A Happy birthday
For you my friend
Doth my heart dearly wish.

As the old year passes away
For the freshness of the new
So to may all of your troubles
May you find them scattered beneath you
As the leaves of fall lay trodden

May this day be granted to you
For your heart’s desire
May it be crafted of bliss
A pinnacle beyond zenith
May it be a rebirth
Of all that is good to you
May it warm your heart
As the fires of autumn

May this day pass into memory
To be visited often
Ever sweet and merry
May it be wrought of euphoria
Sourced from celebration and remembrance
Of all that you are and have grown into.

May this day be good
To you my friend
May this day be your birthday
May I wish you a happy birthday

My creativity intertwined
With my depression
All the way it goes
to the very bottom

And there they sit
at the bottom of the world
twisted like lovers
As I sit looking on
With death by my side

More beauty
The world never held
To my eyes
Than from a well worn spot
With an old friend
At the bottom of the world.

You cry in letters of the distance,
Of correspondence in poor fashion,
And of the memory of better times
That still haunt you.

But as you cry, I step away
As your letter arrives, I ready the match
As you recall old memories.
I glance at the forlorn grave

You dreamed a dream long ago,
Of a family, large and warm
But that dream, was an anchor
That drowned any hope,
That might ever visit here.

So, you sing the songs of your hope,
You adorn the walls for its arrival
You put on the glasses of rose
All the while you take no notice
Of the distance that proceeds

At every banner hung, and song sung
A step is driven, a furlong added
I hope you one day see
This family you hope for
Will never be
But there is a family here
In need of acceptance from thee

here is a cup of fog
mix it well
with melancholy
spoon in a bit
of saccharine ---
indigestible sentiment ---
and blend it all
together

take this tablespoon of
creative fire
douse it with
unrelenting tears
repress it into a ball
then let it stand,
covered,
that the yeast of
sorrow may bloom

when doubled,
punch it down to
bloom again

punch
bloom
punch
bloom

work the dough of Life
to death
form it into a blob
put it into the cold fire of the ego’s
oven
leave it there to burn away
to nothing edible

serve it in hard chunks
on delicate china
and --- wait
trust that the teaspoon of
Love added at the last minute
will be enough


c. 2017 Roberta Compton Rainwater

At times like this
what you need is to cry
Not a little cry
A tear gracing your cheek
But an ugly cry
A downpour to lose yourself in
Those droplets hitting the floor
As you feel the holes in your heart
The cracks in your soul

The last bit of your happiness
You hold in your hands
With no concern left in the world
The weakness of it pleading to you
Through empty space, voice unheard

You dream there,
From the bottom of the world
Of distant places
Of different people
That you could be
That you can be
That you were

An escape is all you ask
Of those people
Of those places
But this place is all your own
Crafted by your own two hands

The doctors advise seeing an adviser.
The advisers advise asking a pill.
A pill advises a short respite.

So, you swallow as the emptiness fills you.
Not the sun of that first spring day,
or the last embrace of an old friend
or the departure of your last humanity
stir anything inside.
You are hollow now, no heaven and no hell.

Surely this is better, they say,
You look through them hearing nothing,
You stare past days and nights into the stillness left by a pill,
and then you grasp what a pill advises.

There is a fashion here to call them crazy.

He who left the sun, for the beauty of the night.
She who frequents heaven and earth in her travels.
He who holds many minds in his skin.

They fashion those broken, in need of repair
For, in this way, they may affirm themselves first rate.

But tell me have you ever felt the morning’s first light
after a 7 seven-year space,
have you known the distance between the heavens and earth
or been 3 persons in a day?