Trident - Softcover

Byorum, Scott

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1490789871 ISBN 13: 9781490789873

Publisher: Trafford Publishing, 2018

Synopsis

Trident is a collection of Scott Byorums poetry written from his late teens into his early forties. It is presented in three distinct chapters that represent progressive phases of his life and his perceptions of it. The overarching theme of the book is Scotts struggle with acceptance, love, loss, mental health, and the outside world. The concepts and ideas expressed in this book are of the authors interpretive imagination only but based on his real experiences.

About this title

About the Author

Scott has a BA in Psychology from Sonoma State University. He has always been interested in art, writing, and music and resides in Guerneville, CA, with his 2 Turkish Angora cats: Monkey and Flower.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Trident

By Scott Byorum

Trafford Publishing

Copyright © 2018 Scott Byorum
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-4907-8987-3

Contents

BLUE, 1, 
Wind in the Mustard, 3, 
Wildflower, 5, 
Where Destiny Resides, 7, 
When, 9, 
Up Here, 11, 
Trajectory, 13, 
Traffic, 15, 
To No Avail, 17, 
Thirteen, 19, 
The Slow Parade, 21, 
The Sad Little Boy, 23, 
The Dead Years, 25, 
Tatterdemalion, 27, 
Stardust & Dreams, 29, 
Seclusion, 31, 
Revelry, 33, 
Reunion, 35, 
Quilt, 37, 
Precipitation, 39, 
Numb, 41, 
Nerve, 43, 
More, 45, 
Idle Pursuits, 47, 
Hauntings, 49, 
Fare, 51, 
Exquisite Temptation, 53, 
Ethereal Blue, 55, 
Edge of Night, 57, 
Cipher, 59, 
Carnivores, 61, 
Carbonation, 63, 
Blue, 65, 
Apples to Ashes, 67, 
BLACK FLY, 69, 
Introduction to These Thoughts, 71, 
Entertain Me, 73, 
A Part of It All, 75, 
Wheat, 77, 
Black Fly, 79, 
Look Away, 81, 
A Day to Dance, 83, 
Rain, 85, 
Autumn, 87, 
Inner Deviation, 89, 
Masque, 91, 
Dark, 93, 
Orange, 95, 
Vein, 99, 
Nightscapes, 101, 
Monsters, 103, 
Desolation, 105, 
Pure, 107, 
Animals, 109, 
Sweltering Haiku, 111, 
White Room, 113, 
Rage, 115, 
To Be A Cloud, 117, 
Fatigue, 119, 
Consumption, 121, 
Atmosphere, 125, 
Alone In A Room, 127, 
Maturity, 129, 
Terrestrial Life, 131, 
The Garden, 133, 
Desert Vision, 135, 
Fire, 139, 
Water Logged And Seaweed Bound, 141, 
Idiot Brow, 143, 
The Crow, 145, 
ARCHITECTURE, 147, 
22:50, 149, 
American Male, 151, 
Angels, 153, 
Architecture, 155, 
Bad Man, 157, 
Balance, 159, 
Body Talk, 161, 
Cold Dark House, 163, 
Father's Strength, 165, 
Fractured Limericks, 167, 
Ghost, 169, 
Interwoven, 171, 
Kiss Me Kindly, 173, 
Legends, 175, 
Life As A Rug, 177, 
Mr. Bones, 179, 
My Witness, 181, 
Never Apart Or Alone, 183, 
On The Wind, 185, 
Once Upon A Time, 187, 
Parenting Prance, 189, 
Sunday's Song, 191, 
That Darkened Smile, 193, 
The Cavern, 195, 
The Dark Heart, 197, 
The Dead Family, 199, 
The Little Things, 201, 
The Persistence Of Time, 203, 
Threshold, 205, 
Us, 207, 
Wander, 209, 
Whistle Past The Grave, 211, 
World In Decay, 213, 

CHAPTER 1

Wind in the Mustard


Wind aboard the bushy trees
On a morning warmly scented sweet
Hope to hear your awakening
Nestled in the breeze

Wind in the mustard field
Such a luscious lonely sight
Hope you make it back to me
On any other night

