Mortality's Knock

When mortality comes to call
It has a cruel and fatal knock
You stare the devil in the eye
And cannot break the stare.
And that's when you fall
From the dagger in your own hand
That you didn't even know was there

Agony Of Soul

I conserve my deepest thoughts
The most sacred, oft' unintentionally sacrilegious fears
For no other ear but my own
So in my head, these voices they collide
They scream, they fight, they cry and sob
And they tear at my ears
Angry and fierce as the buzzing of bees trapped in a jar
I clutch at my temples and close my eyes tight to block out their noise
But they only grow louder.
Pounding like the sharp end of a pick-axe who tip only draws blood
But does not pierce my soul
Feeling like a blunt mallet that shatters the fragile glass casing of my soul

Butterflies fly free and beautiful
Brush my cheeks softly like fairy kisses
Knives slash my arms, but I cannot see
A dagger pierces through my heart
And yet.... yet I look down and see nothing
Nothing but my own imagination, a pale, empty breast
To pillow another's head
Someone takes my hand and holds it tightly, refusing to let go
Though I try desperately to shake them away
I refuse to meet their eyes, or even direct my gaze in their direction
They speak, but the words are garbled, distant and hollow
Like they are speaking through black water
Nothingness and every imaginable pressure warring and filling my tenders ears
And spurring on that sadistic war-drum in my brain
Its pounding fills all of my world, drowning out that friendly voice
With its soft message.
Only the wounded heart crying tears of blood can understand the need
Need to listen and to hear the one reaching out
But it is beaten into silence by its own vibrations, by its own utter weariness.
And so I cannot hear the one that holds my hand at all...

(I ask myself...) Where have you gone love? And where have you been?
Where do you think you will go in the end?
You stop and you start, like a many-wheeled rusty engine
You love and then you are torn down by it - love that cruel, tormentor of souls

Somewhere in my childhood, someone lied in saying that love is kind
That is strengthens and heals.
Love tortures, and it stings, and it taunts and torments and lies
It leaves you laying naked in the ashes too weak and lacerated to get up.
It kicks you while you are down and laughs in your face when you cry.
It was never anything more than a lie. A transient dream meant for lesser mortals
Innocent, idealistic, naive little girls who heads were never anywhere but in the clouds.

How I miss You wise sage of the sky
The voice that whispers to me still as I stumble and fall against a cold stone wall
You whisper, but just like my heart, the voice is drowned out by my own harsh breathing.
Where am I, and where are You?
And where are we going on this broken-down carousel marked destruction
An endless circle with a falsely cheerful calliope sound.
Like laughter in the rain, or a smile in the dark where no one can truly see

A discordant melody.

Written: April 21st, 2010

Traitor To Myself

I feel like a traitor to my own heart
To my own soul more like
To the very convictions and motivations that govern my actions
That surround my heart and usually protect it
When those convictions falter, they leave my heart exposed
To the harsh light of judgment that I myself create
A judgment that comes quite punishingly from walls that I recreate

What will be left in the end?
What part of me will remain when these battles lines have been drawn
When the battle has raged and passed its course
And the cleansing winds have blown away the dust and revealed their carnage?
It seems there is less left every time...
And I have not the strength to save myself
Or to get up again and prepare for another fight...

I'm not angry
Not really
I'm no longer beating my fists against the ground
And screaming at the sky
...
Could I appropriately call that progress??
Or more just a recognition of the different stages of this process
This cycle of mourning.
But what exactly am I mourning?
The passage of time?
The inevitable change that approaches and threatens
All that I treasure and hold dear...
What questions can I ask anymore that will truly find answers
That could possibly bring some measure of clarity to my befuddled mind?
There is no one to answer, really there never was
But there was company...
And that was something.
What words do I utter in darkness that will have any response or recourse
In the light?
And what is there, really, left to say?

Written: Sat., 04-10-2010

Uncleansable Stains

You watched blood bloom on your white arm

Like a string of crimson pearls

Crushed crimson petals in water

And you enjoyed the sight

The slight sting seemed fitting

To match the stinging in your soul

And you closed your eyes to listen

As your spirit crumbled to dust

How sad that life makes no more sense in the daylight

Than it does at night

In some ways, less

For how could the sun shine and the birds sing happily

When something, or someone, has died?

Part of you has died...

And all you can do is mourn

Though you cannot weep

Your tears are dry and of no comfort to you

Why joy in the string of pearls as it burns ruby and real?

It is a mark that means that you are alive and real

Even though feeling quite dead

Devoid of humanity, and certainly of any ill-disguised spark of divinity

How could anyone see beauty in a stuffed patchwork doll

Long ago forgotten in the ash heap

But You did not forget her soul...

