Sunday, November 13, 2011

Some more poetry

Get off your high horse so I can hug you

The hours have passed silently, yet
the uncomfortable confusion remains

Sitting here,
calm and quiet I stare
the pages spread before my eyes.

Could it be?

I ask but no one answers.
How could they…
Everyone on this coast is fast asleep.

I know what I have heard!
The few plain words,
Confident
The tone still resonates in my ears.

There have been many sounds since then,
Yet I still hear them:

“I think I know a little more…”

Could she?

The pages in front of me,
an ink covered mess.
The places still there
but the events long forgotten
The characters?

I cannot be certain and I wouldn’t want to assume.

I’m sitting here
staring.

Reinvented lives, re-sketched dreams and revived hopes.

Any trace of reality lost long ago,
forgotten, altered, spat upon, and tarnished by the ages.

She might rearrange a few cosmic threads,
she might bring clarity where darkness reigns,
she might even be able to change the course.

But to know?

I must have a smile on my face,
spread from ear to ear like a madman.

If only I could see myself,
I would laugh
together with my own ego at the ridiculousness
of her words and my sentiments.

For when it is all done
no one will know any more than now,
and I’ll still be grateful for her.
with all her imperfections.

Torn between affection and respect
Just like any other day.


I guess this image goes well with the second poem.


Can’t outrun what lives inside

When everything else fails
(as scared as I might be)
I can attack.

Capitalizing on the only thing left:

An element of surprise.

Deep in the woods
the sky so profoundly dark.
Impenetrable.
Only the twigs crackling under my feet
tear the silence.

The heavy breath…
An imposing sound of death in my back
keeps me going further
deeper and deeper.

The woods swallow me,
the low branches scratch at my face.
My arms bleed,
my lungs let out their last exhale…
stretched to their maximum.

From now on I shall merely gasp
Taking in the scent of blood.
My own blood,
splattered on the ground around my tracks.

I feel them,
their eyes in my back,
searching through the thick night shades.

I grasp the knife,

Ouch

The polished steel blade cuts deep into my flesh.

Meat, bones, ligaments, and nerves.

The pain pulsates.
Twitching, shaking fingers want to curl
into a fist
outstretched toward the heavens.

It makes a statement:
I shall never be caught!

Trembling under a cover
made out of wild black birch brush
I wait…
Listening.

There isn’t a sound to be heard
There isn’t a breath to be felt
There isn’t a body to be seen
Except mine.

My breath, my body, my blood
I wait.
A minute, two, three

Nothing.

It is then I realize that I,
running away from myself
have been hurt by my own fears.

The demons inside us can never be outrun.

Copyright Henry Martin