Tag: quiet

A Mid-West Memory

Along the winding road

Gallows trees creak and groan

Abandon lost along with love

The empty eyes of home

Rain-soak streaks of sadness spy

What was long since bled

Every tree or sheaf of wheat

Pasture, fallow, dried, and dead

The empty holds the memory

Of mother, departed love

No more to sing or dance or play

Voice, the mourning dove

Oh son and daughter, laughters loss

To grey and sad so fade

Father left four coins on eyes

The final boat was paid

Left alone, whiskey hold

The spirits led astray

Father coughed a fit of blood

A bitter crimson spray

Dust whirls before the glass

To catch the morning light

But their breath runs cold

Souls left, their final flight

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I am alive and well! I am living in Australia now and am writing like a FIEND alongside the love of my life. It is all very hush hush and even after publication I won’t be talking about it here, but rest assured, I’m still creating, and I’m still living. I have been listening to The Handsome Family’s Far From Any Road and love the country gothic feel of it, so I took a stab at this style.

Thoughtless Impermanence

He stood in a vast square

Where milled many

Who fretted and fussed

Over this

And that

Slowly he raised it

A small black box

Whose edges shimmered strangely

As the lid rose

The sound of the square fell

As an unearthly silence blanketed all

Smothering the words

Which played upon their lips

From it arose something black

Which looked more like a hole

Within one’s sight

This something flickered

As though there

And not

And in a moment

Expanded out

Engulfing the square

And all its little fretting people

But still it shifted

Showing now and again

Its flickering ruin

First destroyed

Then not

The people screaming

Then not

Mother held child

Husband held wife

But none spoke

They simply could not

What was their to say

In the face of death

Which took

And gave

With such thoughtless impermanence

Night Sights

I approach my house

Single light illuminating

Not much beyond the porch

And as I glance down the side

Along my house

In the dark

A vague crimson haze

Bloody mist

Which whispers with the wind

Coalesces with help of memory

Just a bush of Azaleas

And as I stare

A moment longer

Something stirs

Against the breeze

And eyes peer out

Feline hiss

And she runs away

Oh how my mind plays with me

Making monsters

Of every shape

The Azure Forest

The door swung open

Soundless

Before me lay a forest

Drenched in emerald

But fading to a deep blue

In little more than a few meters

As though the sun

Brilliant as it shone

Could only impress upon me

But this small section of sight

I walked and all of me was heavy

Like a dream torpidity I felt the drag

I opened my mouth to call

To search for another

Who tread these verdant paths

But nothing came out

I slowly turned my sight skyward

Then I saw it

Just below the treetops

A shimmering blanket of wave

Where danced the rays of sun

This forest was also a sea

I do not drown

And I know these paths well

Though I never walked them

And upon this path

Quite by chance

I found another

She took my hand

And I, hers

And together we forged ahead

Deeper down its winding paths

There was something familiar

Something familial in her touch

A lover long lost

But no memories to say so

Still

I know her

And she knows me

And together

We forge a world

In the endless blue

Where All Souls Tread

All is light

A white so clear

It hides shades of blue

And the caravan walks on

Limbo interstate

Going nowhere

No where here

Wasteland cold

Whipping up a vicious

Minatory haze

Slashing ribbons of us

Us sinners clutching desperate

To arms and legs

Skin on skin

Anything to fend off this chill

But still we walk

Feet plodding

Clay mire slow

For that distant shade

Saccharin darkness

Calling for us

Our desperate rest

But no rest for the wicked

We walk on

Finale

“Of course, hun

Everything will be fine…”

The last lie I told her

A loyal deception

Perpetrated from a place

Of warmth and love

Affection coating its edges

Hiding what lay beneath

The promise of loss

What loss inflicted

Infliction’s relief

No more waiting

The final end

I squeezed her hand

She sighed

And relaxed

The tears slipped down

Dropping dark pools on her dress

I was alone in a stark white nothing

Smelling of antiseptic and lemon

The silence she left behind

Bigger than the room

Engulfed those seconds

The moments before I let go

Of her already cooling hand

Goodbyes

Our lips pressed

A kiss like a goodbye

And as she leant back

I saw how something died on those lips

An “I love you” never to be spoken

And in her eyes

I saw what she had already made of me

Another mistake

In a long line of men

Whom had wronged

And moved on

So I fixed my hat

And with a nod

I was gone

Writer’s Worry

We scheme and connive

Always looking for

Always planning for

The next beat

The way it all unfolds

Beneath pen

Key

Thumb

Somehow we have deemed

That we

And only we

Can tell this story

Can shape the land

Call it what you want

Hubris, I think is most fitting

Yet we are still here

Still so sure that this is right

That we still will write

What the world needs

What will effect the most

And what will be remembered