Tag Archives: Sorrow

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Fade to Heaven


images

Time comforts me, though the clock winds down
And I’m driven to the ticking of another sound
My heart beats so softly, in erratic measure
Comes now an end to this life I have deeply  treasured

I’ve done my best, or so shall I plead
As the Book of Life will surely read
When comfort was asked, I held out my hand
I shared what I had without a demand

Solace I gave to those deep in sorrow
Lived for today, and prayed for tomorrow
The sick I did comfort, the hungry I fed
If needed I fought, and oftentimes bled

For the weak and the child with no one to care
To fill them with love and crush their despair
My joys and my sorrows, both equally scattered
Like dying fall leaves that no longer  matter

Now days turn to hours, and hours to minutes
Now comes to a close this life with me in it
Softly my prayers in last utterance fall
“Grace be upon me, I’ve given my all.”

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Defeated


defeated (1)

Like most people, I am caught in the web of learning  to navigate the constantly changing twists and turns of today’s fluctuating societal ups and downs.  It seems every day someone achieves their dreams while another is blown to bits by a terrorist’s bomb.  I celebrate a birthday with friends at the same time a mother buries her child.  This insidious balance of good and evil renders me near catatonic with a mixture of soaring joy and abysmal despair.  It just doesn’t make sense, and I am completely lost in a world I no longer understand.

The shooting at Sandy Hook and the resulting flood of grief as Death descended on this sleepy community left me in tears and shaking with sorrow.  No sooner had the bodies of these innocent children been pulled from their classrooms then I found myself out shopping for Christmas gifts in anticipation of a joyful family reunion. I watched the mix of loved ones waiting at the finish of the Boston Marathon, full of love and pride as their champions crossed the finish line, suddenly blended with the explosions of hate that laid low the lives of three people, one, a child who now joins the bitter fruit withering on the vine of life, not yet fully blossomed.  I have found that I am incapable of processing this confusing blend of despair and bliss.  My psyche is not wired to route the neurons of my emotions bouncing back and forth within my soul so randomly, and my mental landscape is muddled beyond words.

I am left feeling that I have personally failed in my journey upon this earth, this blue-green marble that spins wildly on a shaky spindle.  I don’t know how to proceed. No sooner than I fall on my knees in prayer that word comes of another senseless act of violence.  Is this how God answers desperate prayers for comfort and understanding?  Am I a fool to think that a simple act of Divine intervention might be suggested amongst all this violent loss of life?  So I stop praying.  God must be a sadistic voyeur for the silence of His absence in all of this is deafening.

My life does not slow down, however, to properly mourn, for no sooner than my heart is laid low by the killing of a dozen Syrian children, then the phone rings and I’m invited to a party celebrating the engagement of my best friend.  What cruel and atrocious mocking of life this all turns out to be.  Where do I find understanding amidst the laughter and the tears?  How do I proceed with any semblance of balance?  I retreat into the only sanctuary where I find an ounce of control: my writing.  But as the words pour out upon the page, my sadness and confusion only becomes more evident.  I start to write of hope and love, and in moments my words become dark and sullen.  I am the world I live in. And like that world, I am confounded  in both mind and body.  My pen stops and weeps uncontrollably.  My writing is exhausted and no longer makes sense.

I am caught in a bubble devoid of clarity, floating mindlessly through each demanding day. I cry out,  “Please, someone, pop the bubble!”;  explain this senseless woven tapestry of life so that I can chart my course, so that I can find meaning in this tower of babel.  To God and His perfect plan I say “Fuck You” – this pain is no longer bearable.  I cannot trust the joys I know when lurking behind the next corner is just another tragedy waiting to crush my spirit once more.  I need to get off this see-saw and find shelter.

I can no longer play His celestial game of ping-pong.  I will not!

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The Green Viper


green-viper-snake

I walked into the dark forest,
my stomach gurgling fear.
Pushing it down into my gut
I entered a grove of mangoes
devoid of fruit and intensely tangled,
like the ribbons of my life.

I saw there a green tree snake
coiled upon a gnarled branch,
watching me as carefully as I did it,
a flickering tongue eerily matching
the flickering of my heart.

Startled then by a strange desire
to feel his venomous bite,
I stepped closer
and reached an unsteady hand
toward the inevitable.

The strike was sudden
and true to its mark,
though I saw it all in slow motion;
the beady black eyes locked as the head pulled back,
and with the mouth, full of cotton and death,
opened to two curved fangs.
The lightning extension of his slender body
racing toward the fattest curve of my extended arm.

