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Open Poetry #47
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Love's Requiem Or The Dark Wings of Memory
| Open Poetry #47 |
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Love's Requiem Or The Dark Wings of Memory |
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bel1e Senior Member
since 2006-07-24
Posts 1631
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Oh go on, dark thing! Oh go where you must, but do not go for long! The room my thoughts build lingers, but its spirit is sick; every day new chinks glint upon its surface, moths surround it; hell-bent on seeing it crumble. Throw grub at them as they shriek, to keep them happy, distract them with song, and let this room continue where hope keeps chaos chained, where your huge luminous shadow keeps me agog. Oh! The violent thrum of error! The catcalls of the wronged, the miniscule cringes in the soul's old symmetry and the red horror of such sorrow to come, Oh! go on, dark thing ! make a myth of yourself, for I tire of this errant scent, you are nothing but a brittle river, a love of bone, a stream that took a shorter course, a thread of water that made an oasis out of mud, and pooling, did not aspire to lake. To river, leave the clamorous wild. I cannot. Though this trickling never flood, furrow its meager path, there will always be a root too thirsty, moss that only swallows and spreads its jealous pulp, for I am dying from love of you were I tuber or quillwort, the last layer of leaves to stave the dirt or the meekest pond, I'd absorb everything. I'd drown. Water makes song of our errant forms, I was always more river, pliant to the sea, supple as current and as reckless, I was a loose believer, my face, an estuary. Mornings were a drowned city. Gulls fell from the fog, their voices trailing chords of hunger, and doubt, they say absence culls the wayward, that the derelict leaf soon ashes and is air. Who says? the loon, now brooding its regret or caution: The darkest pools of water form the sky's silhouette. I was not good. I was not good enough. I mistook. I misspoke the poverty grass bludgeoning the dunes, true, I took something of value and gave chase to the breakers, their compass of come and come again, believe me, the bay battered the cove that day; let down; let go, I swallowed, I choked, I cried in an estuary, my room of ashes was a room out-spun. The heart is after all a wheel, and will turn. Quickly. Nightly. I married the owl, confessed I could not walk, the walls circled my feet and my flesh did not bleed blood, but sound. What sound? My breath became the ghost of me, pages of poems, they were not mine, though my hand mastered their syntax. I told him I could not howl winsomely like vixens. Like thieves, I wandered the night, fingering twilight, but I was sleeping. My hands, good as air, deaf and numb and in my sleep I wrote a red-winged dream, tufted dream; one was of salt, one with no hunger, was a fairytale forest of three-leaved trees. I thought I knew everything, and all the while our bed lay abandoned amongst the sassafras, Oh! yellow-bellied dream, mourning dream, be gone! Each thing I saw: a seed unto myself. Inside a girl stirred restless as rain. I could not see her, asleep I lived in silence, but in light. What if waking were a room black as the mind? Such a horn-billed dream, this, and the body a darkness with no memory.  [This message has been edited by bel1e (02-11-2011 12:16 PM).] |
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Lori Grosser Rhoden Member Patricius
since 2009-10-10
Posts 10202Fair to middlin' of nowhere |
That was intensely sorrowful,half hoping each stanza was the last painful one to read. You bled out on the page. incredible. Lori |
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JerryPat2 Member Laureate
since 2011-02-06
Posts 16975South Louisiana |
I must agree with Lori. This is a poem which affects the readers purity, if indeed, there is such a thing. I read, and I stopped reading, trying to understand what I had just read. Soon I was reading, hoping against hope, that soon I would find a silver lining. Twas not to be. I am angry with Lori, and her "You bled out on the page" line. I wish I had been the one to have written that. I am saving this one. ~ Some people are like a Slinky -- not really good for anything -- but you still can't help but smile when you shove them down the stairs. ~ |
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bel1e Senior Member
since 2006-07-24
Posts 1631 |
Lori~~~ yes...I am afraid so...this is a dark-day poem...with no happy ending...alas... Thank you for taking the time to read it! |
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bel1e Senior Member
since 2006-07-24
Posts 1631 |
ah Jerry~ I will have to ask forgiveness for the assault...it's a heavy piece...and does indeed weigh on the soul... You have my deepest thanks for continuing to put up with me!  |
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easy1 Senior Member
since 2010-05-22
Posts 1209Southeastern USA |
Very excellent, as are all of your works I have read here. I do not, however, hesitate to posit, "What if rainwater was beer?"... strongly suspecting that such would mess up the world's water cycle far too profiundly to be so. It is tough being depressed, and for you it must be tough sometimes being such a facile genius with "mixed-image" wordings... something you do better here than anybody else, far as I can tell. Yet, bad dreams do not a hopeless nightmare make. That's just something "easy1" does have a little experience with. |
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bel1e Senior Member
since 2006-07-24
Posts 1631 |
Thanks easy1~ I suppose...you may be right...but the heart in its sometimes perverse inclinations...tends to gravitate toward the old familiarity of hopelessness...it's an age old ache...some of us keep comfort zones there...not always...but there is somewhat of a shelter in it...at least for me...sort of similar to OWL's "Look Ma, No Mind" poem...somethings are just easier to handle without hope... anyway...don't want to give you the impression that I'm ready to throw in the towel or anything like that...LOL..the poem..is just a breathing mechanism for me...I have some notably more colorful poems...LOL...they usually get banned to the Mature Forum, though... LOL thanks easy! |
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Sunshine
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-25
Posts 63354Listening to every heart |
Belle, Most times, my dear, I try not to read the comments, for fear that they will cloud my judgement/understanding of a poems birth, and the why of it. As I fell further and further into your poem, the pain became palpable, and this is some of the very misery that I choose not to write about, but can see that you did, so clearly, almost even lovingly. I am sorry for your pain; but I admire your beliefs, and perseverence. |
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bel1e Senior Member
since 2006-07-24
Posts 1631 |
no worries, Sunshine~~~ it took me months before I could even go back to these and attempt to share these poems.... I'm all cured now for better or for worse~thanks for reading~ |
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Mysteria 
since 2001-03-07
Posts 18328British Columbia, Canada |
Ah, but it is this darker side of you that makes the other side shine so brightly. I felt this one, and can see why you would take your time to finish it. It looks indeed finished now. |
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bel1e Senior Member
since 2006-07-24
Posts 1631 |
Thanks so much, Mysteria ! |
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