Grief

Two Reminders and a Torched Home

The fragments are scattered across the bathroom floor
photo frames, the shattered glasses of photo frames
and bottles of bourbon. Cocaine glistening from my fingertips
and smeared across my fucking face.

There I am, holding her. I never cried so much in my life.
Despondent, detached it's as if she's disconnected from reality
when I need her the most. We both lost in the
heaviness of the dawn. The feeble sunlight avoiding us.

Left in the shadows of despair and darkness a poisonous erroding
whatever love we have left. I can't stop fucking drinking.
She can't stop snorting snow. First time I tried it
and I have to tell you it helps me cope. She's depressed.

She's trembling in my arms, misery seizing her every nerve
and I can't stop fucking drinking and breaking shit.
I'm screaming, she's trembling. Fucking trembling and I cannot stop it.
I failed her, the doctors, psychologists and social workers don't know shit.

Every institution fails to find its way, death on the other hand makes it mark.
We are the monsters they say we are, the Gods and the Preists. Their Clergy of wretches
I will kill them all. Don't you dare dishonour our son's memory no matter how shortlived
his life may have been. I take the wicked weaponry of a knife to their throats and slash.

Arteries spewing their rhetoric, such vile putrid fucking rhetoric. That she never should have heard!
Her life now in tatters and mine in misery and guilt of my failures and these cancerous fucks
continue to preach, poisoning our souls to the point we have nothing of worth left to salvage.
The powdered snow descends, driving her through the threshold.

She draw the blade across her throat, bleeding out in my arms
the second casualty in my war. You have taken everything from me.
Your laws, your institutions and your lives, I will tear them away.
Nothing left to lose, Euan's muffled gasps captured in my mind.

And her frantic gasps for air, as the blood fills her throat. I scream.

Only I'm left, the aftermath is just that. The same forsaken shithole I torched to the ground.
I have her, and him close to my heart, the only photo left.
And the fires consume the rest, the poisonous demons now lain to rest.
I turn away from the fires, the fear. I am what's left.

...

Ta 40

i'd like to keep you in my memory
just as you were
just as you were in my memory
just as you are

Saturday , November 14, 2009

I saw a woman the other day
Lying on the ground.
The gun she used was at her feet
The blood was all around.

Her hair, a gory halo
Around her shattered head,
She clung feebly to her fading life
When only moments before, she'd wished herself dead.

People were crying all around
But somehow amidst the panic
I felt the world slow down and stop
The horrid scene went silent.

Tears came not into my eyes
Though I felt my heart stop beating
The feeling that enveloped me
Was poignant but quite fleeting.

I knew that I was in the presence
Of God's own deathly angels
Though she still clung to a life
That was intolerably painful.

They were there to guide her
To a place undoubtedly more peaceful
And in that moment I felt her pain,
The emotional, not the physical.

I prayed for her soul, not her death or her life
Not even for those she was leaving behind.
Most of all I prayed that in the moment of truth
At that very last second she had not changed her mind.

and, wherever it is you go to,  know that most of me will be gone with you. without you, the shell of me will linger on through sunsets and dawns, and memories will be the only breath that fills my lungs.

Slán Abhaile

I find myself cursing all those wasted days
with an anger that surprises me
..me, selfish fucking care free stand alone
couldn't catch a train or coach
or find a phone if just to say hello ..i know

memories, dear memories escape every hour
fled or lost, who knows how many are in reserve
god damn the irony of my own words
and to what end will I chain them to my mind
keep them like shiny trinkets in an old tea caddy
to look upon when needed

sit you now when you get there
and rest a while
with your mother, father, brothers and sisters
tell them of me and my family
and we will send a lantren to the sky on all your days

Beyond the Sun, Behind the Moon

clutching the rosary
her white hands upon her chest
face serene at last
lying on satin
in a burnished chest

her hands were calloused
from work in the field
burnt by tropical sun
eking a life for a family
of herself and nine children

mats were bed on bamboo floors
food was rice and salted fish
eaten from banana leaves
tears were her companion
in her lonely nights

still her God said persevere
pray and fast relief would come
He said knock and it would be answered
her knocks were many through the years
relief was never at her door

she clutched that rosary
so she would wake up in glory
her only friend was misery
wonder if they would meet there
together for eternity

My tears haven't fallen for mama
only a deep seething animosity
against providence or destiny
or God where ever He may be
for portioning such life for her

As they lay her down to rest
beneath the sod on crossed chest
I prayed...

The Weeping of Three

A fragile, dear soul slips into his grave
The soft sounding siren has swept him away
As waves to a beach or a shell to the sand
The items beneath are now part of the land

After his shift, the father of three
Was traveling home and was picking up speed
The sun masked the ice as he tipped back his flask
The wall that he hit made him fly through the glass

The news reached the ears while they waited at home
Half-grown, now confused from the words on the phone
The eldest, sixteen, sat her two sisters down
One year to the day when their mother had drowned

The grief that consumed them ate skin and then soul
The darkness surrounded, their minds lacked control
Battered and bruised, bloody, beaten, besmeared
Sullied and soiled, hearts heavy with fear

The weeping of three was a terrible sound
The noise of their tears were a thud to the ground
Shock and denial, then guilt and then pain
Bargaining anger, depressing dismay

Their father had struggled to build them a life
While numbing the pain after losing his wife
He failed to recover and never did heal,
Now who will pay for the little girl’s meals?

The state will decide where they spend their next days
A judge will then deem where they are set to stay
The life of a family may be torn apart
A sea and a wall left a thorn in their hearts

What will they do if divided and frayed?
The girls pack their bags and they set on their way
No journey is set, or location is known
Regardless, together is where they call home

TEARS

Tears that fall in silent rooms
seldom heal mortal wounds
eyes that bleed infinite hurt
the emptiness of a sinklng gut
and what of this God
who never answered me my prayers

when barriers rise like mountains high
and world is entombed in darkness night
that deep abyss carries no light

but soon mother time will ease the pain
and may the remedy be a soft spring breeze
and the caress of the warm summer rain

ao do not let grief be a jailer
or loss a prison cell

for tears that fall in silent rooms
seldom heals mortal wounds