AND MISERY LOVES ME

I cannot remember when last
I was as that which is capricious
and plays upon life's gentle wind,
far too long have I been weighted down
by that which seems my constant and faithful companion.

misery, how good you have been to me,
never have you failed me,
never have you abandoned me.
even during moments
which should stand radiant in my mind,
you were there.
the day I wed,
whispered you to me lovingly
of the woes love would bring.
the birth of son,
the birth of daughter,
through those moments of glorious pain
and exhausting relief,
whispered you to me,
hand stroking with soft pulls
my sweat soaked hair,
of the hardships that I would face,
poverty stricken as I was.

misery, o misery
how you cherish me.
so well have you kept your heavy shadow
cast upon me,
offering me your malcontent,
nurturing my ever present fears
for future unknown.
and misery, sweet misery,
how I cherish you as much as you cherish me.
embraced you wholeheartedly have I,
allowed you to make of me
the desolate creature that I am,
permitted you to lay waste my precious dreams,
listened to you, as in adoring croon
you told me how naught would come of me,
how I needn't even try
for all my efforts
would fall miserably short of success.

o misery, dear misery,
do not dare leave me.
you are all that I know,
without you I would be happy,
and what is happiness but a blissfully ignorant state
where dwell fools and children.
no misery, you are well deserved,
wretched was I in my youth,
frivolous and abundantly shallow,
I called you to me.
and in your answer I found that which I sought,
that which I required,
that which would allow me to accept the shambles
I had made of my life.

in your sad song, o misery,
sweet misery, dear misery,
my misery,
I found apathy,
and it is this gift and only this gift
which devotes me so cruelly to you.

The Stained Earth

the weather sings a sour note,
a lazy drizzle, true,
but thunder rolls like luminous ire in the distance
and my heart wishes that it would become a downpour,
hard, pelting drops of renewal
that would flood the world and cleanse it.
but that is mere hope.
no storm can possibly wash clean the stained earth,
millennia upon millennia full of bloodshed
have left a lurid smear on its surface.

we are wretched creatures, are we not, we humans,
discontent with what has been blessed us,
always in search of more.
the search begins at birth, the onset of wondrous life,
and ends with death, coda, conclusion of the spanning movement,
while the immortal soul takes a deep breath
and prepares to finish what remains of the composition.
and what stunning release that next, final removal would be,
a relief from the unending conflict we mortal men
seem intent upon.

we conflict with other nations, and find conflict within our own,
we are conflicted with ourselves.
and no longer distinguish the right and the wrong of it,
moral obligation is now nothing more than chore,
one we no longer task ourselves with.
I despise the advancement of my years
and would gladly return to the days of childhood ignorance
where the earth was, to me, a thing of beauty,
fertile soil and graceful mountain,
teal water ocean and azure sky,
and not a thing to be pitied, fin.

Circuit of Strength for the Needful Form

the midnight hour has passed
and across miles of earth, who is mother,
and ocean, who is her kindred,
your well modulated voice
asks quietly of me,
"what is it that you long for?"
face burning brightly, a star gone nova,
I want to say, "I long to make of my body a haven,
where you might nestle inside of me
and take your respite."
instead, I utter words of prudent nature.

"forgive me, dear one,
but the complexity of my emotions,
which lurk beneath a seemingly wizened veneer,
became, as days and weeks and years elapsed,
difficult to put sensibly into words.
and, as well, there was the fear that time—
disastrous mistress that she is,
who forges her way ever forward,
shoulders rigid, head aloft,
deaf ear turned to my every desperate plea that she halt—
had grown us too far apart
for even the most ambitious of bridges to span.
and that fear kept feelings mine
from lacking proper definition,
kept them as particles of dust
lambent upon destiny's continually changing breeze."

"oh, sweetness," you return,
"time is no longer, to us, a wretched whore.
now, her headlong flight,
through long, soft hours of night,
and bright, incandescent days,
is a thing to be rejoiced.
knowingly or unknowingly,
she speeds us toward that fervently sought after moment
when you will once more become
solid warmth and tender love.

"and, too, that which you cannot now—
in the turbulence of your cynicism,
where hopes and wishes are concerned—say,
will be enticed to spill honeyed from your lips
by the fine tremors that course along
the limbs I will wrap tightly,
in an unending circuit of strength,
about your needful form."

The Sweets and the Sour

why must there come always
the sour with the sweets?
nothing good of late has been blessed me
which does not leave behind a bitter aftertaste,
one that settles on the tongue,
clings also to the back of the throat
and nigh chokes me at times with its foulness.

I am not fool enough to believe
that life is as the fairy tales
that sang us to sleep
when we were naught more than children.
happily ever afters that we in turn
pass on to our progeny,
hoping, all the while,
that they remain forever as babes,
never learning the tart flavor of despair,
never knowing how gladly joy is chased by sorrow.