“Where, O death, is your victory?
    Where, O death, is your sting?”

- 1 Corinthians 15:55

__


O Lord, sanctify this:

today,
as huddled mourners wept themselves dry

--a grove of blackened birch that grows
around a solemn shadow, a vine upon bone--

as pressed toes crumbled through mausoleum floor

--a great Kingdom that has gone mute
for the buzzing of bees, mindless murmur of wind--

as overcast eyes stabbed blindly

--the billowing stone masts in an ocean of grass
betrayed no signs of the carnage--

in accordance with the Scriptures
life delivered the fatal blow

and death--

death was alive
and throbbed within me.

They shall recall
fragments of you.
Your past.
Your future.
Biding farewell
at the darkest hour.
There you lay
with roses tinged white,
a sight, like art.
And in static handwriting,
your name
be drizzled, in soft italics,
delicately, like craft.
They mumbled
Au revoir.
The voices of the living exhale,
in echo with the relief—

You lived,
have lived,
unforgotten.

The Realm


Pleased to meet you; pleased to deceive you.
Please I need you to join the queue.
Break the silence, with needless violence.
Take from the taker or try to keep our secrets inside of us?


Whispers fly beyond the walls;
For all these days I have heard them call.
In a stranger land what are we waiting for?
Down on our knees we must please them all.  


If all we have has been taken away;
Then we must be the hopeless and the faithless.
The lost will never be saved.  


Digital and spiritual;
Everyone is guilty down here…we are all criminals.  
Liar’s burn, so take your turn;
We are all liars in a liar’s lair and this is all we deserve.  


Faces in the walls staring at us as we pass;
What chance do we have to make amends and pay them back?
Superstitions, a lack of religion;
We never believed until we were upon the rack.  


Needle nails pierce our skin;
The drug is within us, so deeper we sink.
Losing vision, losing my religion;
In this nightmare of an afterlife, I need some medication.


But there is no cure and no saving grace;
This is the end of us and the beginning of the eternal pain.  
Banished from Heaven and forever trapped in Hell.
If all we need is a key to our prison,
Then we must make a deal with a Devil.


But your soul is worthless now it has been ripped from your body;
So you will never be released and nobody is ever sorry.  
As fires light up the evil and the screams become deafening;
You will realise that there is no way out,
From this blood and skulls realm…
And the pain is never ending.


(C)2016 Aa Harvey. All Rights Reserved.

The other side


A lady crossed the bridge to the other side;
She didn’t know exactly what she would find.
But this was her time, so on she went;
She has never been seen since and she will not be seen again.


Her make up ran as she walked fearful steps;
The wind beneath the willows blew across her dress.
She thought she would fly or be forgiven if she confessed;
But who can say what we will become, when there is nothing left.


The moon above, her only guide, as she walks through the shadows.
It’s cold up here above the world and life just seems so hollow.
Why is nobody with her when they all fell as one?
Her hand upon the coarse rope bridge,
The leads her away from all she has known.


Darkness is all around and the stars are endless;
All she ever did was try her best.
But now she is the ghost who passes through the night;
The lady on the bridge can at last see the other side.


(C)2016 Aa Harvey. All Rights Reserved.

he grapples with that memory
fighting to hold every detail, every shade
as the pain from his arthritic bones diverts his thoughts even more

oh...the curse of age
he took for granted every sweet morsel
every sweet moment of time given
and this is life's retribution

if given another chance
would he let her walk away
for he knows, looking back
that she was the one
that almost imperceptible,
yet obvious look when one's heart is broken
this he remembers clearly
her eyes as he turned away
relinquishing his chance at love
if he only knew then
that the excuses he trusted
were merely the voices of uncertainty

and now
in his room of fading memories
and fictional dreams
he begs for another chance
in another life