Inside a dark room.
In a locked box.
A lock of hair
a letter
A photograph
All my dreams
No one sees them
Brilliant Black

Inside a dark room
In a locked box
A love poem
A perfume bottle
A faded rose
All hidden in darkness
Brilliant Black

Inside a dark room
In a locked box
A house sad and silent
Full of lost shadows
No one knows
Brilliant Black

Inside a dark room
In a locked box
Dried tears.
My heart
shattered like crystal.
No one cares
*Brilliant Black

Brilliant Black
By

Jude Kyrie

In a locked box
Inside a dark room
A lock of baby's hair
An old love letter
My darkest thoughts
No one can see them

Brilliant black

In a locked box
Inside a dark room
A love poem
written on a crumpled napkin.
An Empty perfume bottle
My sin
Hidden in total darkness

Brilliant black

In a locked box
Inside a dark room.
A house haunted and empty
Full of shadows
Full of pain
No one knows

Brilliant black

In a locked box
inside a dark room
My broken heart
shattered like crystal
Nobody knows
No one cares

**Brilliant black

Brilliant Black



*Inside a dark room
Inside a locked box
A faded rose
A creased photograph.
A lock of hair
Brilliant black

Inside a dark room
Inside a locked box
An empty bottle of perfume
A  lipstick tube
A woolen glove
Brilliant black

Inside a dark room
Inside a locked box
A babies ******
A teething ring
all my tears.
A broken heart.
Brilliant black.

In a locked box
In a dark room
A love letter
A lock of hair
A photograph
Brilliant  Black

In a locked box
In a dark room
A wedding band
A babies glove
A valentine card
Brilliant Black

In a locked box
In a dark room
A lipstick tube
A woolen glove
A broken heart
Shattered in pieces
Brilliant black

Mama the music is too sad.
It’s breathing inside of me.
Leaving pools of tears on my heart.
It pales to the lost sound of her voice.
Like loose guitar strings
Where the melody is tainted.
Send the wind mama
Make it take away
the wail of the blues.
All it is saying is mournful.
Even the fires of the sun
Can send me no warmth.

I know you hide your scars from me
Scars that only add to your sweetness.
Perfection that is only brighter for the flaws
It matters not if you are shining
like a new born galaxy.
Blinding all with your beauty.
Or if you are broken and worn
your heart full of broken promises.
I will love you regardless
of when you are a becalmed ocean.
Or the eye of a hurricane.
Know always
I am yours.

I know I am broken
probably beyond repair
I know that I look alright.
But I am broken inside
you just can't see it.
I wish I was a watch.
Because when I broke
you would know
the exact time
when it happened.
But I am a person
sometimes we look like
we are not broken at all.
Yet inside all our
parts are not moving

BROKEN

in the night
a dish is broken.
In my sleep
I find a token.

Within my dreams
We are a ghost
Lost in time
A forgotten piece
Of life's moments
That always
means the most

Only the most…..
......Only The most.

I am burning my candle at both ends.
Filling the night with wonder love and friends
I Know it will burn out before the night
But what a beautiful wondrous light.

