Category: Sadness

Glimmer

Time passed, love lost.

Love lost, time past.

And so I ask you

now…

Is there a

glimmer

of anything

that once brought a smile,

however small and fleeting,

to your lips?

I felt the cold

inside your shadow

when you turned your back

to leave.

Is there an echo

in your ear

of my heartbeat

where you laid your head

on my chest

and whispered of your love?

Do you now say, in your

calculated callousness,

that not only should we have never been,

but you will act as if we never were?

If my heart was anything to harm you,

it was a kindling you set afire.

You hardened it to break off all vestiges

of love to remake, and rearm yourself

into the bomb you are,

laying waste to those who would dare embrace you.

My own eyes glimmer now,

but whether from the hot rage

or bottomless sadness,

I know not.

Only let the crows come,

and take these wretched eyes,

feasting on the memories of you.

Then I will stumble off

to finish forgetting you,

in the

glimmering

blackness of perpetual night.

Lovers Quarrels

I see the wall you start to build,

so I build mine.

I see anger and pain in your eyes,

and so I fill my own,

but yours leaks down your face,

and mine does not,

for I am the better warrior.

And whereas your pain is fresh and new,

whenever inflicted,

my wounds have long scarred over,

and the pain within is dulled beyond sensing.

You quickly clutch your handful of quarrels,

and I slowly gather mine,

and we dip them in the poisons

of our tongues, and memories,

place them in our quivers of rage,

and loose.

They are barbed and painful

these quarrels,

meant to shatter and break,

meant to defeat the love that yet might

burn in the heart,

and smother it.

We try our best to find new flesh to pierce,

but we have only hit the old marks again,

rebuilt the chasm, and destroyed the bridge.

The peace of our home is in pieces.

The security of our love is set aflame.

The silence of our emotions is a dry wind.

And the quarrels are exhausted.

We retreat within the walls,

and pull them out, one by one, ruminating over each,

wondering why we still share the same space,

and little else.

It is a war we’ll never win,

a victory denied,

a constant obstacle of overcoming,

frenetically undermined.

So, my former darling,

we raise our white flags

into the light of a setting sun,

as you go your way,

and I go mine.

This Rain

This rain
falling from grace
doesn’t cleanse.

It is an
acrid, acidic,
biting, bitter thing,
searing my soul,
leaving blisters as it
burns.

It is neither
purging nor purifying,
just a rage that caught
the dusty detritus
of a life lived
alone,
aloof,
apart,
yet with a longing
for vibrant passion.

A life weary with isolation,
abandoned tradition,
and sad resignation.

Unable to rise
from its own ashes,
it covers itself in them,
and tells me everything
will be fine.

Victory

I killed him on a summer night.

The moon shines on him fully.

The wolves now come to crack his bones.

Tonight I killed my bully.

No tears I shed, although I sigh.

His corpse swings on the pulley.

The crows will pluck his filmy eyes.

Tonight I killed my bully.

I dreamed about it for some time.

My mind would get all woolly,

And it felt good to shear his throat.

Tonight I killed my bully.

My cats and I pretend that we are

hiding in the gully.

But really we are in my room.

Tonight I killed my bully.

 

Laying Stones

One night I woke, and watched you.

Saw the past in your mind, through your eyes.

So still you were, but there were tears in the moonlight.

I don’t know if you built the wall

or someone took you behind it,

but it was a place I could not go.

I tried.

I fought.

My hands were rough and bleeding,

and I had no rope, no grappling hook.

When I was almost there, I reached up for you to help me.

And you walked away.

I tried again, until I could no more.

When I passed through the gate

for the last time

I turned,

and you were there

in the window,

laying more stones.

Still crying.

 

(*art by jonasjensenart.deviantart.com)

At the End

At the end,

we stood in the rubble

of what was once a

shining kingdom on a hill.

 

The snow fell

and chilled our hot tears

as we sifted through the

burned and broken stones

of our castle.

