First thoughts emerging
From my wakening mind —
Shall it be fear
That fills me
Weak and faint
To face the waiting day?
Or, sleep dispersing
With the coming dawn,
Shall crowded thoughts
Rush restless
Through my mind
Of endless things undone?
When shadows fading
Flee the rising sun,
Shall other shades
Of darkness
Shroud my mind
With life's futility?
Or once more waking,
Weep in bitterness
To find my life
Unwanted,
Out of use,
An emptiness alone?
Shall night unsleeping
Bring the morning grey,
And sorrows, fears,
And heartache,
Crowd my mind
In comfortless array?
Or could my thinking
Turn these pains to prayer
To him who knows
My helplessness
My weariness,
And find in him relief?
Could he my pacing
Thoughts infuse with peace,
If I lookup
And cry,
Lord,
I believe!
Help Thou my unbelief?
See Mark 9:24
A cold, comfortless park bench
an empty subway train
A bed of leaves, trending damp
a knoll of grass behind an exit ramp
Long-abandoned shacks
or railroad tracks
Boarded-up homes
no-trespassing danger zones
All these serenade me to sleep
echo the music, all night I weep
At night, death's dark whisper resounds
Chasing dreams, with bloody sweat unbound
Awakened by fear, his heart does pound
Beholding death's spirit, all around
By day, sleep flees, a rare reprieve
For he has slain it, with restless grief
A little slumber, a shout of doom
Forever haunted, a troubled tomb
Through "Baba Gbonka's" dark, deceitful gate
He sought wealth's shortcut, a fatal weight
Riches accrued, but health did flee
Mansions built, yet comfortless, he'll be
Luxury furniture, a hollow pride
Restricted to a mat, where he must reside
Strangers receive his charitable hand
But relatives, a forbidden land
Conditioned to spend, with daily strife
No peace, until his target meets life
Marriage yes, but children, a denied bliss
What's affluence without peace, but an empty kiss?
Who shall inherit all his earthly gain?
To what account, when his soul's laid to rest in pain?
The scripture says, "Godliness with contentment's the gain"
A truth he forgot, in wealth's vain, hallow reign
each candle contains a Flame
life abounds within its Light
Fire when these Flames unite
and banishing the darkness
warm comfort flows from within
drives away the biting cold
the wind of division blows
extinguishes one candle
where once each formed The Fire
individuals, yet one
this missing Light makes all less
less Light, less warmth, comfortless
tears of grief fall on the wicks
Flames sputter and dim but stay
keeping at bay the darkness
forever missing your Light
I will not leave you comfortless says the Lord of LOVE
I will come to you child, like the soaring doves above
no stone shall brush your tender feet
no winds shall crush your finest wheat
I will not leave you faithless says the Lord of joy
I will come to you wearing the armor of LOVE
I will be your hero your noble one
I will be your one and only Son
I will not leave your mourning alone says the Lord of ease
I will come to you, like a bending tree on a summer breeze
no prayer shall go untold
no sheep shall leave its fold
I will not leave you comfortless says the Lord of LOVE
I will come to you, like the soaring doves above...
Summer deals its first hand
no bluffing behind her eyes
depression heated to irritating comfortless
catching tunes upon the air
that haunt from summered pasts
the clink of ice on crystal
Mowers scream from close by
a yapped chorus bites the air
the haze lifting from cement
for a moment ripples reality
then a falling wind chills
with the burning shadows
of anything stopping the sun's stretch
WHERE IS HE THAT WILL FEED ME
An invisible thief,
Beyond the dark horizons,
Our hearts will once more sing,
For those who leave us for awhile,
We believe their journey just begun.
Life holds many facet but this Earth is only one.
The destiny of every living being.
An unquenchable flame.
A strong wind without a wind breaker.
No man shy away from you irrespective of his powers.
We can’t stop you, but you stopped us.
You do husband and wife apart,
Kill the rich and the poor,
And they abandon all the struggles and wealth of the earth.
You fear no giant neither do you pity children.
You sneak into home and make it empty.
Oh death! A respecter of no home.
You separate people from the joy of life,
A place of no day and years,
Wrap them in comfortless embrace,
Enshrouded with sorrow and tears.
Oh death, An uninvited guest!
You serve people breakfast with grieve,
Without them seeing you for appreciation,
Leaving them with everlasting lamentation
where will our help come from?
Who will treat us like him?
Where is he that will feed us.
I sit with pen in hand this downcast morn;
and search the Muses for more enraptured songs;
songs of great cheer, of memories heartworn,
to banish the spirits of inflicted wrongs;
before, no songs could quell the ruthless onslaughts
of life; so abject, I was comfortless;
unsaved but for them hovering in my thoughts,
wooing me with lines that eased the hopelessness.