But I always called her Ma'am

*I remember  like it was yesterday
the first time I met her
I was being punished  for running away
from the orphanage yet again.
I had used up my warnings and this time
I was going to be caned.
I knew the rules 12 strokes on the bare bottom
applied by matron.
I shrieked in agony begging for mercy
but they were all delivered with full purchase
mercy was in short supply in that place.
That’s when the door opened
she had heard my screams in the corridor.
and I saw her for the first time
so beautiful with clear pale blue eyes
she looked so kind. She walked up to me
what have they done to you? She cried.
Put on your pants young man she said.
I did not know how to address a nun
so I called her Ma'am.
She did not seem to mind.
I sobbed I can't ma'am I am too sore.
She hugged me as I sobbed
holding my head to her breast.
Even through her habit
I could feel her softness
like that of the mother
I never knew or held.
The tears flowed and flowed
not just from the pain and shame
of my beating.
But from all the abandonment,
loss, pain and sadness
of my young life.
she said softly cry
let it out tears are gods
safety valve purge the pain.
I cried for twenty minutes.
I was a lifer who adopts 14 year old boys
apparently nobody.
She placed ice packs on my caned bottom.
Then she prayed for the saints to bless me.
She met with me every day caring and kindness.
so lovely her face radiant her heart so kind.
She stopped me from running away again.
We Read great books by important authors.
Learned poetry and discussed its meaning.
It occurred to me she was my only friend.
What I did not know
was I was falling in love with her.
In the foggy corridor that joins
boyhood and manhood.
I was lost and confused.
She took me the mission where the
lost and homeless came and we served free food.
I would have followed her to the moon.
I have never met anyone before or since
so pure and beautiful.
She was relocated three years later
to a mission in Africa.  I was desolate.
I begged to go with her.
I even asked her to marry me
she was gentle to my young heart.
if I was single I would marry you in a heartbeat
she said.
But I am already married to my faith.
Showing me her gold ring
i am a bride of Christ.
She died a few years later
her weekly letter stopped coming.
It was a bad case of malaria
but I know that God needed her in heaven
to light up it's dark corners.
Even now after all this time
long passed the college days
I owed to her.
I know her prayer to the Saints
that she said for me was answered.
I met a beautiful lady at college
we are married with two wonderful children.
At last my own family.
On the holidays we all serve food
at the mission.
When we get home on the portrait wall
at the center of all our pictures
is a black and white framed portrait of
a nun with the most beautiful face.
My daughter ask who is the pretty lady. Daddy.
I say its Sister Angelica honey.
But I always called her Ma'am.

As the night blooms into starlight
I feel you fold into a ball behind me.
The darkness falls into shadows
reflecting on the white sheets.
And I feel your silent tears.
They fall like raindrops
If it was sunlight you would
arc a rainbow with their flow.
But it would not be for me.
The music playing in your heart
Is orchestrated for him not me.
I feel the palpable sadness of you
And I know in quiet resignation
That I must leave you for
I can never be him.

But not for me

Once all I wanted
was to be in love.
I was young then
and did not know
what love was.
I met a lady
she was
sweet and gentle.
She fell in love with me.
Thats when I learned
I was not in love with her.
I ended up
breaking her heart.
oh!
it was the most awful thing.
full of shame
and guilt and sorrow.
it tasted like sour lemons
its smell was acrid
like brimstones.
Millions of shards of crystal
were in my hands.
Now I am too frightened
to fall in love.
I have seen close up
just what it
can do to you

By the light of the Moon
--Au Claire De Lune
By
Jude Kyrie

*Soft with the fragrant breath of flowers
And the dampness of passing showers.
Moon-bright sparkles begin to quiver
on the rivers waves that splash and shiver

Resting beneath a leafy bower
Lost in time beyond all hour.
Dark nights mantle becomes older
Her gentle shadow becomes bolder

Against a waking yawning sky
The new morning fiery embers
Turn June’s dear dreams  into golden September's
And no one else remembers
Except the moon and I.

Carousel
by
jude Kyrie

*All my life I rode the painted pony.
Round and round and up and down
No matter how I begged to get off
It went round and round and round
To the laughing hurdy gurdy sound
One day my frozen heart will stop
And they will put me in the ground.

Sat alone in the tiny old cinema
where we used to go.
on rainy afternoons
When we were lost in love
so very long ago.
Watching the old classics
on the flickering silver screen.
Devoid of modern technology
Just sweet timeless emotions.

Bogart and Bacall
kiss in the love scene as usual.
The endings are all still the same.
We watched this one so many times.
Returning to our little flat
making tea and love.

I remember when I first saw you
I would stand outside your flat.
In the driving rain soaked to the skin.
Just to catch a glimpse of you,
So beautiful so lovely.
I could not think
of anything else but you.

You have gone now of course.
I knew even then you were beyond me.
Such beauty is for the Gods
Not for ordinary men like me.