Just before the bite,
I saw all the stale moments of my life
stretched before me;
the childhood full of loneliness and broken toys;
the awkward attempts to befriend others,
met with laughter and derision;
a teen locked within the pain and uncertainty
of forced loneliness;
the young man twisting in the wind,
fearful and drunk after lost hours
searching for love that would never be there.

It stung for a moment,
then slowly a fire spread upward
from my elbow to my shoulder.
The painful memories replaced by a certain knowledge
That peace would soon cocoon me
in the darkness that I yearned for.

I felt sleepy and content in knowing
that this green viper was the closest thing
I would ever know of true love.
He bit to release me.

I sat upon a mossy log,
my breathing, moments before racing,
now became labored and shallow.
The pain brought with it a strange sensation of giddiness,
and as I watched the darkness
creep up through my surrendered body,
I smiled one last time.

And just bef….jus…as…I…

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There’s An Answer To Your Dreams


Sweet_dreams_are_made_of_these_by_Dream__Window

There’s an answer to your dreams
Though it’s never what it seems
If you reach into your soul
You’ll find the path to all your goals

Let the pain and sorrow fade
The path to happiness is laid
And the joy and love you seek
Will be placed before your feet

When you feel you can’t survive
Let your heart then be your guide
For it beats with endless truth
All your fears then gently soothed

Know I’ll lift you if you fall
Hold you close and give you all
The gentle love you need to rise
To overcome and learn to fly

Trust that love will come along
Give you strength to carry on
A precious gift that makes you whole
And heals the sorrow in your soul

You have the power to survive
All the emptiness inside
If you simply trust your heart
You’ve had the power from the start

There’s an answer to your dreams
Though it’s never what it seems
If you reach into your soul
You’ll find the path to all your goals

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Opposite Sides of the Same Pain


grief

A Sunni mother silently watches:
overhead, a gathering of scavenging ravens
paints the dusky sky above
the broken bodies of her three children.
Bewilderment mixed with horror and beauty,
accented by the pebbles beneath her feet,
polished smooth by a flood of tears.
An acrid wind swirls
with scattered hope and broken dreams;
confetti raining on freshly scorched earth.
Another womb is rent in unbearable grief
at the loss of its precious fruit.

grief 2

In that very moment, across the sea,
a Haitian waif reflects:
A flock of seagulls angrily position
above the ghetto garbage heap
next to a crumbling shanty
where her newborn triplets scream with hunger.
Bewilderment mixed
with horror and beauty,
the waste beneath her feet glistens
with the flood of her tears.
The stench of rotting wind swirls
with scattered hope and broken dreams;
flies rising up from quaked earth.
Another womb is rent in unbearable grief
at the bounty of its damnable fruit.

 

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I Live Here All Alone


alone

 

I will not die for lack of love,
though greater seems the fate,
Nor shall I pray for tenderness,
or seek my soul to mate.

No kiss for me do lips desire,
nor arms round me entwine;
A soft caress or heart possessed,
I am not so inclined.

This rhapsody that others seek
I will look for in tomorrow.
With so much pain, I’m now within
A great and binding sorrow.

The emptiness I live within
has always been my home -
So do not seek my company,
I live here all alone.

 

by

The Insidiousness of Life


Sorrow

The insidiousness of life is that it constantly presses upon you;
it is unrelenting in its demands that you nurture and refine it.
It evolves, with or without your consent, so there is no rest,
no time to simply put it on cruise control enjoy the passing of time.

For me, every breath is a nuisance; every step is a cursed journey
saddled with failed expectations and societal derision.

I never belonged to this world, nor has it offered itself to me,
and the contempt with which I hold its false promises
eats at my guts like ravens nibbling away at my meaning.

Where others are guided by the soft-bent wings of angels,
I am weighed down by the relentless nagging of demons;
wicked little imps who mock my waking hours and torment my sleep.

There is not a grave dug deep enough to bury my sorrows,
nor do I seek any forgiveness for my sorry state.
I will wash away the stench of my miserable existence
with endless cups of liquid absolution, and in my drunken state,
I will stumble through somehow.

Tomorrow’s sunrise may warmly embrace the multitudes;
each with their cheerful dispositions and infernal optimism.
I, on the other hand, will wither beneath the heat,
thirsting constantly for the darkness beneath a waning moon,
for it is in darkness that my soul finds its true voice.

