Poem (2001)
Very creative title, don’t you think? :-\
Hmm… another dark mood, coloured by faaaar too much playing of Max Payne. The computer game. Pretty cool one, but very freaky dream sequences. Well, your character is supposed to be on some crazy drugs (not on purpose mind you.) Anyway…
Poem
Copyright © November 2001
lying heavily upon my shoulders
like some cursed black cloak,
hunching my back,
pulling me down.The thick air reverbrates with the muted sound,
of my own steady heartbeat,
booming like some giant’s drums;
Thud-thud…. thud-thud….
The thick air reverbrates with the muggy sound,
of my laborious footfalls,
pounding like a hammer;
Thud… thud… thud…
The sounds blur in that dampening haze,
are indistinct; are one;
I wonder, should the next step never come,
if the next hearbeat would;
or if the sounds are one,
my heart having stopped its futile beat
eons ago.
I take a breath;
the fog like vapours of lethe
invades my lungs, wets my lips;
my eyelids droop, my limbs weaken;
the pencil begins its slow fall
from my limp fingers.
Step. Step.
The fog closes around the tool,
still falling behind me;
no sound now or ever,
to mark its passage.
The wind whispers of peace,
of eternal oblivion.
Why wander the world, painted in shades of black,
hollow thuds the only sound?
Walking lethargically with downcast eyes,
lead boots falling on gray ground.
A scene from a black and white film,
played back too slowly.
Why not stop, and lie down.
Let the comforting warm air
lull me to slumber,
never to wake to the bleak world again?
When each step is an ordeal,
challenged by none, rewarded by none,
indeed, watched by none.
Why go on,
when there is no light on the horizon,
no light anywhere in the murk of the world?
When each step is but a mechanical motion,
divorced from emotion,
bearing no hope.
In my mind’s eye, disjoited images float in the air,
hidden in the mist.
Peals of a child’s laughter -
clear, crystal, clean…
joyful innocence -
waft across the ponderous currents,
heard as if from a memory long forgotten.
These words – memory, hope, joy -
are nought but words in this colourless realm,
the concepts they engender long lost in the abyss.
Emotions are but stacatto pinpricks
on the leathery skin of the mind,
acknowledged on some abstract level,
but drawing not a twitch
from nerveless, unfeeling – dead – flesh.
Only one voice whispers of an end to endless emptiness,
the hollow pain of my soul;
the voice of the wind,
the devil – my voice.
“Stop… sleep…” it lulls…
so I do.
