In a small town
In Alabama
...
There lives a Poetess
As sweet as can be
One who's been here
(On HP)
Longer than me
Living on loving
And good poetry

Every beautiful moment
Every tragic scream
She's there to soften
Realities sting
Lucidly asleep
Wandering
Through dreams
She is a loyal subject
And she is
The Queen

Her smile is as bright
As her mind is wise
Lovely makeup
Never a disguise
To peer through
Her Southern
Smiley eyes
Is to know
Somehow
That hope
Is alive
...

From here and there
I hear him speak
His voice, falling in mild whispers
But he always plays hide n’ seek

At times he speaks loud n’ clear
Sometimes so harsh and stern
How he denies my wild longings
With a stubborn ‘Yes’ or ‘No’

What magic and mystery in him stored
I am at a loss to gauge
Amid the shards of my broken sleep
I often struggle to decipher his mysterious codes

I sought after him ever and ever
Down the nights and through the days
Taking him to be one from the dead,
I searched him through avenues dark

Along aisles of the dead lain in rows
And in the hallways of fame
But he eluded me like a mysterious sprite
Prancing around and hiding about

When I give up my search after him
He shouts and whistles amid the din
And I see faint truths suddenly uncoiling
Forming in me a clearer perspective of life

At the end of my incessant search
I chanced to meet him within my own self
Peering into my depths, I saw him, his face veiled
And a balance held obliquely in his hands

Lifting the veil from his countenance
I saw him clear, clear as in a mirror
Someone with such commanding air
And stern with an impassive demeanor

In the still pool of humid silence
I heard him introduce himself
His sound ringing so distinct and clear
Leaving echoes in the hall of stillness

“I am CON- SCI-ENCE,
Your alter ego
Listen to me, you shall not stray’’!

I could never convince you
Of the things I feel inside
All the numbness
Never healing
Because to me
It's do or die

Not lingering
On my sorrow
No depression
To convey
I get high
On Mother Nature
No regret
Can make me salve

Will you be here tomorrow
Or leave an empty page
In words displayed
In sorrow
Why do
Broken Poets
Have to fade?




........

.
The menace emerges from the shadows,
a barked order, but unintelligible.
Then the soft steel kiss
slicing through flesh into entrails.
A fist connects with a crunching face,
legs buckle with pain and blood-loss.
And the Darkness of Death takes me,
like a comfort blanket of soft wool.
My Temple violated and de-sanctified,
the blade withdraws with a whisper.
Darkness cuddles
and welcomes me with a smile.

The morphine haze
keeps me inert and motionless,
but makes my mind giggle.
It wanders aimless
through psychedelic chapters …

This place is sterile, white, drab.
My eyes move slowly left.
There is something in a doorway.
The door.

… my head flies to a Poets Banquet,
where I am the bones thrown to the dogs.
And the wood grain in the door moves,
a cascading chocolate fountain,
over and over again,
flowing, melting like molten lava.
They taught me to write,
then cut off my hands.
Obscurity is purity;
fame is pain.
So I penned a letter to the dead.

My eyeballs are all that move,
floating in mid-air,
but still connected and transmitting
drug induced images.
I remember the assassin, the blade,
the darkness, the sirens, but no pain.
Images but no feeling.
They move right to a cold bedside table,
and then I think I cried.
Somebody Knows me.
No chocolates, no flowers.
Somebody Knows me.
No fruit. No magazines.
Just …
a pen and a pad.
Somebody Knows me.
I did cry, someone remembers me.
And each teardrop contained a thousand images,
a thousand stories, a thousand poems.
Inspiration. Illusion. Insight.
And the Darkness of Sleep takes me
like a comfort blanket of soft wool.
The morphine haze retreats
further into my mind and I dream …

of ambulances and white walls
of green gowns and bright lights
of scalpels and scissors and surgery
of needles and nurses and nightmares

… I dream of Poetry
in colour.
I see worlds in the sky
and words painted on clouds.
A kaleidoscope of teardrops
dripping images into my mind.
A fountain of mist cascading,
seeping into a memory sponge.
And I feel; somebody who Knows me
gently wipe away the tears.

© Pagan Paul (04/06/17)

Waiting on Rain
Waiting on love
Waiting on reality
blue skies up above

No Rain in sight
No words falling down
The page  is covered
with dirt from the ground

No poems are presented
The voice so parched
The emotions are lacking
so stiff and starched

Will the skies again darken
The words tumble down
Bringing back life
To seeds deep in the ground