Best Hope Pain Poems
When hurt is embedded, so deeply within
how does one remove it, where do they begin?
The decay begins slowly, when a life starts a-rotting
and it cannot be changed by planning or plotting
It's not be chased, nor coaxed from it's lair,
not left to escape and vanish into thin air
It can't be extinguished as a fire with a blanket,
nor hammered into shape like coins with a planchet
It can't be wiped as from the eye like a mote,
or scraped like a barnacle from the hull of a boat
It cannot be pulled from the soul like a cord
or hewn as a rope by the blade of a sword
It can't be excised like a malignant lump,
nor can it be carted away to the dump
It can only be moved with love and compassion,
with time and with care, there is no other fashion
In mania, the body unbinds itself.
The skeleton’s dense marrow becomes hollow,
an avian adjustment. It is accelerated evolution.
Fluttering and floating in a slew of thoughts
like nervous wind chime chatter.
My brother blew in through the rattling gate
accompanied by October’s cruelest gale.
Eyes unwillingly wide, levered by a crowbar
his hazel doorways ripped from their hinges.
He ran fervently through the streets of West Chester
with lungs coated with cannabis and amphetamines
until there was blood beneath his toenails, dripping out
just like Jesus’ wine weeping out from his searing limbs.
As he entered into the home of our distant childhood,
his back burned from the warm wrath of penitent leather
the self-flagellation, the begging for the flames of Purgatory
To appease the eyes of a looming Lord
his fate-sealing gaze hidden in twilight’s comforting veil
He says he holds a guilt beyond human comprehension,
that he is an evil person. I tell him we are just flawed people.
After a decade of intentful detachment, my brother cracks open
his ribcage as it blooms like a flower from his sternum.
He says there is a sickness in his soul, and that I will
never truly know him.
My mother and father have had heads made of granite
since he has come home. There are heavy eyes shadowed with
bags made of storm clouds. They have prayed with their
clergy. They have contacted multiple attorneys.
My sibling is a storm that has wrought ruin, but
he can heal. His violent storm might sow a beautiful season
The warmth of his first real smile will bring upon renaissance,
and as the tears and snot seep into the soil of my shoulder
our cheeks may grow a vibrant emerald moss.
I stand here, on twisted limbs
Teetering upon broken knees
My feet stunted, unnatural
Thickly traitorous to motion
I force forward, to meet agony
Blades of pain, penetrating
Through torturous phantom minutes
Of solitary, sacrificial steps
These feet once danced
A tricky beat
Carried the obligation
Of force
And the belief of boldness
Now these feet
Are brittle and indiscreet
Tomorrow is beyond four gray walls
In swirling dresses and polished wood floors
Colors of music, shades of rhythm
For movement to flow, for grace to know
So I stand here
To make it so.
10/12/18
When relentless grief plows your heart
And intolerable is the pain
Forget not, to sow your dream's seed,
At harvest, you would know your gain!
© Demetrios Trifiatis
14 May 2022
If tears were rain
A river would find me
Drowning
Drifting away
Though love is pain
Can’t leave it behind me
Yearning
Wanting to stay
Where will it end
Can rainbows be certain
Waiting
Learning to pray
Sun, be my friend
Tear open the curtain
Hoping
To see a new day
Canvasing the world as we solder metal bandages to wooden wings
We attempt to cover pain by silencing what our scars sing
A noted tension with a vulnerable assist
Showcases hope and a life we refuse to resist
The porcelain skin that encompasses our ceramic hearts
Shatters with words, fragile from the start
We attempt to grow strong and bring misfortune to rest
Never acknowledging our torment in life’s daunting test
Powerful stances and barricaded walls
Provide the illusion of safety from the inevitable fall
We torture our minds with grace and self-worth
A future and freedom promised at birth
Together we provoke sanity and justifying results
But solely we fail due to committmentless faults
Pressure is applied for us all to do right
Causing the misery to show only at night
We lie restless, we toss, and we turn
Contemplating all failures and lessons we learn
Memories and dreams driven by desires and needs
Pose as the trough through which our fiction feeds
Obtaining the most out of life is what we all want
Hoping when we die it’s not viewed as a meaningless stunt
Out of the crack, a life did rise,
A fragile bloom beneath the skies.
No gentle rain, no nurturing hand,
Just broken stones, a barren land.
But still, it fought, it clawed its way,
Toward the sun, it longed for day.
A tiny shoot, a will to grow,
A heart that hope would never forgo.
Like fragile souls, with spirits strong,
Who weather hardship all life long.
Though lost and lonely, cast aside,
Their dreams still bloom, a source of pride.
So let them rise, these broken hearts,
And find their strength in scattered parts.
For even roses, cracked and torn,
Can fill the world with beauty, born.
My wife Irina's from Ukraine
Right now her heart is filled with pain
From cries of distant friends who fear
The End of Days may well be near
I hold her hand as she sheds tears
as Hope can all but disappear...
It's then she cries, "O, Awesome One
Salvation bring! Your Kingdom come!"
