Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 
I found her sprawled on the stairs
with no shoes,
plum-coloured bruise
on the back of her leg,
I ask, how did she fall?

Hand slumped over a step,
a young girl climbs to sleep,
now still on these stairs,
all dreams wrapped in black,
bumped her milky-haired head,
but how did she fall?

I heard no commotion,
no 'ouch', no '****!',
no cry cutting the air to my ears,
I only opened the door
and saw you on the stairs
and I can only wonder
how did she fall?

Was her mind swimming in drink?
Eyes droopy and weak?
Unable to reach
her soft pillow in bed?
Now as the clock dongs
throughout our house
I still think
how did she fall?

I say aloud her name
but no breath, no movement at all,
she remains sprawled
near the top of the stairs,
close, not close enough
and I look at her there
unconscious, mind strolled off elsewhere
and I continue to ponder,
how did she fall?
Written: February and March 2013.
Explanation: A poem written in my own time, the first draft of which was completed during a university class in which we were looking at poems by W.B. Yeats.
Years of verbal abuse
Mentally damaged to get the lesson
Emotionally detached from pain
Treated as an outcast trying to survive
Stay alive people leave
Feel abandoned never coming back
Not standing in the way
Depart wondering will paths cross another day
Reach out no answer
Many questions left unanswered
Change has begun for the better
Deep down something is wrong
Cries for help not answered
Learn to make it out of the clutch of guilt
"Put a lucky-seven noose around my neck
so I know it's real."

Tie me to a fence post,
Beat. Me.
Leave a buckle-ended imprint on my ***.
Call me a dull-minded imbecile.
A stupid little ******,
If you will.
Oh, take me back.
Take me as I am.
Baby, you make me feel
Like a child again.

Scrape at my scars
so I know it's real.
What is that reality that appears to me in dreams,
chock-full of misgivings and doubt. I counteract my fear of life
with my fears of slumber,
dust in my eyes and stiff as lumber.

In truth - I'm not stiffened
by fear,
by nausea,
post-pubescent sacrilege,
or all of the above.
I'm not up-kept,
grizzly with ennui;
I'm dizzy, confiding my loss.

I feel the lips that kiss
but can't be drawn: from mind,
stencil
paper
pen,
on sheets of thick
pale and
cellulose,
for the heart to mend.

My unsteady hand
is my fearful friend

A soft embrace
from a warm mind

Somber
and so full of Life
clung to by the scent of Death

Endowed
with an eternal promise and regret
from veins of plants
or the glow of stars.
Cold, mechanical debt.

(my heart, so full of...)

(my mind, so hot with...)

(my body, trembling in...)

I am gulf-like
a stream full of trees and glass
echoing a promise of shattering wind.

Will I be published
after my death,
asleep predating, a life conceived.
Will I live to see myself alone,
and to discover
that which I'm not?
Or will I stutter
and wallow a curse,
Up towards the sky,
Until the final verse.
On a boast
or chasing the Rail,
pale as dirt, and shallow still.

Will my true love abandon,  break, strain,
Burn away the wax,
or hurry to blame?

Omit my evils from the star-charts,
then just to vacate the void.
From the half-broken corridors of rocks,
nooks, crannies.
Carry laughter through the night
burn the effigy bowed-down,
before dawn's courageous,
ever-splaying light

Angels,
of Carlo and Marx,
plenty by noon
festoon,
again by day
thus replay,
Endeavor to infinity, fair child.
Remold the light by Day
and remold the Day
by Night.
Next page