 

Winter crows gathered,

and one broke the bitter silence

to call more.

 

I threw the stone that

took its life,

but the echo was loud enough.

One by one they grew bolder,

and began to feast on the remains.

 

We lost the fight, the battle,

and the war.

And at the end,

we looked at each other

with sad indifference,

and went our separate ways.

 

Plunder

Into my life you came,

bold against the rising sun,

your wind-tossed locks alluring,

your bright, bold eyes searing.

 

And I opened my chest to give you the contents

of its heart, and at first you treasured them.

The glorious days of sailing with you

were warm and secure, with clear skies and

wide horizons.

 

But in time, you craved not the warmth of my heart,

preferring the cold hardness of gems and coins.

Not the stable strength of my arms,

but the fickle roll of riches.

 

Turning yourself to seawater,

you slipped from my grasp

and left me no choice, set me adrift

with no anchor, no oar.

 

Under the stars my heart withered.

The sun-kissed days grew dank with brine,

and the raucous racket of overbold gulls

pursued my foundering lifeboat.

 

I dreamed that in a reef of nascent coral

I put the seawater to my lips as if to kiss you

once more,

but therein lied a fatal thirst,

and under a high tide moon,

I spilled it and left it behind.

 

What remains ahead is unknown, uncharted,

yet with a sense of direction and purpose,

of longing fulfilled, a calling realized.

As the gull calls fade, the windsong rises.

 

And I know that in the distance,

a paradise awaits my arrival.

I shield my eyes from the sunlight

dappling the dancing waves,

and sail on to fate’s warm hearth,

alone

but finally

free.

Love is Where She Blooms

On her garden bench she smiles.

In her eyes, no cunning wiles,

only shyness.

Humble, sweet

innocence I will entreat.

Quickly to one knee I go,

hearts beat fast, but time goes slow.

Everyone she knows above,

witness this display of love.

See the ring here,

diamond bright.

Yes, I love you!

Yes, it’s right!

Say you love me too, my dear.

Don’t let my heart dangle here.

Lovingly she takes my hand,

tenderly slips on the band.

Fading now, the vision’s gone.

It’s her grave I’m standing on.

Springtime’s redolent perfumes

always linger

where she blooms.

Song of the Damned

And in this

lonely, dusty ruin

I count the coins

comprising

the price

of my perdition.

 

I have strangled

my conscience,

and opened

my accounts.

 

An easy life

in uneasy trade

for a diseased soul

that screams

and cries

in the silence.

 

I watch it

fall away.

I will be

troubled no more

as it sleeps.

 

And see

the teardrops

spray from my lips

as I whistle

and smile,

eternally

dying.

When There’s No One Left to Cry

In the empty room,

she sits alone.

The snow pats at the window,

and the wind bumps against its panes,

but she ignores pristine whiteness.

There were snowballs, sleds and snow angels, long ago.

 

In the park she sits amidst

singing birds, solo saxophones,

and new blossoms full of hope

and virgin fragrance, budding with the

hum of the earth in their stems,

but she ignores the music.

There were picnics, finding robin’s eggs and holding hands, long ago.

 

Along the rainy path she walks in the evening,

when people are home, drinking coffee

and kisses from lips, warm and safe and dry.

The broken umbrella hides her face, and the

rhythm of the raindrops beats to the

racing of her heart.

She ignores the water.

There was jumping in puddles, closing her eyes to listen,

and sticking out her tongue to taste the water, long ago.

 

Standing at the bridge, alone in the misty twilight,

she stares at the red leaves clustering on the riverbank,

as if the tree bled its branches bare.

Vibrant with their true color, she ignores the fallen foliage.

There were bonfires under the stars, the admiring of

deep colors, holding them up to the gold and crimson fire

to see through gold and crimson filters,

and sipping hot chocolate, long ago.

 

And now there’s

no one left to cry,

to cry with,

to cry for,

to cry to.

And so,

she cries

for them all.

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