Despite now being in bohemian refuge, poetry has nonetheless recently become very taxing for me, both mentally and emotionally. What once fueled my words is, somewhat thankfully, absent. Still, I apologize for the lack of output. I mean to write more.
Such vast and enduring foes I had sadly chose to carelessly amass
amid all of those fierce campaigns from a now fast embittered past
Clashes arose in bloodlust; a grievous but alluring sort of warring craft
and what of those once adoring claims? Only prose truly knows, if asked
Yes, remains of bloodied annals impartially disclose these awful facts at last
Damning evidence, now known solely to repose, of a genesis finally unmasked
Things wordlessly eternally resaid, in venomous soft eloquence, of a finery contrast
Proposed in trying elegance of undying aghast throes whence blood unjustly splashed
I’ve began to ponder, as my bedside candle flickers, fades
if bonds now no longer shall persist as their bitter charades
For my heart launders their oft ugliness in hindsight’s grace
Am I made stronger to guard what my mind might debase?
Pain reset, reinvented as regret is tempting, it must be said
Yet mistakes I forget always beget themselves thrice ahead
So I fret I must endure the awful debt of brave acuity instead
Missteps ventured are offset by their lessons and not retread
People I’ve met, and upset, can be excised I may have pled,
but their influences remain to abet a future threat to spread
Waking frenzied, wet with sweat, is what they’ve since bred
I am infatuated with death, especially those it leaves behind
They covet a breath which is their very loss perfectly defined
and if squandered degrades a prize lost eternally to the dead
Land wandered by ghosts; trails which are no longer truly tread
Words recounting oaths, dirges and tales cease to be duly said
Us living bear mounting urges to discount the wisdom of the bled
Puzzling it is to know you should meet repose yet silently implore
the spotter of your silent blue plead to return to how it was before
If you spy streams of florid blood seeping underneath my door
please now be relieved that you need not fret for me anymore
Sorry, I did a bad thing, a thing I shared I wouldn’t even dare
Still, it’s only gonna sting a moment, so I couldn’t really care
Ah, to awake sweating and breathless from a nighttime emissary apparition. Perhaps the only sadness which is briefly but intensely enlivening. Oh, but the melancholy afterwards… Still, it’s been a while now - is that a good thing?
Gently I awoke, to feel you softly breathing
abreast, in perfect frozen serenity you laid
Still, I eyed you with a mindful disbelieving
Far too immaculate a scene, which betrayed
that in my bed, besides me, and deceiving
my eager senses is really merely but a shade
I wasn’t truly seeing, indeed just perceiving
Realizing that ghostly remnants do pervade
my dreamstate anew, fantasy begins to fade
Again I wake, sorrowed chest weakly heaving
Damned jerking reality shift tore me from vainest bliss
Fabricated paradise! Yet one in which I’d fight to exist
A frigidly icy space, as of an unmistakable emptiness
belies this biting truth which now is shown far plainest;
by me no-one lays, as only a silent void does persist
It seems there’s an invisible, utterly impenetrable rift
betwixt us, slumber’s vault harbors this shadowy Miss
No efforts on my part can free her from dreamy midst
Shamelessly panting and pleading, screaming silently
All that I am now afforded is blurry, fading recollection
and wretched thoughts on how good that it would be
should my dreams, with their euphoric self-deception
and splendidly beguiling finery, become awoken reality
Deep into my pretty mirror, each morning, so long I do gaze
in it’s vast reflection that, daily, I am given, to wear, a new face
and I’ll feel an old cherished friend put to stake and left to raze
So come each new day’s dawn, I can only hope to win it’s praise
For the days when I lose it’s favor are nearly more than I can take
Many possibilities adorn such familiar mannequins on it’s well-lit stage
but I do not know which mask I’m to bear until it is far too late to change
Together, on one fine day, we left, at no vocal request,
with great haste and no thought spared for the hereafter
A dark continent, bearing adventure’s well-worn crest,
was the destination of our erratic and impetuous quest
Whilst there we adapted, shared in tears and laughter,
befriending bleak hordes now hopelessly dispossessed
Whence natural fury did stir, bringing about grand disaster,
both communities and structures alike endured the stress
We lent aid to the distressed, laying those no longer to final rest
We helped upright buildings for those who heeded no master
We rebuilt bridges that elephant herds tread longer still after
A century from now, these forgotten things will still matter,
when even elephantine memory begins to fade, but no faster,
when our bones are ashen and have just began to scatter,
hooves with ungulate grace will still be heard to clatter thereafter
You still see it, no?
It has dimmed slightly, but, as if they existed in a state of begrudging equilibrium, the darkness has grown stronger, thicker, and it ventures deeper still, so it doesn’t much matter anyway. The silvers of pitch-dark shadows still dance against their brilliant backdrop with the same fervor, with the same irreverence to our watchful gazes.
You do still see it.
Yes. I’m sure of it.