Since I still know you…
I finally found you.
A long time ago, you
Wore music around you.

Caught in a spell;
Trapped in time, tied
You’ve gone through hell
Since the first day we died.

Before the skies parted
And gave us our youth
To lose…and the world started
We knew the truth.

Life fell apart, and
We learned to forsake…
And made ourselves hearts
For each other to break.

Beauty abused now, but
Blackness ascends
I’ve grown confused
And forgotten my friends.

I recall when I lived
Only to roam.
All I knew then was I
Searched for my home.

Deep in the desert
Where I watched the sky,
Dancing blue waters
Were lies to my eyes.

Alone ‘neath a star
Or asleep in a tree,
I was lost, faded, far…
Now I found you. I’m free.

Before the light faded
Remember the laughter,
The love we created,
Not the Disaster.

The worlds you made loved you,
And they will find you,
For they live within you
They don’t lie behind you.

- Written by Anna Williams at Age 22

Almost six years ago,
Under the sky,
I watched the stars
And I swallowed a sigh.

You spoke of sunshine
And laughter and life…
I remained red-eyed,
Saddened with strife.

The wind of your woes was
As much as I heard.
I sent you two roses
And whispered a word.

My life lived inside me
When your life was near.
And my heart faded
When yours disappeared.

There were spirits inside
Your eyes flickering like fire,
They would rise, and then die,
And then trembling, rise higher.

Alone in the morning,
I stood with the wind.
I stepped out inside me
And silently sinned.

I spoke into the sea.
I woke wondering why
I saw inside me
The whole thundering sky.

I turned, telling none,
Found the hills, flew away
Far from the sun,
And the brilliance of day.

Many years waited,
And I waited longer.
And yet, unabated,
The silence grows stronger.

And violence still flanks
Us for so many years,
Since we last sank
Into ashes and tears.

I try to remember
The sound of the snow
The smells of December
I knew long ago…

I try to see faces
I forsook too fast,
And to believe places
Of faraway pasts

Are not lost forever;
Forgotten, or wrong.
For I prayed I never
Would forget a song.

Six years ago I stood
Under the sky,
Within it no longer
I’d learned not to fly.
I watched you wilting
And tried not to cry.

If you wander, wondering,
After six years,
With all the world’s thundering,
Wrapped in your tears,

And if you find me,
Hide deep inside me.
Try to remind me
Of what lives behind me.

If you should meet me
Someday again,
Death won’t defeat me
Like it did then.

There’s no one who knows us.
And when the dawn’s done,
You send the roses,
And I’ll send the sun.

- Written by Anna Williams at age 22

- Written by Anna Williams at age 22

Years went by
I thought
the feeling died
Inside
At last.

Then
One day
It came to me -
So suddenly.
So fast.

- Written by Anna Williams at Age 22

Written by Anna Williams at age 22

Might your memories refrain
From repeating one soul’s name,
Who so long ago has left?
Must you yet remain bereft?

As the answers you once yearned
Have been conquered, have been learned,
You would turn your head in Treason
If you wept now, without reason
If you bent your head in shame
And succumbed to earthly pain.

Look beyond the blue horizon.
Steel yourself don’t gasp and grieve,
If you dare to cast your eyes on
Laughter; if you dare believe
In anything you yearn to be,
In any chance you choose to take;
If you believe you can be free;
If you’ve a promise left to break.
I won’t forget. I can’t allow,
At all eternities expense,
My broken heart to whisper now
And shatter me with innocence.

If I met truth and turned away
And left the world to sink in slavery,
I would have nothing left to say …
I would have no words left to write,
And my whole life would be a lie.
… And here I fight, and here I fight.
I shan’t allow my world to die.

- Written by Anna Vera Williams at Age 21

Originally posted at Free Poems.

@ Copyright 1996

This poem may not be used without the permission of the author.

Often I cried
When I looked outside
And saw only the street,
With no earth in my feet
And no wind in my hair.
I see no way to bear
Never to go
To the people I know,
And the places I love,
And the dreams I dreamed of.

I think with my head
And not with my heart;
And as, at the moment,
The two are apart,
Then if you should read this,
Since nobody needs this,
I beg and implore
That you should ignore
What I said on a day
When I’d nothing to say.

