Do I recite the name in hopes it will bring back that old sensation
When hope was in the air, and just that word could reincarnate
Every bit of splendor that we shared?
No.
All that’s left is the smudge in hindsight
The blur that fights for recognition,
When I’d really prefer,
It stay no more, or no less, than a tiny, insignificant blur
He dreams about her far too often…
No matter the elixir he consumes.
Whether it be wine,
Or a dry martini,
A swig of codeine,
Or herbal remedies,
the reveries,
They never cease.
I would embrace the air around me
As it has grown thick with her aroma,
The ground she dances upon
As it has irrevocably become hallowed,
The vibrations in the ether as she speaks
For it selflessly grants, all auditors peace.
Is there no end to the guilt that I feel?
Do I blame myself for another’s yield?
If light means life then I must concede;
the darkness has found me, as daylight recedes.
It smears carbon black over eyes pearl white.
Concealing the pleasure, enforcing the blight.
The agony is a bore, life becomes a chore;
when all that I can fathom
is the day it ran me ragged.
It’s enough to kill a man, unrequited love.
It’s enough to keep his Winters frigid
and his Summers smoldering.
He’ll rarely feel comfort anymore.
At times a glimmer crosses his eye
and normality kisses his forehead,
then skitters off down the lane,
laughing as the man’s futile stride
stumbles over a storm drain
Collapsing to his knees,
cursing what’s left
Of his mediocre life.
She sent me off on a tangent
A spacewalk without a helmet
With nothing but a gulp of air
And the desolation at which I stare
He sometimes finds it unbearable to rise from slumber
Knowing well the thoughts concealed at night
Wipe the sandman from their eyes to cumber
A man who asks if love for him will ever reignite
Waiting for the answer the man crawls out of bed
Succumbs as the bombardment of her memory
Ricochets relentlessly around his drooping head.
And the man waits, only to hear a Songbird’s melody.
I came for Rome but left with a glass of dreg wine.
I set out on my lonely road in search of a good time.
I looked high and low, though never received
An inviting look from lady Rome, nor any reprieve
From my travels that left my bones brittle and my throat parched
She turned her stately head away as my feet painfully marched
Ashes of the past
Drift restless in a looking glass
They swirl in blinding flurries
Like snow caught in the breeze
But they’ve got nowhere else to go
Like tongues on a frozen pole.
—-
It’s like Sisyphus on his hill
Rolling boulders against his will
He’s got a fate that he can’t hide
It’s a futile backwards stride
Toward days when it may seize
And put this tortured mind at ease.
—-
I’m trying not to let them throw
My dignity down a darkened hole
There’s no getting out of this
Reliving what I miss
In dreams that awaken screams
They tear and loosen seams
I thought I had found the girl of my dreams
Perhaps it’s not as bad as it seems
But I waited too long, and now I’m singin’ this song
’cause she’s found another, and now it’s too late for me.
I thought my acts were gallant, waiting so long
I thought she had a man in her life
Oh lord, how sorely I was wrong.
I waited too long, and now I’m singin’ this song.
Because she was always looking, while I
Awaited a booking, at a table for two.
This man, she had, was just a friend.
And now I’m tardy, never invited her to the party
Because I was too busy playing the fool.
The Way it Goes 