That You could not

But she is too weak to learn Your lessons

Too broken to be remade

Too confused to always know the difference between light and dark

And too desperate to hear Your voice when she cries for You

Reaching out for the only life-line available

Temporary and flimsy as it is

It brings only further pain after.

Pains of conscience

Because of how dearly she loves You

And how completely she cannot escape You

She does not really want to escape from You

Just from this walking nightmare

As the trail of pearls begins to sting in earnest

What is it you would have Him do?

Send down lightning from the sky to make this storm

Feel more fierce and loud outside

Than it truly is inside?

Would you have him send a spring rain

To help the bitter tonic wash down more cleanly?

Would it be right, would it be worth it, were it easy?

...
A question you cannot answer...

You foolish, foolish child

Who cannot know what she wants or truly needs

But wants and needs for something He promised to give

That she cannot see or find

Closing down to the beauty of the day, of the light, the sun and the winds

She hears only the birds, whose normally melodious music

Has now become cacophonous and discordant

Yet they still fly...

Even through their pain

How she longs to be rid of this sickness, this vile disease

Be free of its foul clutches

And free to allow the sunlight in again

To wipe this despair from her soul.

What would you say to her now

Oh mightiest of mighties whom she adores?

To trust?

To forgive? Others more than herself, or herself more than others?

How would you explain this state

How would you ease her pain, and make things right again?

Your purging may hurt more than the guilt itself

And the guilt tears and destroys all that has been created

Glancing over you are annoyed

By the birds clueless laughter

It says nothing to you, except that you are amusing

You are a temporary joke

To the black-bird, perhaps also to yourself...

So what's to do with you?

Are you to sit and wallow, to lose yourself once again

Give no hope to redemption?

Or perhaps... perhaps just to walk with no destination in mind...

In a never-ending circle with no end

And no course or purpose that you've ever been able to find

A self-proclaimed butterfly hopelessly tangled in her own net.

You've lost your own game.

Saturday, April 10th, 2010

Drowning

Its a darkness that suffocates all light
Drowns you in its enfolding arms
Like a lovers embrace
But with no warmth, only cold indifference
It has the chiseled features and drawing attraction
That promises hope
Companionship
A desperately needed reprieve...
But becomes cold, feral, impersonal once it has you
In its dark clutches
It swallows you whole like a bird with a wounded wing
Taken refuge in the jaws of a crocodile
Feebly flapping in its black maw, held captive by the jagged walls
Of the teeth of injustice, of betrayal, of broken promises

Gradually sinking into this midnight quagmire of all-consuming despair
Failing hope and failing breath
Gradually sinking deeper, soon disappearing
Faltering heart-beat will soon disappear, and at last
Mercifully, be stilled

Raise your arms to the uncaring skeletal trees
As they spectate your demise
Lifting out a hand in a last plea for help...
Given a slim, withered hand for just a moment
Hope blossoming like the first pink blossom of spring in your hand
Then snapping suddenly, brittle, broken, the frail, fleeting blossom withering
Blackening in your hand
Your only reminder
Your only friend
Staring back at you, the lifeless remains of what you had thought was sure
What you thought would last and strengthen your salvation
Crueler than an outright rejection, laughs mockingly now in the night.

* * *

The residual sunlight scalds my skin
With its false promise of joy
My eyes glaze over with gray film
Transforming my world and all that I once knew
Into a landscape in shades of black and gray
A freakish nightmare transformed by blind trust
Shattered into broken trust
To this hazy vision I barely recognize.
Broken and scattered these beloved and tormenting images
My aching lungs are a relief in contrast
To the tearing anguish piercing through my soul.

Will you remember me, little one
That I held you, would have killed for you
Died for you, and gladly
When time rips us forever apart?
Or will you also fall back into the mist
Not taking notice of
Or just not caring enough to reach out
As I sink beneath the rising dark
And all turns black before my eyes
When the frantic scarred heart stills
And finally, mercifully all numbs and is devoid of pain.

Would there even be an imprint left
On the soft clay of this world where I now stand?
Or more likely a quickly fading outline
Of a hand once pressed to a cold counter

Glorious autumn with its rainbow colors
Its warm comfort and sunshine despite the errant chill
Has faded into gray winter
Which lingers in my heart even as the seasons have changed.
This sorrow is now trackless and deep
My spirit lost on a sunless sea
Since you no longer believe in me
On my face, my wind-dried tears and raw skin
The residual sunlight is harsh
With its forgotten promise of joy...

(Written: 04-02-2010) - Friday

Note: It's good Friday today...appropriately perhaps, this is also the anniversary of my father's death. This poem is symbolic for me of real-life events that seem to be converging on me all at once... But, I'm not usually this sensitive to them, nor so depressed. Such is life I guess.