Imagine My Horror...

A dark power is beset against me;
It lurks wherever I tread.
It seeks to blind so I will never see
And make me as good as dead.

It seems like it is ever nearer
I think I see it in the mirror.

Sonnet I

When I tire of repentance-cycle life,

Turning violently back upon myself,

I move to match my lurking shadow-strife

And place my Holy Sword upon a shelf 

Then the darkness that ever creeps behind

Is accomplice to my dark revelry

Sinful acts and idleness are entwined

In the start of a growing devilry

Not caring to struggle in a lost fight

I let the heavy chains encircle me

Because I know that I have not the might

To climb out of the valley and walk free

The still small Voice after fire reminds

I need not my own strength to break the binds

Fight to Win, Or Lose

I'm frozen in the Gorgon's stare
With sword and shield forgotten
Slow hunching limbs drag me to prison lair
A stagnant state made me rotten
Doom hovers, I'm darkly aware
Half screams in terror, while half does not care.

A Tatter on the Heap

A rag in the wasteland

Cast aside

Children gather under it

Families fight over it

It keeps them warm

Cloth for them to wear

They build their homes out of it

But there is not enough to go around

To share

To cover cold skin-wrapped bones

Bare legs and arms poke out at the edges

The exposed masses gather ’round

With distended bellies

And dry blinking eyes

Pointing towards, searching

For the hand that discarded

This tatter upon their heap

Hoping for another

Waiting patiently like silent sheep

Before the shearer

Or cattle before the abattoir

They do not see

Or they do see

That their scavenged shelter

Is a blood caked handkerchief

They can choose no other

For they are beggars all

Those pale hairless apes

Washed their blood drenched hands

With this fabric before

It was home to the abhorred

They wiped off the blood of the parents

Giving the cloth for the children’s garments

Expiating their guilt

By throwing the infant rags

From a diamond encrusted hand

Can they bear to look?

At the children in blood soaked clothes?

Or at the naked multitudes praying

For even a corner of the blood encrusted cloth?

The hairless apes lurk in mansions

Spread across miles

Endless rows of pallid picket fences

Buzzing street lights

Empty roads

Blank walls

Full garages

Brightly-painted locked doors

Masking the lethargic beasts that dwell within

While in the wastelands

Their discarded excess and forgotten leavings

Are fought over

Every scrap saves a life

But there are so many more

Scraps

And lives

To save

Or to lose

To sacrifice

Or to abandon

To give

Or to take

To build

Or to burn

To hoard

Or to scatter

In the end your actions

And possessions

Will tell a story about which you valued more.




Sincerely,


F.L.

Solitary

I am a solitary man. Alone, trapped, with only my thoughts to keep me company.
I am a wandering soul. Traveling, tearing at roots, floating untethered.
I am the silent one. Voice boxed in my voice box. Its dark prison is my mouth and my teeth are the bars.
I graze by lives, never connecting. Lightly alighting upon many never resting, never staying.
Like a dandelion seed blown in a dry land, I wander aimless.
I want to know more than gentle passings.
I want to experience more than a light touch.
Don't we all?
We are all floating like blind fairies in a gale.
Fate's wind throws us where it will.
We brush by each other and crash into one another.
Stay.
I want you to stay.
Right here by my side.
For a minute, for an hour, for a day.
Just tell me where you are.
Show me who you are.
And I will come there and grasp you.
And maybe short roots will form.
Me to you, you to me.
And others could come.
Her to you.
Him to me.
And we could form a chain.
Not a net or web; thin and easily broken.
But a chain of lives connected, connecting.
Supporting, binding.
A chain of lives growing around the globe and filling it with hope.
I will hope.
Maybe one day we will do more than brush mutely by.

- F.L.