The gramophone screams like a banshee
Discontented and hungry it wails
Like wind bursting in the bubbled windows
That grows pregnant under the pressure, pushing outward
Until the smash and clatter of glass raining down
Disturbs the cold stark night air
Like the nightingale’s melancholy melody for a blind poet
Which rings like the rattle used to quiet
The piercing shriek of a baby’s newborn whimper
Which sounds like a siren
Rattling in the ear drum like a stormy sea
That tried to fit into a seashell too small
And not strong enough to hold the raging waters
Of the ocean on a twisted cloudy day
Swirled with the salty wind of an ocean breeze
Until the grey casts over all things
Leaving only a faint line to distinguish
The two worlds of above and below
A gull’s cry shatters the horizon
With the force of a jarring catastrophe
That leaves the world jolted and trembling
Waiting in that horrible suspense
Of a world untrusted and unstable
Tremble trifling tower
You will fall inevitably
Is the whispered wind’s prayer
That plays with the hair of widows
Sitting in attics looking out small windows
Into a small empty world
Crying silent tears that hit the ground like sledgehammers
Signaling defeat on the dark day
We cling together in the deafening storm
Hugging tight and promising to never let go
Even though time is loosening our grips even as we speak
We cannot weather this storm
Not this time
This cacophony of chaos will tear us apart
There you are sitting across this dark precipice
And I here nursing the sickly wail
Of a cracked gramophone
Trying to screech out the song of you and I
That was never meant to be
Archive for March, 2012
Cacophony (Gramophone)
Tuesday, March 27th, 2012Climbing Vine
Monday, March 26th, 2012A shadow sits folded in on itself
At the bottom of this dark hole
Like a love note, written
But never sent from its dark resting place
Amongst the cobwebs and spinster spiders
Weaving their lives from the fantasy
Of gossamer thin lies
Lies that build walls thicker than the fortified
Walls which streak upwards like skyscrapers
Surrounding this bent and hollow shadow
Sitting at the bottom of this dripping well
That has become her home
Wretched and empty
Hunched and alone she sits
Like a broken marionette doll
Beautiful once, but thrown away
Her strings have been clipped
As she fell down this hole
Now she must learn to move on her own
This limbs so heavy and graceless
That have never belonged to her
At the bottom of everything
Clouds of cold air escape her barely parted lips
Breathing life into this desolate place
Reaching with the awkward limbs
Of a bird not yet learned how to fly
She feels blindly with her head held down
And her eyes closed
Finger tips glancing the damp walls of her prison
Gliding along the rough edges of bricks
Laid by careless and callous hands
Not the hands of decent men
Her decent hands feel the gripping edges
Of stone sharp enough to draw blood
But dull enough to deny hope
This landscape of craters across the well’s face
Are beheld like Braille under her delicate fingertips until
Cringing like the legs of spider
Stumbling across unwanted prey
Her fingers curl and unfold again
Touching gently the obstacle encountered
At arms length away
With eyes not seeing she understands
Her fingers tracing the smooth contours
Contrasted against the rough stone walls
Of the petals of a plant, a vine
Curling its way upwards toward sunshine
She feels the twisted outline of the vine’s body
As it arches upward, bending, twisting
Manipulating its way up the coarse walls
Of a well too deep for human souls to be released
The shadow lifts its head slowly
Facing upward like the crawling vine
Looking without seeing with dull grey eyes
She can feel the faint and distant kisses
Left by the rain that fell far above
Disappearing before it made ground
She breathes in the moment, almost alive
She reaches with her other blind hand
Out, upwards, stretching to touch the rain
But like the climbing vine
It never quite finds its way
Glance
Thursday, March 22nd, 2012Oil on water
Slick as the night
As the morning tries to wash
The darkness from your face
It clings with the desperate fervor
Of child to mother
As a hand slides from the grasp
Of one person
To another
And is gone
This strange moment of fluidity
As worlds barely touching
Eyes barely meeting
Only to glance away
Converge
Only to float silently away
It is there, wrapped in this
Tight tourniquet of fog
That holds us closer
Than a final embrace
Between to people who know
They will never meet again
The moment before all is lost
Standing at the edge of this precipice
Solitary in this mist
Permeable yet dividing
I am lost
Left behind by that evanescent flicker
Of worlds stopping for a brief moment
Reaching out to one another
Knowing there is reason to stand still
But feeling the push and pull
Of a world that never knows how to stop
This winding of a clock
The count
Of one, two, three, four
Finds its way of rhyme
Even as the world begins to slide
Here I am still standing
Not knowing the words to say
Not knowing how to scream
I stand in this silent emptiness
Watching you recede from me
Half Heartedly
Wednesday, March 21st, 2012I fret back and forth,
Bite my fingers for a moment
Hide it by tilting my face away
Look, look away
Tilt my head this way and that
Frame my face with worried fingers
Supporting my chin on my hand
Purse my lips, bite my lip
Look back again
—Mom!
Like a thunder clap
It brings me back again
The clouds over my face part
I smile half-heartedly
I have to go
She looks up at me with an odd look
Lurking in her stormy grey eyes
They are her father’s
So much like her father
I begin to bite my nails again
Flick my eyes off towards the window
Throwing my attention across the room
So I don’t have to look at her
Question looming in those haunting eyes
A light but insistent tug on my dress
Brings me back
I look down and smile
Half heartedly
You are going to have so much fun
I place my shaking hand on the top of her head
Feeling her feathery hair
Trace my finger along the red ribbon twisted
Among the feathers of her hair
So soft and smooth
So much fun
I mutter to myself as my attention drifts away again
–the bus
the honk hits me like a slap to the face
I wince slightly
Clawing to bring me back to her to here
I really have to go now
She reaches up with her little hands and turns
The door knob slowly and with effort
I place my hand over hers
Helping her open the door that is too big for her
I feel the softness of her unmarred hands
I wonder if she feels the bones of my fingers
The sadness etched lines of my hands
It swings open
She runs out the door
Like a clumsy fawn
Her back pack shifting back and forth
The monster in front of the house waits
Taking her away from me
I hover at the doorway
Unwilling to leave the threshold
But unwilling to let her go
–Wait!
A desperate yell
Bursts from my breaking heart
She stops and looks back at me
That question still hiding in her eyes
I hesitate for only a moment
And depart from the sanctuary
Running down the little walkway
On legs atrophied with sorrow
I stop before her
She says nothing
Just looks up at me with stormy eyes
Innocent and curious
I grab the end of the red ribbon
Which had come undone on her escape from the house
I kneel in front of her
And tie the ribbon with foolish hands
That shake even as I smile
Half-heartedly
And look into her eyes
I smooth her hair when I am finished
Put my hands whittled away with grief
On her small shoulders
Let out a sigh
That wanted to be a scream
And watch
As she faintly smiles and turns away
The monster honks again
Taking her away from me
I slowly stand as the bus drives away
Leaving me on the shores of my sorrow
Alone
With half a heart.