SORROW

Oh sorrow, you are the apothecary of martyrdom

You drug me with your vigilant patience

Until I am saturated within your devious design

Manifesting in my hour of slumber

You inoculate my fear, my doubt, my substance

You ride my dreams like the nightshade, Belladonna

Attempting to purge my gut

When the promise of morning should bring light and hope

You continue your duplicitous folly

Lynching my heart and soul at will

Your incessant guile accosts me ceaselessly

Strangling my resolve

Yet, this seeming monopoly has an adversary – Time

However, perseverance is your companion

Your light may dim

Yet you have timeless watchfulness

Only in death are you defeated

But, even in death you find purchase to begin anew

In others…

May 7, 2022 2

A FINAL NIGHT… a dark-ish poem?

If I write today

Will it resonate

With anyone at all

If I tell a tale

And toast with ale

Will you catch me if I fall

Will the moon still rise

And cross each night

Of a celestial starlit sea

Or will the ink run dry

As I lay here and die

With no one next to me

November 23, 2021 14

DARKNESS… a dark poem

As darkness gathers and builds

Joining the abyss of progressive emptiness

Satan plays a joyful song

Another notch is etched into the handle of his sickle

Shattered beyond repair is a heart left in the waste

Discarded as so many before

Never to be alone – but alone nonetheless

Restricted from the hope of true happiness

Gone is the gleeful innocence of yesterday

Replaced with the ever ebbing tide of sorrow

Adrift in a slow current

Until – even the darkness – wanes

October 20, 2021 12

MY HAUNTING… a dark poem

In the struggle of my life

I forgot to say I love you

In the struggle of my life

I forgot to goodbye

Everyone around me

Every voice inside my head

Every single time I speak

There is nothing but a cry…

——–

Lost in separation

By this madness that engulfs me

Lost in separation

When I catch a stranger’s eye

Caught between the here and there

Forgetting how to breathe

In this, a living nightmare

Am I forsaken by and by

———

Indiscreetly, I loosed my grip

Soured by inadequacy

Indiscreetly, I loosed my hold

As the shadows over through me

For consolation, there is nigh

Broken soul like dried up bones

A final kiss I was denied

This shallow grave my home

May 17, 2021 7

NIGHTMARE… a dark poem

girl in white long sleeve shirt lying on dried leaves

I cast out the blue demons deep into the night

Yet their shadows continue to haunt me

How do I escape these unworldly specters

While even now they fall around me in silhouettes

How I pray for the light to chase the unseen away

How I beg in a guttural growl to be set free

Then, and only then, did I awake from this nightmare

March 9, 2021 11

THE DEVIL DID WIN… a dark poem

Twisting and fighting

The demons within

Helplessly crying

Where to begin

All of the love has gone out of this life

Censured my soul

Cut out with a knife

Carelessly wondering

A desolate land

Not a mere morsel

To be found by this hand

Starved from the inside

Starved from without

The devil did win

He screams with a shout

Here is the prize

I promised my hoard

Once a good soul

Now cut from its cord

January 28, 2021 6

DISCARDINGS… a strange poem

Where once there fell

A crusty piece

Of savory flavored

Ripened beast

green grass near body of water during daytime

With all the sides

One does adore

Gaseous swamp

And frost of hoar

Gelatinous moss

From north of tree

Bullfrog throat

With pitch – high C

Once stroked in pot

With hellfire’s heat

Now blades of grass

Thou must eat

Meat, Pork Knuckle, Sausages, Vegetables

Deliciousness

None can compare

Lest ye hath had

Burnt paw of bear

January 12, 2021 8

SPECTRES… a dark poem

Subservient threads tighten around the ilk of my shadowed memories

Where darkness embraces silence like a lover

And I lay suffering – floundering in foul dreams

My soundless cries echo

While I walk alone with spectres

Who take pleasure as they caress my very soul

January 11, 2021 4

TROUBLED EYES… a poem

Fight the torrents

Escape the rage

Find wings to lift you high above

Peer into the chasm

That fuels the fire

Of malcontent – free of love

Alight upon waters

Where currents spree

Hand swirling to and fro

Close troubled eyes

Which cannot see

The flames found down below

July 22, 2020 2

BROKEN STONES… a dark poem

The burden of the broken stones

Weigh heavy on the mind

Whitecapped waves crest and foam

But cannot wash away the crime

Building blocks to small to see

Poisoned the whole of the base

Years of neglect have now captured me

As I slow to a crawl in my pace

Hindsight lends no healing sauve

For this conjured soul of the damned

Only regret of a dying wretch

As I crumble into sinking sand

July 20, 2020 11