Wind upon the shutter boards
Clacking against the weathered panes
Hope to see you walking down
That darkly graveled lane

Wind sleeks through a carnival
Brilliant baubles besiege the eye
Strapped upon the carousel
Horses prance and bray
In picture perfect still life
A part of this is eternal
Surely I should see you there
Where the shadows set your eyes aglow
Amidst straw and steel and flapping burlap
Where the wind engulfs your skin
Your hair and dress play sweet distress
And your touch still feeds the flame
I'm glad you came

Wind within the willows
Hauntingly
Calls your name


Wildflower

Grow wildflower
Grow
In fragrant fields so sweet with rain
The swollen ground to sprout your mane
It feeds you from below
Wildflower
Grow

Blow wildflower
Blow
In rushing fields that dance and sway
Unto the wind your colors play
The Sun's warmth swift in tow
Wildflower
Blow

Roam wildflower
Roam
Let the shallow air become your senses
Despite the whitewashed prowling fences
Where birds have not yet flown
Wildflower
Roam


Where Destiny Resides

Behind the door of intuition
Where spinning jesters clad in checkerboard fabrics
Sound brass trumpets
And float in universal symmetry
In the hall of Christmas checkered tiles
Lies an open study
Garbed in mahogany and rich wove cloth
Where an elaborate marble fireplace
Burns warm and bright
In a high-backed chair
With an open book upon his lap
Rests a weary old man
Spent but strangely fulfilled

I sit quietly there
Within my age
And purchase no more fear


When

When the only thing whirling around me
Is the dust in the breeze
The whispering of leaves
And the laden sigh
Deep with strength and ease
Yet somehow melancholy
Of an ancient wistful sea

When the only people places things in my life
Are the rampant spools
Of recorded imagery and sound
Replaying themselves over and over again
Behind and before my waking eyes
Blindingly all around
As each moment is stored in full within

When my heart borders on the disparity of random conditions
Brooding indolently
Musing in sentiment and longing
Pumping pitifully with disease of sorrow
Welling distant oceans of salty tears into my eyes
They threaten to plummet
But always manage to evaporate
Before tracing down my flushed and worried skin

When desolation weeds through my worn and weathered structure
Washing away with time and testament
The fancies of a dying age
The frailty of a lying face
In measurements too subtle to be seen
When with chaotic naivety
Of all things are eventually replaced

When what goes on out there
Is so far away
Alien to what is here
Unrecognizable and empty of pattern
Useless to word or to pen or to capture
Waning from sight and from sound and from rapture
When nothing really known bears truth

My thoughts turn to you


Up Here

Up there
Up there in the cosmos
It's cold
Empty and cold
Only intermittent lightning bugs disturb the all consuming reign
Of the vast icy waste before me
The limitless vacuum
Of space
Those fathomless congregations of swirling fireflies
Colligate and divorce on a scale too massive to witness
A scale that makes my existence
Seem infinitesimal
A figment
A blink
And it is
As is the gnat or the germ to me

So I think that all things must have a place
A purpose
A function
Some kind of space
Not manifest
Or preordained by an ultimate higher source
Just interaction
Blatant or subtle
Inconsequential or profound
It is all the same
Just survival
And death
And life
I think of these things
Within my limited time my limited space
As minimal as that may be

Up here
Up here in the cosmos
Up here
So far above that awesome blue ball that I once called home
That I once felt was my very own
With its powdery swirling atmosphere
And its scabbed and scaly patches
I float
I float above it all
And think of my life
So trivial and insignificant
Negligible to its grandeur
As it must be to space
I float
Up here
I float


Trajectory

As each heartbeat of the day
Whispers quietly away
And each passing of a year
Alleviates or solidifies your fears
As each hour at hand
Leads you further and farther
In both body and mind
From the womb towards the truth
Sail or stay
Set all others aside
Or fade away
But play
As you have always played
Your own music


Traffic

And they ran
Through the bold majestic tunnels
Howling like wolves
With their gnashing white teeth
And their penetrating grace
Their despairing black hair flowing in silken sheets behind them
Their feet fell like dancers
In a demonic ballet
Eyes smoldering like coals
Those eyes
Piercing
And they ran


