Letter
Across the funereal waters,
Somewhere amidst death’s booming nightlife,
You hide away in stolen happiness
Not knowing that purpose
My purpose
Stalks you like a voyeurish jinn.
Kidnapped back to the home
Where you always wanted to be
Yet never wanted to see
I can see your smile of crescent mischief
Light-up that war-torn playground
And your calamari hair lying still
In the breeze that smells of flayed skin.
Will you ever come back
Or will you always be a shadow?
Shadow frozen by the coldness of my dread
In a memory that refuses to pupate.
As long as you are absent
Absent too will be purpose in living.
Dear hell where is the town
That holds her, hostage, happy,
Is it just beyond the sea
Or a captive of what eternity?
Her young life is a god-send
Taken away by the tide of time;
And I cannot begin to see
The face I will never again see.
A sure divide permeates the view
That gazes back at me from the hill;
The schools, the barracks, the misty sea,
Somewhere your memory hides and ducks
Looking at those familiar sights away from me.
Pallid life; it never knows
What history it will write.
I never knew of you
Until I knew of you.
But I will never un-know you
Even now I won’t know you again.
And all that’s disgusting will be disgusting still;
How is it a fair exchange:
You took with you my silver-lined purpose
And in return you gave me
A naked grenade loaded with despair.
And I write you this,
Happily.
Call to Memory
The voice of a dying man reaches out
To you beyond the passing of time.
My girl now woman, is my voice an echo
You would care recall?
Like the muezzin I call out to you
Are you well, are you alive?
In the midnight of the humid summer
I hear your voice ululating dreams.
The dreams you sang to me in the serenity of youth
Are now onyxes solidified by my side.
Would you want them back if you returned –
Or do you even recognise them?
Now this is the voice of a dead man singing;
Return and engrave my epitaph
Upon the grave that tilts in the winter cold.
Let your memory, please, guide your hand.
Be the Styx that carries my life’s purpose
Across the flat river so tuneless
Into the echelons of the other-life, let my afterlife be
An insomnia haunted by your youthful perfumes.
I will accept death if you only accept life.
Kiss life’s crimson skies
With your own ochre lips, and I will rest, rest;
Greeting death like a life fulfilled.
Every now and then only open your soul
And let me hear my voice within
A voice conceived when you were truly you;
And now, are you what I’ve imagined?
Happiness/Sadness Without Precedent
The music plays and your face alights.
Cheeks kissed by Saharan dawns
And smiles forged in Libyan wars;
Your happiness is worth more than the gods.
Your eyes seek me out as the music plays
You share with me a happiness I can never mistrust.
Side to side, like a lost wave, you sway.
The music slows and you raise your tethered arms;
You dance and defy the misery of fate
You dance and the universe is alive.
Your eyes seek me out as the music plays
You share with me a happiness I can never mistrust.
Do you know, as you look at me,
That you will never see me again?
She answers and her ‘yes’
Draws the curtain.
Stop looking at me, I’m not what you think I am,
When the music stops, I will become
The trapped amnesiac I never let you see.
Stop looking at me, it’s almost over,
Though it will never end;
But what good is a memory stretched by time?
Stop looking at me, I don’t want to say goodbye,
When it’s all over it’ll be as it was in the beginning
And all you’ll leave me is the ghost of happiness.
Stop looking at me – you’ve stopped now, I know,
And though your happiness is wasted on me
I can only hope there’s more of it to come.
They are so loaded with images, and even though I perhaps failed to understand the many undercurrents, I know I enjoyed reading them. Keep it up 🙂
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Many thanks! The undercurrents may be ambiguous because its personal, it deals with my memories of the girl which no one could understand but me. But hopefully, it’s not off-putting all the same!
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Not at all. It always adds to the beauty. Little personal details and a little obscurity. It gives each of us chances to interpret it differently. :’)
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Much appreciated! 🙂
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