________________________________
Irina is my wife's name. She was born in
Kharkiv Ukraine and lived there 37 years.
As I see the sky,
Some birds are flying across, So I turn back home.
Sleeping on my bed,
I close my eye and dreaming, Thinking in my head.
Wake up in midnight,
I saw a dusk settle down, Flewing in my eye.
African-American and abusive, my late step-dad
was a reverse racist:
an army sergeant; a Vietnam vet; and, a backhand,
face-hitting sadist.
I once bemoaned that I was a white child
(as if it were my fault!?)
and that he was black and resentful of me.
So, once in reckless revolt
against his ongoing abuse,
I rebelled under my breath
and uttered the "n" word at him
(so he beat me nearly to death).
Bruised, I never uttered that word again;
then mom and he divorced
as I grew older (which freed us at last!):
now unrivaled (with no remorse),
I suddenly was the man of the house; and life
for us seemed less stormy.
For the first time in years we lived without abuse;
and, at last, we were a family.
Then I got religion and met God;
and gave myself to Christ.
It was the best thing I ever did!
Born again, I thus was sufficed.
So the scars of my step-dad's abuse which
for years I had repressed
began to heal and disappear; and so I became
less and less oppressed.
Now old, my erstwhile step-dad developed
advanced swelling of the lung;
I had not forgiven him yet (back when
I was still angry and young).
Not yet able to forgive him for the abuse that
made our lives so unbearably grim,
I nevertheless still realized that the weight
of still having hatred for him
was far worse than my pain. I recognized
that in life we all transgress
and come short of God's glory: so, moved by
His grace and forgiveness,
I made the right choice to forgive him;
for me a daily, ongoing process,
I at last began to let go of the anger
and truly begin to move past the mess
that was my step-dad's legacy to me. Also, I
began to forgive God;
for He was not to blame for him (whose own
father, too, did not spare the rod).
Still, tho' I had chosen to forgive (him) and let go,
he was unmoved and unchanged as ever:
but I, however, realized that what truly mattered
was that forgiveness set me free forever!
When at last he died, I had already completely
let go (so that he was forgiven).
Now I can only ask of God whether my step-dad
was changed from his glimpse of heaven?
I sleep.
Enfolded in peace.
The agony and pain
Disappear:
The burning, the sorrow, the flame
Enfolded in peace.
I wake.
Entranced by life.
Remembering fire
Inside;
Death before sleep, and now
Entranced by life.
I rise.
Enraptured by flight.
The strength within
Burning.
Spreading my wings, I soar
Enraptured by flight.
In the dreary whisper of midnight’s groan,
when streets escape the punctured cry
of thinning breaths, a line of stars blinks
trading some warmth with human arms...
beyond numbing sighs this dark possesses,
there are more wrists handcuffed on tainted
metal of cups and breadcrumbs for waifs,
as youngsters huddle in damp corners, till
a single violin strain bites the screeches
of grief and pain, of a crowd rendered
by lesions worn: a gauze of dingy shapes
coiling in fetal postures like bruised grass,
................
For Rob Carmack's Contest: Screwed lll
Theme: Pain of night
3/01/2015
Give me a pill that will wipe away this pain
That’s driving me completely insane
A pill that will mend my broken heart
Before I entirely rip apart
A pill that will save me from my death
From my empty soul and decreasing breath
A pill that can keep me happy and alive
I guess you may call it the pill of life
As long as it cures my insecurities
My dreadful pain that are like injuries
Caused by buses running over me
But it’s just my foes not wanting me to be free
Someone give a pill to wipe this pain away
And maybe I’ll finally have a brighter day
Contest: Pill of life
Date: 5th February 2013
Deadline: 28th February 2013
“Sad Smile”
This Shoddy world gave you the ground to gloom…
Would not let your innocent soul to bloom…
Don’t cast down & put your smile out of the sight…
For the countless People you could become sun light…
Live! Live for the people who you want to care…
Give an account of the plot you want to share…
You should feel heaven for the reason you would live…
A part of your innocent smile if you could give…
By- Gautam
Date on – 30th Oct 2015
Waves of Opal Nights
May appear to be real, but the deal that once was sealed is unfinished and untouched.
Clutched by one's eyes of what you truly want to see, but left with this mirage; this montage of innocence.
Remorse has no place within these shark-infested waters.
Slaughtered, by the words that cut so deep. Sleep on the cold steep steels of woods keep.
Shaded, jaded yet aided by those, that were dismissed.
Sealed with a kiss, as lies forever build and your soul dies a little more, from each passing puff.
Is it enough?
How long can you, should you, or would you keep, this forged emotion going?
Not showing, any of what is hidden. Just maybe, when it all sinks with unbroken chain linked feet and hands into obscurity. Purity has no security with such inadequacy of things written. Forbidden to care or dream about things that once was us. Faded, within the moments of time. When the wind chimes its broken song of dismay. Left to lay in a distant future, far far away.
Darius Howard