To No Avail

All those memories
Those childhood whimsies
Those fanciful triumphs
All those recollections
Those embarrassing failures
Those dismal disappointments
All those shining moments
That seem to stick inside the melon rind
All those powerful passions
Those monumental first times
And all the magic moments thereafter
All the time involved
In learning to crawl
And eventually stand and walk
All those poignant talks
All those tribulations
Just to assimilate some purpose
All those moments of barely hanging on to what is real
And all that comes with ease
All the laughter
All the tears
The sad raking shivers
The screeching grating quivers
All that's been absorbed
Understood
And misinterpreted
All that's been ignored
Cast aside
Like so much petty waste
That one day returns in force
To sanctify or horrify
That one day twists your shape
All those people who've entered
And gone along their way
All who've stayed
All the miserable crap
All the generosity
All that's come to be
Is lost to him now ...

He is once again a child
And his eyes stare blankly past the laminated postcard
Out and in to both realities
But locked in none
The simple blatant facts
The ugly brutal truth
Little is felt or understood
Despite the overwhelming transparency of the situation
The only sound
A sickeningly pathetic giggle
Escaping from a physically tormented maw
The contracted and contorted body twitching
To that ancient basic rhythm
All that time
To no avail


Thirteen

The light is too bright for my eyes
The light is too bright for my eyes
The light is too bright for my eyes

Prudence was the rich girl
Full of prideful lifeless struggle
Burning autumn leaves in fog drifts
Cooling warmth the flesh
So wistfully intelligent
So out of breath
No more breath
And it's dark in there
Foreboding and false
Much too dark to care
But her body bears capacity
It would take such persistent patience
To release the love in there
Little girl
Little girl
Lose your marbles
Little girl
Spill your senses on the floor
Spit and kick and scratch some more
Rant and rave and misbehave
Tantrum torn
Conscience worn
Face betrays the petty scorn
That resides behind the lies
Pinching up your eyes
Discovered

Little girl
Little girl
You've been discovered
Little girl
And your mouth is pursed in bitter curses
Brittle pages mark the verses
Where the only life you've ever led
Cascades around the past
The dead

Again again and on and on
You read the words the words are gone
All gone
Swallow deep and relish long
The sweet depression
The lonely song
Captured in the flowing dance
The need for need
The narrow lance
Seeping in as vines and creepers
Break away
Break away
Thirteen

The light is too bright for my eyes
The light is too bright for my eyes
The light is too bright for my eyes


The Slow Parade

Again the Asian Lady comes to me
Bathed in strands of ebony silk
She is ancient and wise
Weathered crossroads besiege her eyes
Countless men have fallen before her in blubbering shame
Their names disgraced
And yet she is slender and sleek
Youthful and sensuous
Men grovel on their knees before her
Groping her luscious body
Clawing away their dignity and pride
Only to mindlessly crawl
Crawl before her
Behold
She isn't there

But now she stands before me
In her mystical elegance
Her flowing black webs
She glares at me with understanding
And assured distaste
She fills my bottle
Like she fills my senses
But out there it is different
She knows that
With my back to the wall
My mind reels unsettled
Yet tired
Within the sweltering heat of the endless day
I watch the Slow Parade
Pass by


The Sad Little Boy

The sad little boy
Sits alone in the rye
With his knees tucked up
Past his chin
To his eyes
His innards twist in knots
And he really wants to cry
He sits and he rocks
And he tries
Tries
Tries

Crying spawns relief
Always dying feeds his grief
In the moments of a maelstrom
He could be flying in the breeze
Could be flying in the breeze

The sad little boy
Sits alone in the rye
The buzzards overhead
Circle high
Circle high


