‘Once Flew and Flown No More’ and Other Poetry by Zachary Dilks

Once Flew and Flown No More

Such heights I once had seen and gusts of winds that caught my caution
Through clouds above a world I didn’t know
And pressed towards horizons, body wrought with all exhaustion
Soaring carelessly so far and long ago

O’er ocean spray and hills of grey that met like ancient friends
I’d watch them reminisce along the sands
And from the heavens felt the first of rains the gods would send
Falling down to earth in single silver strands

But how the air grew thin and how the weather beat my wings
The more I traveled up to fly among the stars
I felt the awful sting of such a cold and callous wind
And fell as what was once so close grew very far

I crashed upon the land I knew would never be the same
And laid to rest those tattered wings beside the shore
Now last to feel the rain but always first to feel the pain
And tell the tale how I once flew and flown no more

Folding Water

So fair is it a reason
Come the warming of the season
That we flee towards the sun with sons and daughters
Like lords of all the land
We build our castles in the sand
And rule the kingdom on the shores of folding water

Where noblemen and bards
Will gather round the golden courtyard
Spinning tales of legends fame from sightly fodder
And the wretch that fowl our streets
Will eat the droppings at our feet
For man and beast all get to feast near folding water

And come the setting of the sun
They’ll hear the beating of our drums
And from our rum we’ll be a sight that couldn’t be odder
When morning cracks our eyes
It all goes flowing with the tide
And bid farewell until next time to folding water

Zachary Dilks is a writer currently residing just outside of Austin, Texas. A toolmaker by trade and a poet by heart, he began pursuing his passion for writing at age 17.