Old words for hard times

I lack the spark that I once spat – a thousand hundred hungry fires – aching to burn down the preconceptions that would make me not a thing of quiet distraction all fluttery and lovely-like in the smoky sun shining rays of your soul.  I danced, you sang “I am, I am Real Religious Man.” My eyes were quiet lights but for a voice – your voice – that filled them with a child delight. 

The lady 

 

Even in death, darling

There behind the echoes where the sound froze

In my throat and life went still.

No breath to shiver the will.

There between the chase and the thrill

Of the chase.

And its taste.

The future stands

With out stretched hands

Empty.

Through and through and through…

God, the bastard!

Has no mercy.

Nothing new.

You always knew.

The truth?

He never cared what happened with you.

Or me…

Note:  The artwork that accompanies this poem was by Franciska.  She told me that her uncle challenged her to draw sadness in five minutes.  Well the poem took me a little longer to write as I wrestled with the dual themes of lonliness and the absence of god, which can be found in all of my writings. The truth is, there is no telling why my soul aches. 

Untitled Poem by Lee Murray

Orpheus and Eurydice

**********

What name can I give it?

That feeling you inspire in me.

Your face following the line that runs through heaven,

your down-cast eyes ripe with sadness,

the fruit of all beauty.

It has no name yet I think,

the unborn child.

I fear the stillness of its heart;

I long to kiss it and call it Love.

I fear that I, too, have not  lived,

have not known the value of breathing.

Not since the stars escaped from the night,

And I began to fear their leaving.

***********

Note:  I received this poem via text message from its author, Lee Murray.  It put me to mind of the correspondence between Byron and Shelley; which is testament to the greatness of this poem and the esteem of its author.  I spent two hours looking for an image to accompany the post and reluctantly settled on Violet Brunton’s celestial Orpheus and Eurydice.  

Frashokereti

He had wanted to have sexual intercourse with her since he was thirteen years old.  She sat, immaculate, her clothes as always having that brand new brightness.  Hair thick and cut like a magazine photo.  Her face carefully painted, just so little as to make out the freckles on her neck and shoulder.
Hiya, Robbie.  Was all she offered him when their eyes met.
Sera. He nodded.

She had changed her perfume which angered him.

You came back from..
Afghanistan.

Glad you came back.  Was it..
Yes it was.

Did you?

Yeah.  A lot.

Jesus.  I just think.  I guess I just think of you as that dawky boy.
He fastened her a look.
Don’t you do that face.  I watched for your name on the news every day.

I didn’t see any action.

But you..

Just said that to impress you.

Her perfect oval face threatened a scowl.

You changed your perfume.

Sorry.. I mean em just thought a change might be good.

He knew he had ruined the conversation.

What about you?  Her eyes scanned him.  Is that a tattoo?

Sorry about the perfume.  What I said.

He had made her dead end.

The tattoo.  It’s my soul.

Your what?

They made me wear it there.

Note:  An excerpt from a back burnered story I attempted to write a few months ago.  I attempted to emulate the style of Cormac McMarthy and fuse this into a sortof David Lynch vision.
Note: Dawky should be a word if it is not.  

There is no peace

There are times that I wished the night rolled on forever. There is a darkness in my soul that greets the silent hours as a sorely missed friend. I am not peaceful. I am never peaceful. But for perhaps one hour each night, somewhere between restlessness and utter fatigue, I feel closer to contentment than I ever will whilst the sun shines in my eyes. That hour just passed….

Whispers of a Dying Flame – 300 Graves by Peter Raynor

Painting by Jean Walker

Breathless.
Standing mucky. Threads hanging like stripped bark on an elm, yawing across the blue and the dim and the dark. Damp moss loose ‘neath the tread, covered in sweeping tangles of bracken. The woodland air, fresh and lovely as cold spring water. He drinks it into his lungs, reckoning it imbued with a power. Steadies his hands at least. Looks to his arms; a long flame-hardened spear, and Aequitas. A six pound hammer, chained to a trench knife. Gnarling and baying closing in. Stands faster than Thermopylae. Shifts a foot for purchase and lays the spear into a peeled maw. Rips it clear with guts and all and stabs a scrawny looking horror. Misses. Inhales. Stabs at beady black eyes. The shadows slip into the bracken. A bigger shadow, a hulking brute, a monstrous, snarling, mastiff. Pulls Aequitas loose from his belted waist. Blesses it with a kiss.
Smash! Stab! Smash! Stab! Smash! Stab!
Shadows on shadow pouring forth, screaming happy, as through the valley of Hinnom. Arms and legs mauled. The darkness envelopes his soul, caulking fear, extinguishing pain…
Cold water drowns his face. ‘We got you now, cunt!’
Looks through pale sheets of pain and smiles up at the raider. ‘I would wink but my eyelids are fucked.’

A boot heel stamps down on his face. Darkness and the words unbidden but truer; Joy is your sorrow unmasked.

To read more of this short story and others that are far better, visit my publisher:  http://www.aetherialpublishing.com/node/10

Aetherial Publishing

 

Absolution

“Clothe me in the word; let it raise me up on vaulted heaven, and from this cruel vantage behold the lowness of my deeds.”

Painting by Mick Oxley

The Final Words of Hendrix James