All That Has Been Lost

"To the Faithful Departed," as a memorial to all that has been lost, is still being lost, and whatever the vagaries and vagrants of this world deem to take, though it certainly doesn't belong to them...

The Silent Castle of My Heart (Revisited)

"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.



it was never my intent
to give silence sovereignty,
dominion over my kingdom hub.
nor did I mean to gather
self-pity and lay it about,
a moat to the castle of my heart.

I assigned no consequence,
gave no thought to the betrayal
my quiescence would become
to those who had constructed—
in dedicated manner—
majestic tower rooms,
placed at loving heights
distinctly for my solace,
if ever I had need of them.

but know also, that I
did not wish to place a strain
upon the unstinting love proffered me—
friendships nurtured through years
that exist now only in memory—
by tendering the account of my trials
as they occurred.

I thought my tragedies best told
in the sullen aftermath, when the sound
of their relation would have come across
as nothing more than muted noises
to ears that were ringing
with the livid memories of my misery.

only in retrospect does the damage—
distance as insurmountable as a great wall,
unbroken by any form of entrance or gate—
my eager stillness might have caused
become as radiant as a crystal palace
which stands luminous in the light
of certain, unavoidable truths.

I cannot be sure that apology is enough.
nor can I be sure
of the worth of that regret,
I am naught but a flawed animal,
fallible and comforted
by the customs which define me.

Image: Medieval Castle, Public Domain Images

Self-Reliance, according to Emerson

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“There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance, 1841

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O Woe

when love is lost
and all is frost
I clamor for most
only to get tossed

all color is lost
the fire is doused
the life of a ghost
has me as its host

is life to me closed?
while sentiment was forced
I knew I had lost
my wants, as always, paused

all around is frigid
all taste is tepid
my appetites turn arid
everything tastes acrid

am I paying for what I did?
aye, 'tis the price of my misdeed
a waver from my principles solid
a turn to the sordid

my desire unsorted
I turn decrepid
I abandon all that is avid
and fall into this darkness so rabid

Oasis - Stop Crying Your Heart Out