So, wherefore am I life's steel lightning rod;
a man, and lone soul, whose quiet defense
the world longs to disrupt—invade? (So awed
am I, that viciously it takes offense.)
From such place, the Muses grant their rare escape;
where, in peace, poets can safely take their shape.
Love hurts
Life lost
Feelings fade
Heart shattered
Hope battered
Plans crumble
Time wasted
Bliss robbed
Lies lies lies
My love story....
Flattered fallacy
Fortune flustered
Eyes blindfolded
Distance stand
Mouth mumbles
Trust thrashed
Heart broken
Heart hated
Tears dripping
Scar surrounded..
Lies lies lies
My love story
Tomorrow's smudged
Euphoria to dysphoria
Moaning softly to mourning loudly
Best to beast
Diamond to demon
Love to lost
Lost to lust
Lord to leud
Lies lies lies
My love story...
Comfort to comfortless
Mercy to merciless
Memories to madness
Merry to messy
Date died
Love lied
Emptiness
Heartless
Loveless...
My love stories....
the random residue of sunken shadows
retrieves an image of the light gone by
an effigy ashen faced and smouldering
glows tenderly upon the silhouette of time
yet another curve ball of molten assertion
distorts impressions on the transient mold
pinnacles opine to differ from ground zero
tapestries’ memories fragment figments
of imagination attempt to reassemble
the waning half-moon of false composure
serrated edges compress to bursting point
the vigil at closed gates of no return
defended by cross bows skulls targets
missed opportunities and flightless arrows
in anticipation of another haunted day
when sleep refrains from comfort
night stallions call for spurs and whip
a rodeo of mental injuries displays
with comfortless numbed precipitation
the viscous sweat of solutions out of reign
yet she gathers remnants of an outline
a contour of sanity clothed in disguise
puts another log on her ice-cold fire
sheds a frozen tear on course to exposition
grasps a tinder olive branch of feeble hope
decides to die at last and wishes to forget
01st August 2021
Theresa's grief
Monday came to death
And there is no comfort for Theresa
No comfort to ease the pain of his passing
Theresa wishes to join her love in the afterlife
But for the sake of her children
She lingers on
Theresa lingers on in darkness and in doubt
As night falls in winter that comes without a star
There she dwells bound to her grief
Under the fading trees
Until all the world is changed
And the long years of life are utterly spent
There is nothing here for Theresa
Only grief. Only death.
i amble through the corridors
of this comfortless life
...the echo of your footsteps
meander behind me
in shallow strides
bestowed by death
i feel the pierce
of your eyes
fall from clouded skies
slashing the core of my soul
the corpus of your being
knocking me back
through every tempest
of storm's breath
the lash of death
pummeling me
with the ocean's waves
stinging me
with its misty cries
erasing my footsteps
as i try to regain myself
and mend my soul
...i curse you again
beneath every sob
of childhood pain
that haunts my mind
with memories of you
Beneath a comfortless, cold moon,
a rose was pluck too soon -
Perhaps it’s not so:
for he is now living,
and we are dying…
God only collected another Angel.
Still, I wept as I had never wept,
stripped bare of hope and everything.
Within me an ever-louder wind -
a pain that throbs with an un-keen sting.
I looked up at the heaven’s mysterious face,
with all my soul within me burning:
“Dear heart, be still a moment!
God had only lent him to the world.”
Pinballs
Flashing lights cacophonous torment
silent blindness screams of nothing
Plunger lost in apathy comfortless striking void
pistons firing on empty
Flippers halted in stagnant mid flight
motionless surreal delusion
Sensors tilted upside down and further
making no sense of no meaning
Bumpers like icy mountain’s thin air
pick axe forgotten on the descent
Sink holes covered in quick sand
vacuous craters enveloped madness
A ‘level’ play field and yet where are those balls
of courage to tell them how I really felt?
09th August 2018-08-08
Written for the contest: ‘I wish I had the balls to tell them how I really felt’.
Sponsored by Line Gauthier
All joy had fled these pinched, wintry alleys.
The sun had slouched away
to die somewhere alone,
like a poisoned cat.
Across the steep valley,
Chestnut trees stood stoic and erect,
terracotta warriors, undecked,
their green bled out.
Damp was the only regular
that now attended the village church.
Plaster was bulbing out, like gout
or arthtritic knuckles,
and paintings of rustic saints
were wrinkling out of their frames,
unloved, unnoticed, flecked
with fungus, freckle-frowned.
The coffin yawed and lurched,
coming out into the drizzle.
No-one’s buried in the ground
in Spain. They slot you in a wall.
We mourners, with murrains and galls,
and racking coughs and limps,
were huddled, waiting.
We saw them hoist the pall
to offer it to its slot.
I was appalled. What I got
was a glimpse, to my distress,
of something claustrophobically small,
so dismal, comfortless –
the interior of her “plot”,
that niche that’s waiting for us all.
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