Tag: ancient

The Wake

.Reading time 2 minutes.
It’s an Irish tradition 
But it feels like ammunition 
Firing into my soul 
Oh, what it takes to be whole
When a person is ripped from this earth
And people just say, I’m sorry that it hurt 
As I look at the body in the coffin 
And it wasn’t for a lack of lovin’
That it’s in there 
All the people who care
Are seated in a square
Around the walls
A four cornered room and we walk down the halls
Lined up in black 
And the slack 
That is cut like a new shirt 
Won’t still the breath that we skirt
“She looks the same”
Or “He looks peaceful” and his name
Is met by an inflection of the head
The horror of when someone is dead 
And there’s nothing you can do to get them back
I remember when they carried him out and lack
The ability to hold the memory in equanimity
Coz it’s the last time I’ll ever see
Him in that way
What do they say?
This too shall pass
But I don’t want it to if the love don’t last
Though the memory is like a baseball bat
And people wonder what am I at
Haunting the halls
I say it wouldn’t be this way if the walls
Would just fall down
But I drown 
In the ocean I open up
In the name of love 
And tears they pour like a saltwater sea
Down my cheeks and cut a valley through me
Like a glacier that moved the ground
To make Kilglass lake and the sound 
Of the drumlin belt echoing calls
Across the marsh and the footballs
That just hang in the sky
Why did my grandfather have to die? 

Image Credit: https://pin.it/3WrNKckbu

Paper Planes

.Reading time 3 minutes.

All of these words are just errant musings
The product of introspection and my perusings
And I wonder do they add to naught at all
Just the scribblings of a child in crayon on the wall
But it’s only when I write that I truly see
The breakdown of what is troubling me
And the way I can fix it or how it tapestries
Into the weave of earth’s cosmic mysteries
For there are some things for which no explaining
Could ever illuminate what you’re detaining
When reasons all fail you and you just cannot find
The evidence for your theory that the world is kind
But let it just blossom like the bloom of a bruise
As it spreads out in colours you use
And slowly heals up and returns to source
There are some things even man can’t divorce
Like his or her very own essence
The body is just the skin in which we are dressing
And never can amount to the sum total of us
There’s a power inside where I place my trust
So whether I be broken or raised up on high
I’m aware of that which can never die
And I have been both the bottom of the bowl
And the queen of plaudits but neither touch my soul
I just keep on keeping my cart in the race
And seeing the good in everyone’s face
And nobody worries about the self esteem of the bad
It seems like payback they lost all they had
As punishment reigns on their earthly domain
We say they deserve it when they feel pain
But what are we doing to our brothers and sisters
That we demean them as less in the things that we whisper
And spitefully reap what they could not sow
They’re dead in their eyes so I think I will go
But even if they’ve been bullet strung
They’re not the last step on the laddered rung
And all things of Earth will return to the Divine
It’s just we don’t see how the threads entwine
So forgive the mutineers for they know not what they do
In the words of Jesus and he’s talking to you
So as my broken pen fills out that lament
I send my love to you and that’s where it went

Ancient Eyes

.Reading time 3 minutes.

Just tell me please, I can hear the words
On the tip of your tongue like nested birds
I can hear it in the air I breathe
Some silent communication between you and me
I can feel you look me dead in the face
Until one or the other falls out of the race
Do you know you excite me and spiral around?
Like a Concorde breaking the speed of sound
Is it crash and burn? Is it up and fly?
Either way, its do or die

I hear your footsteps on the path
Echoing fear, the sound of wrath
The doom pours in as I imagine scenes
Where I break your heart or sink your dreams
This crashing sound, the resounding waves
Break across sheer cliffs and caves
The rush of water, so fast and brash
Feels like I’m drowning all in a flash
I hold it out, I hold my ground
Til silence overtakes the sound

You are a star that shines in my sky
You illuminate the darkest night
My brightened gaze upon your face
Leaves me beholden, in a daze
I bow my head, sink to the ground
I will not move, let the sound
Let swords and daggers cut my neck
Break my town, leave all a wreck
Encircled in a little point
Hurricane eye has me coined

I will not leave from your side
If I’m destroyed then that’s my life
I will not move from you to hell
Lie to myself, afraid to tell
Here I am, I’m in your way
Change your hair, leave or stay
A home for you, a bed of calm
When gusts are shaking fragile palms
I’m eye to eye, I’m face to face
The only thing that won’t lay waste

An armchair for you to sit yourself down
A room warmed up, a crackling sound
As timbers splinter in embered flames
No push and pull, no playing games
A cup of tea to warm your hands
And lungs and bones like flowing sands
A hug, I’ve arms to wrap you in
Shoulder on which to lay your chin
A place of peace to rest your soul
Like forest quiet, ancient, untold