My heart was broken and still is
even after all this time.
It remains uninhabited and will stay
so for a very long while

I know I have not been able to adapt
and move on quiet as I should.
Yet sometimes,
in the middle of a movie that we shared.
I feel your hand slip into mine
and for a fleeting moment
all is well and
I am with you once more.

I do not regret anything and would
do it all over again my darling.
Even knowing how badly
I would be broken.

For I tried to catch the wind,
and for a brief moment
I held it in my hands.

She drained my love like a spider.
She released me from my sins.
She said I spin my web forever.
Not knowing where it ends
or where it begins.

Caught in her web


*look at the sheets
Silken and perfumed
You held me inside
their sweet prison.

Night song and Jasmine
Permeated the night air.
Inside the cloisters of your web
I awaited quietly
for your attention.

Held as a fly in the
spinning wiles of a spiders web.
Helpless and bound
in silk strands
stronger than any chains.

Was I the entertainment?
That relieves boredom
In one of such abject beauty?
You would taunt me
Use me for your needs
Even your kisses held secrets.

Yet I craved them
Beyond my own meagre life.
The need of you pungent
In pheromones of desire.

I knew you would eat me
When you tired of me
I knew the pain
would be greater
than I could stand.

Yet in my abyss of the heart
I wanted to end it with you.
For such powerful creatures
of exquisite beauty.
That is beyond description.
Are far above
the disposable likes of me.

Yet for a fleeting moment.
Just before you pierced my heart.
With your deadly talons.and I died.
I know beyond all doubt
and above uncertainty.
That for a passing
tick of the clock
just for one moment
You needed me

Champagne

In the blue smoke rings I see her.
Beautiful to see her sweet smile again
On his arm she looks so lovely
In my hand a glass of champagne
We used to sit together
at that table in this bar.
Her eyes so bright and blue
Now she sits here close you.
Don’t let her look don’t let her see
Please don’t let her turn to look at me.
The cigarette smoke is burning in my eye
That’s why my tears are falling
Grown men just do not cry.
A drink it helps to fight the pain.
I lift my glass and sip Champagne.
They dance so happy close together  
Just them two upon the floor.
I leave my champagne on the bar.
And quietly walk out of the door.

Firelight flickers in the night
Spangled starlight my only light
Inside my head dark thoughts ignite
Poetry almost in my sight
  
Distant memories are wrapped in fear
As shadows of a ghost appear
Time no longer exist here
My muse she is my overseer
  
The fire is grey without its glow
A specter’s moon through a dark window
I feel them there they never go
Charcoal shapes in indigo
  
Finding thoughts that chill the soul
Darker than night black as coal
A poem waiting to be born
Coming to me slowly
Like the approaching dawn

Cherie
An Old Fashioned Break Up

When love's last words are spoken…. Cherie.
When tender hearts are broken…. Cherie.
Now our dream of love  is far away
Now lost in the mist of yesterday.
When love's last kiss has faded …..Cherie
When loving hearts are jaded ….Cherie
Once love blossomed
with the bright moon
Now it  plays  a sad tune for me.
Now my heart is broken …..Cherie
when love's last words are spoken…. Cherie
when love's last words are spoken…. Cherie*

Based upon a beautiful Melody written in 1934
LOVE'S LAST WORD IS SPOKEN [CHERIE]
Cesare A Bixio (m) Bruce Sievier (l) 1934

choices

I know we are too young.
I know we have no home.
How did it get to this?
I think of her as young women.
I hear her whisper.
I love you Daddy.
I see her getting married
dressed in white.
Me older and
a wistful tear falling.
I wait in the car park
of the clinic
you appear out
of the double doors.
Pale and older
your eyes red.
This was to solve
all our problem's.
But the grief hits me
like never before.
and I know this problem
will never leave my heart.

Let nobody cast judgement
on the way,
you chose to survive

You are so quiet and gentle
never loud and brash.
I feel so comfortable with you.
so safe.
she said
some men have auras
like searchlights
a blinding bright beacon
that lights up the sky.
Yours are like tiny lights on
a Christmas tree thousands
of them welcoming the season.
And I have always loved
Christmas trees
she whispered.

