Best Anodyne Poems
Please tell me there's a healing anodyne,
some kind of mythical enlightenment,
a cure capable of extinguishing the flames
of grief burning deep within my heart.
It's a fire I cannot douse or smother.
If there is a balm, something known to man,
I beseech you, bathe me in its pacifying waters
before my heartache drives me insane.
Cleanse the malignancy lost love has wrought.
In the song of a lark I found a brief respite.
His voice soothed the beast blazing in my breast
but then off he flew before I slept.
My ache found but a moment's relief
then returned to plague me, smoldering again.
I linger in sorrow, without means of escape
from a life of recurring fear and doubt.
Is there no utopian Shangri La or illusive Camelot
where memories of us will not haunt me?
If not, I must endure this anguish to my grave.
In desperation, I planted a garden of herbs
and nibbled leaves of chamomile and yarrow,
but no analgesic did they prove to be.
I should've sown hemlock to end my misery.
What anodyne will succor the look of disdain
I see, when in a mirror I sorrowfully visualize
the love his eyes once held for me?
If the antidote blinds me, I beg to be dosed.
I would sacrifice sight to set my heart free.
June 18, 2022
2022 Poetry Marathon Mile 3
Sponsored by Mark Toney
A rebuttal to Lord Tennyson's famous lines of 'In Memoriam' ~
"It's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."
Please tell me there's a healing anodyne,
some kind of mythical enlightenment,
a cure capable of extinguishing the flames
of grief burning deep within my heart.
It's a fire I cannot douse or smother.
If there is a balm, something known to man,
I beseech you, bathe me in its pacifying waters
before my heartache drives me insane.
Cleanse the malignancy lost love has wrought.
In the song of a lark, I found a brief respite.
His voice soothed the beast blazing in my breast
but then off he flew before I slept.
My ache found but a moment's relief
then returned to plague me, smoldering again.
I linger in sorrow, without means of escape
from a life of recurring fear and doubt.
Is there no utopian Shangri La or illusive Camelot
where memories of us will not haunt me?
If not, I must endure this anguish to my grave.
In desperation, I planted a garden of herbs
and nibbled leaves of chamomile and yarrow,
but no analgesic did they prove to be.
I should've sown hemlock to end my misery.
What anodyne will succor the look of disdain
I see, when in a mirror I sorrowfully visualize
the love his eyes once held for me.
If the antidote blinds me, I beg to be dosed.
I would sacrifice sight to set my heart free.
Previously posted by Jenna Logan, aka Lin Lane 2020.
I have learned in the reclining chair,
while the dentist mined deep veins of decay,
how to transfer pain.
The needled anodyne of novocaine
is inadequate to allay
the harrowing ache he engenders there.
But not even by bending fingers until they pop
or stabbing nails into the tenderest flesh
can I get the dedicated ache to stop.
Nor did my visit to another woman
after the last set when her shift was done
soothe the bruises on my heart
that blossomed when you stole the sun.
I feel you inside me
As blood races to my brain
Screaming your name.
You burn through me like an acid flow
And everything I know is left in ashes.
You move me to extremes,
Out of the in-between
Were sadness lies just behind the eyes,
Into the realm of sound and substance.
I feel you inside me
As I come to the brink,
And to think
My little world seemed so important.
You are love,
You are my drug,
You are fire incarnate,
You are the state of grace epitomized.
You grind my soul and shock my senses,
Shake and shatter my defenses,
You break me and make me whole.
I feel you inside me.
I drink you in.
Electric nectar surges through my veins.
I am swept away
To the place where you are,
Within and without,
Above and below,
Everywhere and nowhere.
"Denmother, this forlorn morn
I'll be without Her scorn..
Gone from Her deceptive songs,
Never again shall I do wrongs!"
Seventh summer Moon arose,
My life drawing to a close
and sleep with daemon kin,
A silver halo above my grin.
There She stood; an Angel tarred
Ringed by silver as the maypole barred,
Bewinged like the horizon at autumn's dusk
Clad in black, Cruella's orgasmic busk
Darkened eclipse clad my soul
Noose my neck of pagan coal.
Phantom breath where sex and grim-
A gothick romance, Lucifer's hymn
Another Angel fallen, drowned on the crimson sea,
No more depressive gospels, being whispered to me.
No more Heaven to welcome, this self inflicted glee.
Cheated life's judgement, just to be set free...
Activate, O anodyne.
Free me from the past.
Thought she was a friend of mine?
Hempen rope, thy mast.
Welling up inside you, thus:
Hell, thy fires surround.
Heaven, how I hate! Minus:
All above the ground!
Pain, you spring eternal.
Contentment, you're a drug.
Commands of the kernel?
Diurnal life, zwangzug.
If you dwell in daylight:
The sight of you will tempt.
Fate, thy bite! Fine fight or flight!
Poison, just pre-empt!
Predator, thy fairest face!
Golden is such grace!
O coyote, choose the chase!
Decency displace!
Wind, thy salmon-running ways!
Mate within the maze?
How indeed, sirs, nerves a-frays!
Priceless how it pays!
Space, open a portal.
I wish away to fly.
Demons of the void, stay full?
Anyhow, we try.
Singularities, deep freeze?
Well, we're off our knees.
All day long we're scratching fleas?
Saying please? At ease...