The Dead Years

"Memories will come to you
In time my boy
In time"
He aged 10 years before my eyes
Raised his weary head
And drained his cup of wine
And the caverns of his wrinkled face
Betrayed no hint
Of deep disgrace
His thoughts remained intact
But what of mine?
I asked him of forgotten years
When I was young
Naïve with fears
His delivered tongue drew pictures of romantic treasured tears
And his ancient withered hands crept up to greet his sullen smile
Pressed against his softened lips
Drew down to scratch his stubble chin
That remained throughout a lifetime
He leaned back into his chair
And I moved on


Tatterdemalion

She lay
So limp and empty
In my arms
In my arms

Scholar of delusion I was
Curled up inside a bottle of broken dreams
The sweet bitterness of candor
Waltzing drearily through my inner sanctum
Like two lovers dancing to a dirge of bland discord
And yet the candles are aflame
In our damply etched chamber
Washing their fragile persistence
Over dim and flickering shadows
That withdraw into the darker womb
The corners of this stony tomb

And now she lay in ravishing red
Laced in white and fineness
In my heart
In my heart


Stardust & Dreams

Sometimes the scenery slides past my eyes
Like so much stardust and dreams
And my head wanders high above it all
Aloft on clouds of rambling thoughts
Lifting by degrees

And sometimes reality rips through my sight
Magnified by folds
Crises and courage collide with my will
I'm called upon to speak my mind
My mouth trembles with such noise

And days may seem like weeks in some forgotten lonely hour
Eternity is but seconds in a daydream
Sometimes life is so short
That 80 years have come and passed by
And the only questions left are
Why?
Where did all the time go?
How much life did I live?
What did I leave in my wake?
What will happen to me now?


Seclusion

She stands there
Beyond that whipped and whispering
Tattered blanket of fog
That spreads its ragged tendrils
Through the thin and spiny branches
Of a darkly contorted tree
An odor of thick and musky moisture
Ranks heavy in the atmosphere
She stands over there


Revelry

I recall how the dead used to party
With powdery venom
And liquid tears
To release inhibitions
But which only served to galvanize their fears

I recall how the dead used to party
With bloodied lips
And blackened eyes
Ratty hair held their nested care
Pallid skin their sweet disguise

I recall how the dead used to party
Casting forth the ashen soot from their charcoal souls
Frozen in icy conversations
Self-absorbed with hate and loathing
Their heretic inclinations

I recall how the dead used to party
Emerging from their dreary cellars
As the burnt out evening gloom dimmed into night
They stalked the stony urban sidewalks
Unleashing granite smiles

I recall how the dead used to party
Masked in cold compassions
That veiled their warm conceit
But deep within their deadened hearts
Their dusty blood dribbles pitifully
Ebbing ever weaker
Time eating away at the inside
Capturing the causality of their casual actions
To flare like a furnace

At their final demise
And so with brief recognition
They pass away
From sight


Reunion

Breathe deep the smoke
Breathe deep the whispering tunes
Breathe deep the air that sets your hair aflame in the diminishing glare of
a sunset's searing fire
Your eyes ablaze
Your gaze afar
Wandering through fathomless blue pools of virgin desire

Now we talk
Now we laugh
Now we share these simple facts
These lingering faults
These basic feelings
That somewhere long ago
Were tucked neatly away in some remote recess of our minds

Now we walk to distant gleaming shores
What once was mine again is yours
What once was yours is free to me now
Like the wind
And your smile
A knowing grin

My eyes sparkle with the madness of it all

Yet it's not so strange
Even though it is
It's just right here
Us
Right here
Right now
Two familiar strangers
Sharing one another
Again
Anew


Quilt

What a filthy fabric we thread upon
Polluted with intangible designs
Dirty with deceit and tricky weavings
Tattered
And old
And though we've toiled long and hard in its creation
Working in the indelible patterns of its patchwork
Quilting its elusive shape to our liking
And taste
Laboring our fingers over its piano wire mesh
And its razor lined seams
And its barbed elaborations
Rarely does it ever comfort our slumber
Most often than not
It lies rumpled and soiled
Abused and disowned
Abandoned to some isolated crevice
In our deeply twisting minds
Until some savior
Makes it our own


Precipitation

Millions of raindrops
Here and there
Just a few
Here and there
The sky overcast
The trees in shadow
Just a few
Here and there