Claire de lune

*All afternoon the rain falls.
I sit at the piano and play.
As softly as the falling raindrops
It is Claire de lune.
It plays in my  head all day
It was your favorite piece.
Through my window
the world is dressed in olive green.
It was on such days
we walked together in the rain.
The mist falling over the trees
The moments of gentle tranquility
Shared quietly
the only communication.
The senses through our fingertips.
as we held hands.
You always held my hand on walks.
More as sign that I belonged to you.
As I always have even now so long
after you have gone.
Somehow in ways I do not know.
My fingers play the beautiful
melody that you loved
And I know in a world
far away from mine.
Where lives no pain or darkness.
You are placing your fingertips
on a distant window pane.
And my music will be
Playing in your heart.

I finally got around
to cleaning the house.
I find bits of you
everywhere.
Hair plugging
the bathroom sink.
Your shirt I would
wear on Sunday mornings.
After we had made love
and I fixed coffee.
In the night table draw.
A bunch of photos
of our trip to Venice.
It was too much.
I sat on the edge
of the bed and wept.
Why on earth
did you always
leave such a mess.?

The coffee cup swirls
clouds of memories.
All about you
only you.
I should forget you .
I should let you go to that place
where memories exist only as ghost.
Instead you remain
Haunting me for no good reason.
I miss the smell of you
the stains we made together
the sweat in heat of passion.
other have tried to replace them
but they are just imposters
dancing the choreography of love.
Your fragrance too strong
you ghost too vivid.
our stains indelible.
I sip the strong coffee
it's aroma fills my nose
but all it does for me
is to make me
want to see you
again
just one more time.
just once.

Clouds In My Coffee
The Poets Woman
By
Jude Kyrie*

She looked at him devotedly
already he was writing.
Or had he been there all night?
She read his poem
over his shoulder.
She loved it, so beautiful
like a painting in words .

She lifted a lock of his hair
away from his tired eyes.
More as a sign
that he still belonged to her.
Perhaps a statement
of her undying love.

His cup of coffee untouched
now cold and cloudy.
A cigarette burned into
a line of ash in the tray

Did you like it my love?
he whispered almost a plea
of her affirmation.

It is beautiful darling
it comes from
within your beautiful heart.
It flows like fresh coffee
smooth like black gold.

COALESCENCE

*The stars were
what I noticed first.
But then I saw your face.
Daylight made
the stars fade.
But you remained.
forever in my eyes.
No longer to have sight
without your face in it.
I do not know what love is.
I dont want to know..
What I need is you.
Only you.
To bloom in my spring time.
To bring sunlight to my days.
To be part of me.
Like my glasses.
Or the book by my chair.
To not know
Where you end
and where I begin.

Why did my mother
never warn me.
That beautiful girls
with eyes as blue
as a summer sky.
Hair as yellow
as harvest corn.
and softness lighter
than eiderdown.
With breath
that  smells of sweet wine.
Could leave the outline
of thier lipstick on my skin
that is blacker than
the icy kiss of death
in the small night hour.

cold stone alone

At night my heart is dreaming
My soul begins to moan
It's crying for its soulmate
To Sit upon its throne
Because when the wind
outside is whistling
and the oceans topped with foam
I am marooned in an arid desert
I cant make it on my own

Cold stone alone
Were not meant to be alone.

In the wastelands of the city
The rich are frozen to the bone
Lost souls and broken children
With hearts as heavy as a stone
They want to be a family
In a great big happy home
They all hang out together
But their really all alone

Cold stone alone
Were not meant to be alone

Theres a whisper in the rafters
There's a murmur and a groan
This world it needs some changing
God's calling on the phone
All lonely people crying
I can hear their soulful  moan
Because not one single person
Can make it on their own.

Cold stone alone
Were not meant to be alone.

Colliding Comets

We collided like comets.
Travelling aimlessly in space.
Following the elliptical orbits
of forever.

When we hit the heat
Was like a furnace.
Energy collected from infinity
Released in a blinding flash.

Our masses coalesced
We now travel as one
deflected into
an unknown orbit.
But no longer alone.

