In the arms that love me
To the place that truly cares
Who is always there for me
Has seen my soul torn bare
Who smoothes the worlds serrations
And salves the heavy heart
My friend, lover and confidant
Oscar winner in every part
Though we drive each other crazy
It’s the spaces in between
The mortar between my bricks
My copilot and my Queen
Dim capsules pad my senses
and brittle fruits amuse my tongue
with sympathetic serrations
that trim anger back to guilt,
anxiety back to discontent
and shave bald
my laughter and my tears.
I've swallowed so many rx inhibitions
that rusty blisters burn my lids
and gravel chips of once upon a time
choke tomorrow before it can take a breath.
I didn't want to bleach all color from my life
just the black, brooding over the unknown
that tainted shadows
and colored my vision...
the irony is no neutral hue expresses life,
the differnce is
I don't care that love is still at hand
to draw the way into tomorrow.
Yet it remains reminding,
the antidote to fear can't be in
these clever concoctions of denial,
not in this numb colored tomb of Never
that I will never escape alone.
Beautiful, burnished, brilliant
Yet, my ink friendly inclinations produce a chemical discrepancy
And now, you come – Artist
Scratching, on my polished mental plate
Do not blacken me with your fumigating candle
Do not soak me in your acidic bath
Yet, here you are, sketching to leave your design
Ever so lightly, you etch, carefully, penetrating
Acid soaks into your carefully drawn lines
The depth of your influence is varied
Teasing a relief by removing your blackened wax
Only to soak me in your iniquitous ink
Here, I must bring it an end. I must stop you - Artist
I must cleanse my mental plate
Chasten long and purposed for that original surface
Until a polished steel-plated revelation
Yes, there, beautiful, burnished, brilliant…perfect, if not for
Your Latin radere
The etchings of your needle
The stain of your ink in my serrations
My effort seems wasted
The vestiges of your ink tainting all that I touch
Now, everything has your art
Like wetted paper onto my mental plate
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.