My broken being seeks a balm
Most people call a home —
Needed by all, owned by a few,
Impossible to me.
For could one ever bathe in moonglow
Afloat a sea of stolen stars?
Or race the sun from coast to coast
Asleep upon a cloying cloud?
Everything that ever housed me
Are now strangers at best.
At worst, they now reject me,
Embittered with memories.
And so I must for now make do
With living as a ghost,
Gliding through a dreary world,
Restless, empty, barely seen,
Eternally exhausted.
In summer when I met you,
You were mild as you were bright —
Beckoning, welcoming,
Ardent and intense,
You scorched my heart ablaze.
And all the colors I saw of you
Convinced me to be with you
Every and any
Color you are.
Autumn, all the fire and heat
We shared became our comfort.
Relaxing and cozy,
Blanketed in bliss.
We mellowed and found
Serenity in darkness,
Perfection in the chill and breeze,
Ethereal yet earthy.
We lived as if the love we reaped
Was limitless, unspoiling.
But winter changed us, didn’t it?
We made the cold our own.
Allowed the snow to blind us both,
Even the sun was useless.
We let the frost into our hearts,
Redering the world we built
Barren, empty,
Freezing dark.
Whatever love we have was had
And squandered therebefore.
And so we did not survive.
Apart, we meet spring on our own,
For we left each other with nothing
But shattered souls and broken parts.
Now I wait for the earth to thaw
So I can sow the shards
And hope that as the seasons pass
It will regrow my heart.
What wrong did I do for you
To abandon me so?
Was it wrong to build an empire
When you asked for a home?
Or to compose an opera
When you asked for a song?
Or to write epic poetry
When you asked for a word?
You asked me for a morsel,
And I gave you the world.
You asked me for a piece of me,
I gave my being whole —
All the chambers in my heart,
All the light from my soul.
To you I gave and dedicated
Everything and all
Of my triumphs and victories,
And nothing of my fall.
For only your dear eyes, my love,
Can bring me to my knees,
And solely in your loving arms
Do I know true defeat.
Yet I won’t feel your gaze again
For all the rest of time.
And your arms are ever withdrawn
And with it, all that’s mine.
So what and where did I go wrong,
My better half, my all?
And what, if any, could I do more?
Gift you the world a millionfold?
Weave the stars into your pall?
What can I do or even undo
For your lips — now ever sealed —
To utter an answer or return a kiss?
For I am king of everything
But now, never of bliss.
Always on the precipice,
Never falling over.
Each attempt at jumping
Only blown back by the wind.
No matter how heavy
Or how long I stand
Upon this steepest ledge —
So narrow,
So thin,
So shaky ‘neath my feet —
It does not crumble.
Why can’t the ground just give away?
I’ve let it go so long ago.
Let the earth swallow me whole,
Let my soul nest within her core.
Bruised and battered;
Worn and weathered;
A dying ember —
That was a sun —
The howling winds
Would not let smoke.
Head in the clouds,
Feet shackled to the ground;
An onslaught of tempests
Bellowing, rabid,
Pure furor and wrath
For all the days I’ve known.
Still, I am plagued
By visions of Eden
In this enduring hell.
The shards from when I shattered
Still pierce and wound me to this day
And the red I bleed is blackening,
Losing quicker, losing more
Than my heart could replenish.
Still, I go through the motions of survival,
Hanging on to a strand of hair,
Draining faster and faster,
Burning dimmer, burning weaker
Running out of wick and wax
And blood and air,
Trying not but also waiting
To ultimately extinguish.
How little you are to how you have been —
How short it is, your sight.
Your world that once revolved in eons
And rotated in years,
Now do so in an hour and second —
A tenth of what was then your blink.
How is that you, once a universe,
Now exist as an atom?
How have you compressed your being so —
And how much does it hurt —
How do you even breathe?
Worse than a djinn trapped in a bottle
Or even in a ring,
Is a king — a god — such as yourself
Encapsulated within
An invisible, irrelevant
And microscopic grain.
Was it done unto you?
Was it ever your choice?
What have you done to end up so?
So small, so tiny, so miniscule,
Yet once so limitless.
I could hazard a guess but then,
How can you, yourself, ascertain,
When the great tapestry of your memory
Is hanging by a thread?