Numb

I want to be numb
Feel nothing
Have no inclinations
And no assumptions
I want to be vacant
Empty
Void
A hollow little boy
I want to have no one connecting me
With memories and feelings

I want to be blind
Thoughtless
Deaf and dumb
To all the world around me
And if given a chance
I'd like to crawl inside myself
And hide
Without sensation
Drifting off into quiet
Serene
Oblivion


Nerve

The thumping of a heartbeat
The beating of a drum
The ticking of a metronome
The tocking of a clock
The thocking of a woodpecker
The plunking water drops
The swishing windshield wipers
Slapping water to the rocks
The busy tone on telephones
When someone wants to talk
And if you have the time to spend
Thinking of it all
Remember me through years gone by
Don't even pause to call


More

You want more
And your lips peel back
More
And your face is wracked with
More
And your eyes flare up to
More
More
More More More

You want science
Science
Science offers answers
To questions
And questions to answers

You want objects
Objects
Objects occupy the space
You fill
Your house with

You want liquor
Liquor
And liquor makes you thicker
Much thicker
Than the liquor

You want a church
A church
A church that makes you hurt and speaks the words
You love
To hear

You want a clown
A clown
A clown to make you laugh he skips around
His face
A frown

You like the water
The water
The water always seems to get you hotter
The hotter
The water

You want power
Power
And power makes you louder
Much louder
Than the power

You want sympathy
Sympathy
But sympathy is only superficial
It lacks a certain
Empathy

You want to cry
To cry
And crying makes your body release endorphins
Which get you high
You like to cry

You want the best
The best
The best is always better
Than the rest
Because it's the best


Idle Pursuits

Salutations
To the cosmetically propped
Whose sagging flabby flesh is kept aloft
By tubes and wires
That bulge through fabricated sack cloth
All these lonely people


Hauntings

It's like spending your days in the house you grew up in
All vacant and cold
And nobody home
The dusty planks creak out their tune of wistful longings
The memory of ghosts still breathe within
You watch them pass now before your very eyes
Part tangled memory
Part silken lace
Part trick of light
Part shameful waste
So lost in the wind and the scattering leaves
So are we

We bear the brunt of our legislative minds
Our cold calculating minds
It's like the carnival of swirling lights
Excitingly thrilling moon drenched nights
That one day
It all passes seamlessly away
Now
Looking back into the rusty sunset
With unequivocal tragedy and remorse
You tell yourself that those were the days
As only they could be of course

So stands the tower of my youth
A home on the range
Fraught with whim and whimsy
A mixed blessing of bludgeoned dreams
Darkly kept secrets
Still so disturbingly beautiful
Still so morbidly entrancing
A specter of history that seeps and creeps forward as a living fog
Caressing you from the barren streets of a gutted out ghost town
The feeling of always being somewhere in-between the living

And the deceased
What is gone
And what is to come
I can only stare out into the air before my eyes
Felling the passionate darkness within
Perchance to cry

The Daughter of Desires kisses me lightly
As she catches air to distant realms
In that moment
So easy to slip
Yet I draw into the inner circle
And so do you
As I turn away from what we now have become
I will most certainly sneak a glance back
Someday soon
We will pass this way again


Fare

All your friends must come to you
With the rising of the Moon
You've got all your friends and they come to you
With the rising of the Moon
Silently
You close your eyes
You close your eyes to light
Silently
With retrospect
Younger than the youth
You don your sweet disguise
All of you
Gone underground
Always underground
In all of you
No love be found
No fear be ever found
Consuming breathless air

Agitated fantasies
Of those too cold to care
Introspective callousness
Alleviates your fears
It happens

To breathe the air
To breathe in shallow air
It happens
So watch yourself
Consuming breathless air
The dank and crispless air
All of you
Try not to hear
Try not to hear the words
In all of you

Crisp conscious clear
With night you reappear
Then fade into black
And with the morning breath of life
You slowly disappear

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Trident by Scott Byorum. Copyright © 2018 Scott Byorum. Excerpted by permission of Trafford Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1490789871
• ISBN 13: 9781490789873
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 226