A Stone Lion

Photograph donated by photographer Timothy Barash

A stone lion, weeping painted tears,

beneath a two-dimensioned heart.

His howls can almost reach my ears.

I could forget he’s just a work of art.

See the rage and horror in those eyes?

Were his cubs killed? His whole pride?

Who did this? Who did he despise,

enough to harden everything inside?

This noble creature’s tearful loss,

the grief of life collecting dust,

is an illusion, sealed in gloss.

None if it is more real than just

a stone lion, weeping painted tears,
beneath a two-dimensioned heart.

Without the Night

Illustration is "Starry night over the Rhone" by Vincent Van Gogh.
Taken from Wikimedia Commons. 

Without the night there is no day.

Where light exists, it will cast shade.

To love our homes we have to stray.

This is how our world is made.

What if we could send our woe away?

We would lose more then than just relief.

Hopes and dreams, ideals and idle play

would go as well, tangled with our grief,

and leave our world a place of silent grey.

Pain makes pleasure true and real.

When hurt and sorrow block your way,

that is just the price. You live the deal:
without the night there is no day.

Guilt

Illustration is "Blood" by Amy Kaufman

The sticky memory of my sin

clings to my sullied hands.

Death is drying on my skin--

--because I obeyed commands.

It was not my fault; it was not!

I ended what others had begun.

There is peace—peace this blood bought!

I did what needed to be done;

I took my knives and did my part.

There is no shame. There is no shame!

But I will never, ever be the same,

not in the deepest corners of my heart.

Sixty Years

Sixty years, sixty years, how long will that last?

The horizon of my future breaks so near,

and this curving path rolls so far past,

an eternity of time, a road paved with fear.

I march forward slowly, faking calm.

I try to touch the unknown and hug it tight

like a child reaching upwards in the night,

hoping to feel dark velvet on her palm;

and so of course, the disappointment stings.

I must keep marching anyway, dragged along,

by love and kindness, mother’s words, a lover’s song,

pulling gently like a puppet’s golden strings.

But sixty years, years without hope or guiding maps…

Will I make it all that way? Or will I just collapse?

It Follows

I sternly order it away.

“You are not welcome here.

No longer. You must leave.”

It seems to disappear,

but that is only to deceive.

Then it howls, loud and clear

and settled in to stay.

I pace from room to room,

to catch the moment just before

it finds my hiding-place

and squeezes through the door.

It settles in every space

every closet, every drawer

like dust settles in a tomb.

I walk away, it follows.

I try to burn it out of sight.

Neither the softest colored glows,

nor the harshest blinding white

can murder all the shadows;

so everywhere, in every light,

it finds the dark, and grows.

Heroes

Why do heroes leave their homes,

put down their pens, pick up their swords

and go to where the evil roams?

Do they chase justice or rewards?

When we seek the darkest places

and peer into the murkiest of pools,

are we really looking for beasts and ghouls,
or just our own reflected faces?

Rebirth

Photograph is "My Living Room" by alexiuss.

            People lived here, before the plague came.

            A fire burned beneath those bricks. The smell of fresh wood smoke mingled with the scents of simmering stews and baking breads. Where splintering debris lays now, children used to trip and fall gently on a soft carpet. A sturdy roof kept a family warm and dry.

            They said the plague was the great death, the death of all. But look what it left behind.

           

            Vines crawl up that chimney now. The green fragrances of moss and mushrooms and newly unfurled leaves waft through the house. Fresh saplings dig their roots in the dirt. Open beams welcome in the energy of sunlight and the nourishment of rain.

            There was no death here. Only change.

Judge by Looks

Photograph is "Agaricus Rose Campestris" by alexiuss.

            The finest sorcerers spent years breeding this.

            Old men and women bent creaky backs over workbenches covered in tiny seeds. Middle aged witches and warlocks carefully placed hundreds of blooms into the cages of terrified mice. Freshly cloaked journeymen donned garden gloves and breathing-masks to collect the blooms. Eager apprentices dutifully watered the seedlings, pruned the potted bushes, and stoked the fires that kept the greenhouse warm in the cold seasons.  

            Thorns became smaller and duller-edged. Leaves developed a natural green. Petals became redder in hue, softer in texture.

            The plants became more convincing.

            Slowly, year after painstaking year, worthless plant after worthless plant, this emerged.

            A thing that looks exactly like rose, a beauty to die for.