JC - Hello Poetry

JC Jun 2016

My Trial

I faced you once,
long ago
surprised at who you were
more surprised
at who
you were NOT.
No black cloaked
faceless ghost,
pointing a bony claw at me,
but a woman,
luring me to her bed.
Her soft bed,
so very soft
and warm,
and with you in it.
A temptress,
not a thief,
as I'd always
seen you in
my mind.
Who knew
the call
would be
a whisper
not the
cackling cries
of an old crone
echoing in the dark.
But I faced you then
and refused your offers
and many times since.
I enjoyed too much
proving others wrong,
who saw me dying young,
yet died before me.
I smile at that,
not wishing them dead,
but not sorry either,
glad to watch them go.
I smile on every awakening
and the surprise
it brings to so many
and go on
about
my days.
I won
this game
already.
I'll give you
your kiss
when ready
and I'll determine
that
the when and the
end.

JC Jun 2016

A Death from Long Ago

It stays in my view,
so long after
almost a comedy
at this point
but darker
the laughs,
forced
through clenched teeth.
Sightless,
staring at the sky
the dreams ended
of faith
of love
of family
and friends
1 small projectile
aimed true,
tearing out
lungs
and air
and blood,
by me.
I lose no sleep
not now
not then
not ever.
I exulted
at the time
joyful in his miss
and my success
and my life
and my future.
Looking back,
my regrets lie only in
the wasted time and effort
the lack of positive use
of my gift
and my life
for all of these years.
Of that, yes,
I'll apologise.
Not for my aim
or his miss
or his blood
on my hands.
you'd have to be there
to understand
the joy
and the rush
and the addiction
to cheating
death itself.
Again
I offer no apologies
nor regrets
at a soul
added to the chain.

JC Jun 2016

In MY Sleep

In MY sleep,
not yours,
I travel places,
black,
with their blood
and dying.
You don't know,
you can't know,
and you'll never
join me.
They're as real
as the light
in the daytime,
to me,
at least,
and that's
all
that
counts
you know.
I go there
I see it,
painted on
the inside
of my eyes.
For the rest
of my
life,
in MY sleep,
I travel.

JC Jun 2016

The Last Wave

So it's gone now,
done now,
the finality of
the
last
goodbye.
Who knew?
Not me,
I never
saw
it
coming.
I expected
forever,
forgot things end
against
your
wishes.
So, a hand raised
silent regrets
the
last
wave.
I wonder if
he knew,
his
back
turned.
That's the
saddest part
of
it
all.

JC Feb 2016

Clocks and Things

I can hear it clearly
now
more than yesterday or before
the winding down of the clock
and the bills coming due
for a past
of centrist decisions
of self
of failing
of the idiocy of immediate satisfaction
with no regard for the obvious.
All these years and all the battles
turned into a war within
and begs the question,
"How do you lose a war
with your own desires?"
I did,
and bleed from the cuts
made by my own hands.
I hear the winding down
of the clock
but have lost the key to redemption.

JC Dec 2015

Behind the Glass

Beware that old man in the corner,
sitting quietly
scanning the room.
The wrinkles that you see
are War Maps,
made of hard bark,
not paper.
Ancient wood is the hardest,
tough to cut or smooth
or shape to YOUR desires.
He looks at his glass
but THROUGH his glass
missing nothing beyond it
while hiding behind it
prepared to move
if he has to.
Hard bark indeed,
beware that old man in the corner.

JC Oct 2015

Time

I'd been with her
tried to leave but never could
though she aged and
left me wanting.
We once looked straight and direct
into each other's faces
but now an occasional glance
from the side, or behind a hand or glasses.
She trailed a long and tattered scarf behind her,
picking up dust and memories
blurring the pictures knitted on it
making them hard to see
or remember.
I'd chase her out the door
if I only had the strength
and desire.
It's easier to sit in the chair,
by the window
and wait for the door to close.