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.

The wall is falling down.

Photograph is "Kaleidoscope Reverie" by alexiuss. 

The bricks are chipping off.

The mortar is a flaky crust

grinding into greyish dust

puffing like a sickly cough.

Stairs sag beneath the weight

of bricks and dirt and bottle caps.

Sometimes they creak. They will collapse,

split by gravity and fate.

It's just a matter of time,

‘til the wood has rotted away,

‘til the wall, long past its day,

is just a memory of grime.

The wall is falling down, falling down.

Soon it will be completely through:

and the last brick will hit the ground

freed at last to be something new.

Imagination

Illustration is "Believe" by Amy Kaufman.
Check out her deviant art page

Sorcerers and valiant knights,

scaly dragons, girls with wings,

woodland witches, impish sprites--

We are your forgotten things.

We cannot die; we do not live.

We have no homes; we are not lost.

It’s not our privilege to forgive:

when you forgot, you bore the cost.

When you were small, did you believe?

When you grew tall, and too mature

for wonderland, you chose to leave.

Or were you forced, all insecure?

Or did you lose us in your life?

In working pulls and social shoves?

Among daily needs and strife,

We are your forgotten loves.

You forgot us, but we’re still here,

in your dreaming, always near.