Chimneys smoking cigar
As the dusk perpetuates dawn
Thorps fusing in graveyard
As the ghosts visit haunts
Far in the distant lands
Stands a haunted bungalow
With the myths of royal clans
With grapewines and willows
Algae, lichens and mosses
Snakes poisoning the stuff
Rats feeding on corpses
Crying in the ink of blood
As the ghostly army of midnight
Babbles with a vexing parade
The chaos of tedious tramps
Blows ears like trumpets
In that grey grave
Glitters a gloomy groom
With his suitcase of nightmares
And curse dressed like a boon
As he steps long rambles
To unearth his mate
To add on tragedy and troubles
As he curses his fate
Love was his beginning
His aggression takes wings
As he cries with foxes
The gloomy groom has lent
His soul as it decays
Rats feeding on corpse
Accelerating lichens and moss
Five long years of waitin'
Reached a fearsome end
Villagers still cookin'
Lost someone never met
Bride faded
Love was his suffering
Ignorance was his victory
No chaos, no tramps
Not love nor trumpets
No hatred no disturbance ..

you will never be forgotten.
ever.
your name twisted into metaphors and colors and distractions will forever
be painted across pages and pages of her favorite brand of notebook,
no matter how many she burns
there will always be one she forgot,
and she will only find it once she had almost forgotten you.
she will find the one Papyrus notebook
and all of your metaphors and colors and disractions will come flooding back,
just like how the ocean in your eyes
flooded her heart all those years ago.

Winter skin shivers as damp settles,
his troubled brow seeks silent shelter to sleep among demons. Triumphs and tortures muddied by time haunt the waking as they pass.
"There but for the grace of who?"
is uttered under the cross fire of blame.
Surely the grace is ours?
An outstretched hand, filthy with grief begs solace from the blind.
On his cheek a tear to shame the world.

Cold settled in deep
On him and their son,
A poor fool, lost in his own world,
Scarcely aware his mother was gone.

The boy's father couldn't cope...
Tried, but hope with her had died.
Bankrupt faith, spent in futile prayer
To cure the failing heart,
Restore the lungs...
A silent "NO" hung in the air,
And she was gone.

Her ashes flew home beside him.
He went to pick up his son,
Stopped for three fifths of Scotch...
Proceeded to disappear,
Proceeded to disappear,
Proceeded to disappear.

The house suffered under stench:
Old *****,
Excrement,
*****,
Spilled bottles,
Cans scattered on the floor;
Everywhere a sour putrescence.

His son floated in and out of vision,
Autism and inebriation:
Two forms debilitation,
No hope of equilibration.

Neighbors made some calls...
Social workers came,
Took the son away.

Death seemed a reasonable option.
Leave the mess.
Join his wife.
End this ******* life....

Revolvers favor simplicity:
Load the chambers,
Snap the cylinder in place...
Aim closely to remove his face.

Muzzle up,
Open mouth,
Squeeze the hammer down...
Only a clicking sound.

Unusual, this...
Aim at the ground,
Squeeze off a round...
Ears ringing from the sound.

Raise the muzzle once again,
Bite ******* steel,
Squeeze the trigger down...
Again, a clicking sound.

Aim at the ground,
Blam! Potent round...
Set the revolver down.

"Hello. 911. What is your emergency?"

"Come get my gun;
I'm trying to **** myself."

Police arrive.
He's still alive.
Drunk and numb...
They take his gun.

Six weeks later, still in a haze,
He's told his story.
We are amazed,
But still he's found no calm for grief.

We struggle beside him,
Waiting for some sign,
Some reason why a gun
Should fail to fire...twice.

If you should read these words, my friends,
Please speak a prayer for a lonely man.
Ask for freedom from despair,
For peace and letting go,
For comfort and the hope of friends,
For better ends.
For better ends.
For better ends.

If I could
pinpoint the
exact moment
your breath
touched mine
washed me over
in ocean waves
sea creatures glowing
in delightful recognition
as the seedlings
of connection
shimmied into our being
and, dancing within me
in its own lifeforce
your mind a living,
breathing animal
your heart, purring
and whirring its sacred forces
into my molecular structures
your soul throbbing
in mitochondric pulsing
(oh what
a delicious vibration
of ribosomes)
Between us, we hold
the true treasures
close, in frothy
                       tenderness
a purity of the expanse
of our universe,
swathed in prismatic color
colors that shift,
these fresh hues
for which there are no name
they are lucid and fine-woven
as silk histories
yet deep as earthcore
your eyes, voice
are forever burned
into my own
every day scriptures
that rock my shattered parts
into wholeness
and,
like ancient magic,
I conjure forth
the holy gospel
rising from our bones
every second of
every minute
as our deepest fires
our most secret filth
our murky corners
our darkest hours
we weave into light
brilliant and lustrous
multi-layered in the richest
folds of the earth
and as you place me
upon the shores
of your garland-graced
                              throne
Now I'm alive in a new
kind of light
and
all I can do
is love
        and love
and love

The snow is thin and pale today
like that girl –
you thought –
from the Home Depot –
the palette of an empty day

I think, instead
to smooth my hand along your arm
extend dominion 'cross your chest
To till the damp ***** of your shoulder
in surging heat
of earthen tones
to find in winter flames
your brow, your cheek, your neck

...your mouth that way...

This is the braille I'm all about
being far-sighted
and just too close
to even focus on you –
your eyes –
and all
the loss
these days

.
And I stumble on across the barren land,
the mist, like a shroud, about me swirls,
chipped flint rocks assault my bare feet,
an endless quarry of slate grey, my world.

So the curtain of sadness and submission falls,
covering my mind with an opaque funeral drape,
the hazy images of the isolated and desolate,
forming the features of depressions landscape.

Vaguely felt, the invasion of another waits,
blind and innocent in a palace of real fear,
set free to roam in a strange arid topography,
desperate times pause for vision to be clear.

A stark scene viewed through teardrops frozen,
by ice winds of piercing calamity and despair,
of a place exclusive to the disaffected and lonely,
the last retreat for an exhausted mind to repair.

And this is my world where the haunted party,
leave me be with my cold mists and grey stone,
the frozen tear for a souvenir means everything,
my special gift, the feeling of being utterly alone.



© Pagan Paul (24/01/18)