the silence outside our ears,
but nothing’s heard except our fears.

“Cynic Photographs”
Sonnet 174
3/11/01

Old places burn the negatives clear
Off the paper clips in my mind.
Places held dear
Smell of haunting, vivid times.
Faces lost in a myriad of crowds
Stand striking and the same.
Despite my tested doubts
Some things never and forever change.
People remember names clued by eyes
But I deny they care
Like I often try,
But maybe there could be more there
Than I choose to acknowledge.
Despite the cynicism, the photographs have power.