On The First Anniversary My Heart Finally Broke (a repost)

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icebox
Member Elite

since 2003-05-03

Posts 4383
in the shadows

0 posted 2011-05-03 09:43 AM

I still can hear the pipes sing
Amazing Grace
I hear them in my dreams
I hear the screams
every day,
months of cadenced march
out of the open pit mine of souls,
all day long
and through the night
in and out of mind
until my heart ran out of song.

Today bells ring,
performers sing
and everybody's priests
ask gods for treats.

Each name a moment held
in all solemnity
on edge
to slip into eternity;
pomp and circumstance,
a ceremony's tears and choking
fears that this will mean an end
to the beginning of the years
we mark remembering the dead,
the living dead
whose names all run
together
labels on one giant
blended bleeding soul.
If one more plastic politician
says, ‘Let's roll,'
I think I will be sick.
The dead can sleep,
where is the peace of heart and soul
that could bring quiet to the living?

We mourned a year.
We buried buttons
and a watch,
a rock,
handfuls of dirt and ash,
a shoe
or two,
some bone fragments,
photographs in empty caskets,
memories in sleepless nights
full of empty arms and empty beds
tears in empty hearts.
It's time to leave the past.

For some,
we become as Death
in a time to stalk revenge
cold and crafted with precision
in deserts,
fields and mountains,
where we are hated for existing,
where gods are left with questions,
where evil breeds in men.
So, there are no answers
and so, the killings never end.

There is no grief beyond the love
of that which death can steal.
There is no deal to make,
no memorial to shake the horror of the memories,
the smell
the taste
of human ashes mixed with fuel
melted steel
vaporized concrete
grit that clogged our eyes,
a blessing in disguise;
the shame
of hoping winds would change,
the dream's there every day,
turn back and turn away
run,
no where to go,
who died
when there is nothing left
to hold
but memories of clouds
thick choking terror
floating in toxic air
so full
that vision's lost,
sounds of bodies hitting ground
just beyond the reach of sight
within the sounds,
the claws of fright,
no where to hide.
No where to hide.

©2003, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 by icebox
(written, September 11, 2002; edited as above)

Sunshine

Administrator

Member Empyrean

since 1999-06-25

Posts 63354
Listening to every heart

1 posted 2011-05-03 02:39 PM

And this is where my thoughts have been. Thank you for bringing this back, Sir.

Alison

Member Rara Avis

since 2008-01-27

Posts 9318
Lumpy oatmeal makes me crazy!

2 posted 2011-05-05 01:42 AM

I, too, thank you for bringing this one back. I keep coming back to read it - may I save it, please?

Alison

Margherita
Member Seraphic

since 2003-02-08

Posts 22236
Eternity

3 posted 2011-05-05 05:04 AM

It is a masterpiece, dear Charly, and always brings shivers anew ....

nowhere to hide!

Love,
Margherita

ice
Member Elite

since 2003-05-17

Posts 3404
Pennsylvania

4 posted 2011-05-05 06:31 AM

Captain icebox:
I stand and applaud..a salute sir!
Grand poetry, on a hard theme.

"There is no grief beyond the love
of that which death can steal."

Those two lines, to me, are the most profound in the poem.

They should be on all quote sites..
under the heading "love and death"

Thank you for the poem..

JerryPat2
Member Laureate

since 2011-02-06

Posts 16975
South Louisiana

5 posted 2011-05-05 08:17 AM

I haven't read it and I am happy you decided to repost it, Icebox. Stunning poetry. Even without poems such as these I know I will never forget that day. But these poems, and especially this one, sharpen the edges of memory. Thank you.

~ I went to a restaurant that serves "breakfast at any time" / I ordered French Toast during the Renaissance. ~

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