Ah, but you’re the wool whence I was spun,
And so, I do remember
How great and glorious you were,
Now but a dying ember
For me to fan until your fire
Will raze me and raise
A phoenix from my ashes.
Where can I find the woman peddling happiness and joy?
For ’tis with her my heart had lain like child unto a toy —
Manufactured, bought and sold for the troubled to enjoy,
Calming cries, comforting woes, warming our beds into sleep.
And so where is she — she who can turn dire wolves into sheep?
Where is the lass on whose feet fall the mighty to a heap
Of suitors, customers and fans hanging tight to her lip
For requests, beckons or demands to help her out her slip?
And yet none knows that I was hers at the crack of her whip.
For then again she dabbled in our pleasures, not our pain
She peddled sweet and innocent, showed us sun and not rain.
But no one knows, but me, of course, that she’s a hurricane
Who goes as quickly as she comes, leaving you a rubble
Of writhing flesh and rattling bones, plus your heart in trouble.
So where is this girl? Because for her pain, I’ll pay double.
As often, the writing process for this one was the first two lines popping into my head out of the blue. I did not know where this was going until it was done, and it reminded me of “Mr. Barville” from the memoirs of Fanny Hill, hence the title. I hope you find this as weirdly humorous as I do.
My heart no longer sings for you —
it does not sing at all.
Since when you left, the songs are few,
in some days none at all.
Most of which are melancholy,
Some are angry, nothing jolly.
For all my joy you took with you —
All of the joy I ever knew.
But piece by piece, and here and there,
I stumble on a note.
And slowly, I rebuild, aware
they’re from the songs you wrote.
So gradually, I will compose
A song to match your last repose —
A symphony fit for your dirge,
One from my mourning heart emerge.
What happens when heaven starts feeling like hell?
Do you walk away on that very day?
Or paint a rose tint to the life when you fell?
Do you count yourself lucky, having tasted some honey?
Or take that as a sign that now is the time
To, on your own terms, bid your final farewell?
Do you start thinking that what you thought heaven
Was you being flung to hell’s upper rung?
You did not question — slight alleviation
From hunger and torture, you thought saved you from oppression.
So what you thought heaven is another hell
Just made easier by your desperation.
So what happens when heaven resembles hell?
Will you at last pry the wools from your eye
To see nothing is as the stories they tell?
Or will you still deny, try to make a truth of a lie?
Like most, will you just keep waiting and dreaming?
Not doing a thing ’til you burn just as well.
Emerging from the longest night,
I saw the brightest morn.
The most pleasant burst of summer,
When all nature is abloom,
Where the breeze caresses
And the sunshine kisses,
Enough to melt from my memory
That it was ever dark.
But lo and behold an uncharted eclipse —
Or was it the fastest storm?
Whilst relishing the sweetest berries
Upon the softest turfs,
The darkness fell upon me.
Not like a blanket but as a mountain,
A solid fraction of the earth
Hurled suddenly, mercilessly,
And with the sharpest aim
Such that I would perish —
I hoped instantaneously.
But to the merit of my creator
And to my own detriment
I live.
Vividly conscious.
Unfaltering breaths.
Unbroken.
In excruciating pain.
Seeing, feeling, sensing, thinking.
Counting every agonizing millisecond
Beneath a planet’s weight.
Forced to survive.
For whatever the long, countless nights
And few brief mornings past
Have molded my being into
Was built with adamant.
Have you shed the skin I seared in kisses?
Is it still engraved with the shape of my tongue?
Because my fingertips still trace the grooves of your lips
And my palms still sculpt your body in empty air.
How far along are you in the journey
Of making a stranger out of me?
Are some of your heartbeats here and there
Still occupied by me?
I know I could ask you —
But what is the point,
When your shadows still linger with me?
When I think of love,
I see your face
Still as clearly and as pleasantly
As when I held you last.
I forget now how many moons
And suns and stars and seasons
Have passed since we did part —
It seems nothing counts without you.
It must take twice that time or longer —
But do I even need or wish —
For your face to fade
When I think of love?
My nights overflow with sighs for things that never came.
Midnight, they turn into tears for everything that were,
And once more, they change before the coming of the dawn.
To meet the light, what never came become what’s yet to come,
And things that were to cornerstones of great things that will be.
This sleeplessness, the price I pay to see a brighter sun.
Waves Without Sounds 