Exploring space and time
finding new
wonders together.
until we return again
in a thousand years

Even when I was  a boy
I alway thought  I knew
what love  looked like.
She was curvy soft and blonde
wIth beautiful blue eyes.

I looked for her for years
and she finaly showed up.
When she showed up
she was brunette wore glasses
that hid her brown eyes .
she hated my music
hated my freinds
and in the end
she hated me.

It was ten years
before  love returned again.
This time she had a
short blonde pixie cut.
Green eyes and a perma smile.
She taught me that when a
woman is smiling it does not
reflect what she is thinking.
She played music all the time
that someone  else bought her.
she did buy me
my favorite ice cream though.
But she would eat it all
in midnight food binges.

I am waiting for love
to come again.
It's been five years
but I know love
will show up.
I am sure of it.
when love left I asked it to
leave my door open.
I kissed love softly goodbye.
And there were no tears.

I whispered softly to love.
thanks for coming to visit me.
I love it when you are around.
Dont be a stranger love
come back and see me soon.

Come back to me
In the bloom of moonlight
That peers inside the dark.
Oh how I feel you here
In echoes of joyful memory’s.
Bring your tears to weep away
the lost frozen years.
Even if only
in haunting dreams.
Come back my Love.
Remember with me
the beating of our hearts.
The passions that are forever
ingrained into my soul.
Even in fleeting dreams
Of a sunblessed  yesterday.
Stay but for a moment.
Let me breathe you
with me once more.
Reach through the icy coldness
of deaths portals.
Touch my lips with yours.
Feel my heart
with your fingertips.
Break the bonds of death.
And if only in my dreams
Bring back your love
Like yesterday
Like so many forever’s.
Come to me.

The last of the crimson maple leaves.
Falls into the winds of autumn.
Bare and skeleton fingers from the trees
reach out to the coming clouds of winter.

Awaiting its down feathered coats
of purity and pristine snow.
On the branch a single decoration
Of the coming festive season.
A snow white dove that sits alone
Deciding not to fly to warm
Southern climes.

But perhaps to await the return
of its missing feathered mate.
In a final act of lifelong devotion.
That teaches the world a lesson.

I too feel the melancholy
of the rapidly changing seasons.
Tired of its continual flow
from spring to summer
and autumn to winter.
Mimicking my own hearts
fragile mortality.

Come September
A Dedication
For a dear friend
By
Jude Kyrie


September 11 2001

As a little girl in grade two
he sat next to me at school.
I always liked him.
no much more than that.
Later in high school
we walked home together.
He would carry my books.
At graduation he was my date.
We even went to college together.
That was when we broke the chains
of friendship and he became my lover.
My first and only love.

We married young
it was no surprise
to our parents
they were expecting it.
Before I knew it
we had three kids.
Two girls and a boy.
Our son looks just like him.

It was just like any other day
He came home from work
Cooked burgers on the barbeque.
We got the kids to bed
drank a glass of wine
went to bed at ten.

He wanted to make love
but I was exhausted
the kids had been terrors all day.
The next day he kissed me goodbye
With a see you later honey.

I got a call from my friend
She said put on the TV
I saw the towers fall
Turning to ashes
Like my life did that moment.
All I could think was
I wish I had made love
to him last night.

September 11 2015

The children are all grown up now
He would be so proud of them.
I look at my strong handsome son.
He looks like him exactly
We stand at ground zero
and say a prayer.

I whisper it was always you honey
Only you.
As if by magic he answered me
A giant beautiful rainbow
Circled over New York
And I know for sure
it was for me.