I’ve no wish to wonder,
And no wish to cry.
I’ve no wish to ponder,
And no wish to die,
Only to run away…
Only to fly.

- Written by Anna Williams at Age 21

It glitters, plays,
It makes you smile.
You waste all day,
You sit awhile.
And watch it quote
Quite quietly
Words you once spoke
Defiantly,
Before you woke
So silently.

The turquoise sea
Is far away.
The forest trees
Have naught to say,
And no disease
Can make you die
When you have dreams
Who love the sky.

A dream believes
But never wonders,
Never grieves;
It breathes, it thunders.

It turns and twirls,
And entrances
Wavering worlds,
Because it dances.

You sometimes cry
About your dreams,
Because they die
Because they seem
To bend the breeze,
And dance upon
The quiet trees,
And then they’re gone.

- Written by Anna Williams at age 21

There, the oases , their streets full of trees
And bagels and children, were life at its knees…
Where things could be bought, where no one had seen
Someone like I was, when I was eighteen.

The desert men, whose tired old eyes
Gazed with faintly veiled surprise,
Scrutinized my dim disguise
And made my memories despise
Nights I’d trembled, days I’d cried,
Tears I’d wasted, drowned inside
Years of shame and broken pride.

They gazed without mercy, their eyes breathing fire,
Dark like the gypsies of seething desire.
They followed my footsteps, they swallowed my breath,
They bathed in my shadows, entreated my death.

I met the men of paradise
Upon a sea of amber ice…
Traveling with the turning tide.
But I dared to dive inside
The fading lives, before they died.

I sat for hours and watched and heard
Every whisper, every word
Of broken, barely breathing stories,
Stained in pain and worthless glories.

In Xinjiang, I cast my eyes
Easily upon the skies,
And I tore my life apart.
I glanced within a broken heart.
I breathed upon the burning bars
And made myself a sea of stars.

Beyond the far side of the sky,
Half forgotten, faded, far,
There lies a land where shadows die…
Beyond the winds that sweep the stars.

Be it home or be it heaven,
It lies loved, or lost, forgiven.
You may recall, but though I try
I’ve music for a memory.
I only search myself and sigh.

I only wish I still were free.
I only wish I could remember
The meaning of the mystery,
The meaning of my Red November,
Who haunts and holds my history.

Beauty breathes in every glance
You care to cast on earth or sea,
And all your life becomes a dance
If you decide it ought to be.

- Written by Anna Williams at age 21

I hummed to heaven
With little to lose
Walking and watching
My brown leather shoes,

Along Spanish highways,
Too tired not to smile.
Orchards of olives
Draped mile after mile.

At the side of the road,
With my scarf and my tie,
And my feet growing cold,
As the sun lost the sky,

I trembled silently,
Frightened and free.
I slept on Christmas Eve
Under a tree.

I saw the moon
In the dark and cold sky.
I spoke too soon,
And the feeling flew by.

I lay alone
On the cold orchard ground,
Solid like stone…
As my world turned around.

I gathered dew
From the cold morning grass.
I thought of you,
And I let the thought pass.

Sometimes I dreamed
I might finally find you,
Far as you seemed,
At least to remind you.

At the side of the road,
With my scarf and my tie,
And my feet growing cold
And my heart in the sky.

At the side of my life,
With my famine and fear,
And my eyes on my knife,
As the future grew near;

With my feet in a stream
Of water and scars,
Living a dream
And sleeping in cars,

I sang of sadness and
Traveling shoes,
Murmuring mystery,
Singing the blues.

Next to a gas pump,
I sat and cried,
On the wrong highway,
Wanting a ride.

Maybe the music that
Lives in your voice
Fell back inside me and
I had a choice.

I turned and fled my fears.
I found the feeling.
I chose to work for years
Under a ceiling.

I found a scarf lying
Black on the pavement.
I found a tie after
Years of enslavement.

I put my scarf away
Under a bed.
I chose to learn, and stay…
And my heart bled.

Sometimes I stand by the
Window at night,
Watching the highway stretch
Out of my sight.

And the wind watches me
Lingering at last.
I sing the songs you see
Inside my past.

And the breeze breathes across;
Tickles my face;
Whispers, reminds me that
One day, someplace,

I’ll stand with you again
In your heart’s heat.
…I’ll feel the highway stretch
Under my feet.

- Written by Anna Williams at age 21