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Faulty Reasoning


inmate

I was wrong about obscurity then,
hoping for darkness and a quiet bed;
but then the iron door slammed shut
and the cacophony of inmates filled my brain.

My crime was meant to buy me the freedom
from life’s incessant hammering; but I found
myself thrust into a discordant and never-ending
screech of men bemoaning their false innocence
and knives fashioned from melted toothbrushes
jabbing the life from unsuspecting fools.

I had hoped for the consistency of routine and
lights out early, but beneath the glaring ceiling
sconces that burned 24/7, each night slammed down
with new threats and opportunists to perish.

I longed for the numbness I had known in my
drink and drugs, but in here, they would only
give you antacids and an aspirin.

I had simply not thought this through.

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The Night She Called



I was so drunk
the night she called
I thought the phone ringing
was a song in my brain -
I hummed along
and laughed that empty laugh
that is found at the bottom
of well drunk bottles.

Later, she came to the door
and knocked, knocked, knocked
while I stared
at the crack spreading
up the wall,
reminding me of her varicose veins.
I tapped my foot in time.

I will most certainly die
on this side of the door one night,
and all the ringing and knocking
won’t bring me back to life.

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Wishes


I wish I could have given her more.

More of my time, myself, my love.
But a man cannot give what he
doesn’t possess, unless you count
the empty promises. Of these, I have
given beyond measure.

I wish I could have loved her more.

More deeply, more sweetly, more completely.
But I hated myself too much to
truly love another. I cared, but that’s
hardly the same. And the love I received
simply gave me permission to misbehave.

Until it was gone.

Above all, I wish I had more wishes.

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My Father’s Gift


My father was a gifted man,
if by gifted you mean having the ability
to take a perfectly good family and
fuck it up beyond all recognition.

I often wonder what his childhood
was like – did he lay awake at night
anxiously awaiting that condemning
sliver of light from a cracked bedroom
door? Did he endure the midnight
smell of rum and coke that announced
another night of abuse? Did he whisper
to himself, “this is what I want to do
when I grow up?”

He had a gift for loving his children,
much like a pimp has the gift of loving
his whores.

by

At Last..Goodbye


Each word, a thousand times spoken
Each promise, another vow broken
like snowflakes melting as they hit the ground
your words fall coldly without a sound

Each kiss, from cold lips pressed
Each touch, just an icy caress
You hold me so tightly I can no longer breath
Your embrace insincere – I no longer believe

Each gesture, an empty illusion
Each thought, just a delusion
The love I once felt has turned to regret
And the best I can do is hope to forget

Each day, a waste of my giving
Each night, exhausted from living
With someone who hasn’t the vision to see me
I’ve opened my eyes, I just wish to be free

by

I Live Here All Alone


I will not die for lack of love,
though greater seems the fate,
Nor shall I pray for tenderness,
or seek my soul to mate.

No kiss for me do lips desire,
nor arms round me entwine;
A soft caress or heart possessed,
I am not so inclined.

This rhapsody that others seek
I will look for in tomorrow.
With so much pain, I’m now within
A great and binding sorrow.

The emptiness I live within
has always been my home -
So do not seek my company,
I live here all alone.

by

Broken Smiles


Behold, such sadness in her eyes;
sweet longing for bygone days.
A single tear descends, etching
a rivulet through her powdered face.
Betrayal writ in broken smile.
She wears defeat with noble grace.
Alone within her cruel vexation,
Her despair drifts upon the air.
I am entranced by this cheap perfume;
I cannot look away.

Her emptiness devours me;
I am lost within her reverie.
A thousand questions knit into one:
What tragedy before unfolds?
Has deathly illness laid low
a precious kinship?
Perhaps a lover, forever foresworn,
now departed?
Promises shattered like broken glass;
cutting her dreams into ribbons?

She rises slowly and partly turns;
her glazed eyes lock onto mine
as I offer nothing more of comfort
than my own broken smile.
Tears well within my eyes
and I look away:
My empathy is my undoing
and shame rises as a blush.

I turn again and she is gone!

Years have passed and still my heart
beats in imperfect rhythm.
Was she set before my vision
or concocted from my own revision?
Did she find her peace once more;
perhaps some comfort in our communion?
Even now I feel her sorrow
Like a midnight fog rolling
over me.
My tears have long since dried,
but my cry is eternal.