The big story everyone knows
it's the tiny dramas that stay
forever.
Jude

Coming Home

The ghost are everywhere.
I see them under trees.
In gardens and ice cream parlors.
Going home after all the passing years
It is a haunted place
Yet it will always be home.
The small English town
Lichen covered stone everywhere.
Even the cobbled streets remain.
Shining wet in the ever present rain.
Between the faded
Old fashioned shops
On either side.
A church clock strikes three.
As children jump from
The school steps
Like a soul returning to heaven.
I see a boy with his scruffy dog.
They are happier than billionaires.
The dog reminds me of my boyhood pet.
A scruffy mongrel running happily
with an even scruffier boy.
It is only another ghost.
But I think it is me

He said to her after making love.
I want to skydive from a plane.
I want to. Paraglide from a cliff top.
I want to climb a sheer rock face.
I want to take a diving Bell
to the deepest part of the ocean.
She held him close to her
Her softness exquisite and lovely.
She said to him
If you want to do something
that terrifies you to the core.
Why don’t you marry me?

Her face is like leather
blackened beyond darkness.
The blazing sunlight
only brings lines.
Each day she
collects the cotton
for the man who is
white as snow.
White cotton
for white as snow.
Scars from
a thousand years
of servitude.
Blood from the
thorns of the fields.
stain her clothes.
but inside her heart
lives a light
a tiny glimmer of hope.
Not for herself
but for her children
and their children.
Where the color white
is just another
shade of rainbows.
And freedoms dance
is a right not a gift.

Deep inside her soul was blue.
inside his heart his was too.
They kept it hidden, out of view
All of their life they craved for blue.
then passed right by and never knew.

She was a thing of beauty
almost a heavenly vision
but she could use words
like a razor blade
they cut the skin
and blood would trickle.

when she left me
she was just as cruel.
I wanted revenge
To hurt her as she
had hurt me.

I had so much to say
a practiced recitation
but the words
Couldn't flow
from my mouth.
instead they poured
From my eyes
in endless torrents.

Crutches

*When you reached for the bottle of *****.
I wish you would have reached for me instead.

The drunk tank was worse than usual.
I awoke with the familiar headache
And Oh God!
the nausea it was crippling.
The I saw her my wife she was as beautiful
as I remember before ---well ...before.

They called my name
and I stumbled to the bars.
She said you know
I have always loved you
even now I still love you.
I can smell the clean
fragrance of her.
So beautiful.

I look up from the ground
and feel ashamed of my gaunt
face my ***** clothes.
No I was ashamed of my soul
it must be blacker than night.

I try to say I was sorry.
but the words would not come.

When you reached
for the ***** bottle
I wished you would have
reached for me instead
she said softly.

Tears were falling
down my silent face.
Then she paid my bail
and I left following
her out of the jail.
Having not said a word.

Just before she left
She turned to me
and ran her fingertips
along my unshaven stubble.
After all
she whispered
we both lost a child.

Cyber victim

*I have been beaten by the system
Put down with hateful eyes
You ground my spirit in the dirt
With cruel and painful lies
Sweet winds of change are blowin
Like dust my soul will rise
Does my self pride now offend you
Is your heart still black with hate
Because I walk out with my head up
Past you all at the schoolyard gate
Just as certain as the sun sets
And the moon will pull the tide
I will keep your cruelness from me
With a heart that's full of pride
You can post your facebook pages
Full of hatefullness and lies
Try to poison me with twisted words
But like the morning sun I'll rise
Theres a wind of change blowing
Theres an end to all your kind
Because my beauty is overflowing
If you cant see it then your blind.

Daddy

*I remember as a tiny girl
he held me close .
so safe so loving.
it is small wonder
I gave him my young heart.

he called me kitten
no one else
ever called me that.

I remember his sweater
he wore it near Christmas
evey year
even when it was faded.
And had holes in the elbows.

he said it brought Mom back.
But she had left him
and us.
it was my fault he told us.
it was my drinking.

he disarmed us all
with his honesty.
I loved him
even with his demons.

he always made me
feel beautiful.
I still don't know
how he did that.

I said to him
will you marry me
when I am older Daddy.

He smiled
put down his
glass of whiskey.
and said
it would be my pleasure kitten.

But his weaknesses took him
Before I got older.
On his last day on earth
he held me close.
he knew he
was leaving us.

he said almost in a whisper.
Remember kitten
you are a strong young woman.
you have your mother's spirit.
not my weaknesses.

but in the dark
when the world sleeps.
it's you daddy
always you.
only you
knew how to fix me.