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I watched the light slowly falling
from where I placed your letters so vain.
You were the one who was born into chaos
and I was the one who met you there.
When you said that this fleeting feeling would leave me
just as we reached the house where you lived,
I knew that you were wrong but I had never lied in silence.
Am I now judged in the same court as your Father?
For I only wanted love,
and you only wanted wasted love to fool you.

Through this thin paper dialogue,
Our shine is lost and dying of cold.
But do you know that it was Heaven,
sifting through a promise and dreaming about finding our way
from the way we were living,
and dying before we ever get to where we were going.
The hell came as we were falling
on clipped wings of love still calling out prayers
for the empty handed.

In the bed but not sleeping,
we were barely even breathing anymore.
In the basement the ceiling was falling,
the paint was more peeling than grey.
Perhaps we can lie to ourselves,
and hide behind the unread books on the shelf.
After an hour it will be like prison,
the clock a slum filled with all of our dead wishes
and all of the star struck children;
with gold in their eyes they have all seen you come
and be damned if they see us leaving.

But tonight I do not remember the way back,
tonight I've realized.
I've been walking around a town where I should never have been.
I may never feel the mend,
but I've still got me a couple of friends.
And in their eyes,
centuries of imprisoned love set free.
You should see this in them,
you will not feel this from me.
I haven't any love left but I damn well feel free.

So goodbye, So long my love.
Maybe we'll meet again someday.
We can forget about the lies that were told,
sift back through the promise
and turn our dirt back to gold.
-------------------------------------------------------



Very new. Would love feedback...
Thanks you all...

hi ep,

read it once and loved it... for a more detailed comment I need a little more time than I have right now... may take a while.
As I posted in one of your previous poems this one too has this melodic quality to it that I really like...

I'll post more thoughts later...

til then, take care

Arno

This piece has a definate 'atmosphere' about it...a consistent tone. Great metaphors. But it reads more like prose to me than poetry. I still enjoyed it!! But it seems to be walking that line between the two p's.
Thanks for sharing.

Laurie

Laurie- You're right about this walking the prose line. There is a definite lack of conscious rhyme causing this piece to come across almost as an open letter. This too is written with music and intended for the female voice but as of a few minutes ago the melody proved to be a mess. This one may soon be packing it's bags for the fires of hell. At the risk of sounding foolish, is tense directly related to the distinction between prose and poem?
I was trying to capture love on the edge of hatred, becoming hatred on the edge of love. That basement is real I assure you, and quite haunting in it's dimensions

E~

I don't think that "tense" is a factor in determining prose or poetry. It sure can make of mess of both if not used properly

It was the sentence structure and pace that caused me to comment on its prose-like quality.

It is funny, when reading it, i envisioned a guitar strumming softly in the background and a male voice speaking this piece into a mike. I know you had mentioned your previous piece was a song...but I could not apply that vehicle to this piece.

I appreciate your explanation. It makes sense. But those feelings can be so elusive. It reminded me of a poem i wrote several years back and think i may have posted it here over a year ago. It more about the Ending than the transition. Here it is:

Divine Intervention

As the milk glass moon
Gazed through the lashes of the evergreens
We were in opposite rooms
Licking our wounds
In the dark.

As the candles in heaven
Winked and played with their colors,
We lay bound and gagged
By our pain
Face down.

And as the frozen ashes of our hearts
Poisoned the air,
Even the sun,
could not
Melt any sense
into
What we have become.


Anyways, don't scrap your proem It is wonderful, despite being a bit androgynous....


Cheers, Laurie

"And as the frozen ashes of our hearts poisoned the air"
Great great...

So often the question "What have we become?" is mutually pondered in love. You capture the climate well in Divine Intervention. The nature of existence is to question. However, an all too clear answer or condition can be of no service except to blind and baffle.

I had to look up "androgynous" in the Webster's New (my edition was printed in 1977) Collegiate Dictionary

Laurie ~

I'm certain that I commented on the effectiveness of your poem previously [a year ago?]; but just coming from commenting more on the Chernobyl thread, my thoughts moved quickly from....someone 'needs' to [read that, "I would sure like to see...."] write a poem about this [the sudden absence of life due to nuclear fallout]....to recalling your poem "Divine Intervention" and remembering the power and precision of its images and thinking that you would be a good one to do it.....seeing elazar's poem on the beach hymn and wondering if his thoughts, as a result, had also been triggered regarding the movie.....to reading and seeing there wasn't a correlation.....to returning, with hazy thoughts regarding all the specifics of yours, to reread your poem....to having a sudden, hazy suspicion quickly confirmed, that it takes very little perspective adjustment to read yours as a Holocaust poem, as well. My thoughts didn't come full circle back to Chernobyl, but they sure unexpectedly ended up where they did.

~ Lizzytysh

Ep, further to Laurie's suggestion- try playing an accompaniment to the spoken word or recitation of the verses and make a melody to sing the last verse which has more of a lyric structure. That last verse could be inserted somewhere in the middle so you get to repeat it at the end. Bruce Cockburn uses this technique very effectively- see "Charity of Night".

Cheers, Witty Owl.

W.O.- I will try that. The last verse and very much like a slow anthem:
G/C/G/D/D7
It could easily be inserted in the middle and I'l either repeat it at the end or write a second set in the same structure.
Thanks Owl.

Ep~

I had to look up "androgynous" in the Webster's New (my edition was printed in 1977) Collegiate Dictionary

I had to look it up too, for spelling.

Lizz~

Believe it or not, i actually followed your written 'train of thought'
I too was moved by the Cherynobl site. But continually interupting my interest in what was being presented was a voice telling that young woman to Get The Hell Outta There!
I am flattered that you thought of my olde poem. And i too thought after viewing that site that it was rich fodder for a poem. Georges is so good at epic/historic poems, he really is the best bet for something really comprehensive. Me, i write from my vest. It is not in my nature to pull in things from outside myself. But, since this subject was so rich and i was moved, i did put pen to paper. I'll post it by itself. Cheers, Laurie

Ha! Glad to hear you were able to follow it . Yeah, I had those "Get Outta There!" thoughts, too. I wondered why [especially as she spoke of crossing into the increasingly-dangerous zones] she wasn't suited up, at least somewhat. Relying on a hosing-down, afterward, just wouldn't be sufficient for me.

I just read your poem, in fact [before reading this], and you have nothing to 'qualify' [i.e. apologize for] regarding its quality. It doesn't need to be 'epic' in length or content to drive home the point you want it to ~ and it certainly did.

~ Lizzy