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Nat Lipstadt Jun 14
“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more”
(Henry V, by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE)

Morning into Mourning

<>

I speak it softly, for though battlefield is steeped in quietude
of the lively greenery, endless lawns of healing fields
surrounded by multitudinous shades of blue waters,
my eyes piercing , joining in
as sunrising separates the veil
dividing light from dark, new from prior,
a went-before and a
soon-to-be
and a familiar-what-to-be-hereafter,
but a skyed breech it is,
with sun ray stairs inviting my
upright ascension into this newness

Welcoming the exposure of my trembling, though it is not fear that causes my shaking, but the colored warmth barely warming, yet,
stoking, stroking the drape of chill
away, away! from my night-sealed pores

the majestic surfacing of the waters peinture impasto, with its roughened but genteel thick, dabs, dots, swirls, swishes belie the overall atmosphere of calm it conveys, and Shakespeare’s rallying cry of men rises to the mind forefront, for the bay is my battlefield,
the day’s new light the breeching of the sky’s
envelopment of our world, summons to rise and
step forward intimately into the tableau of morning

into the breech, into the unknown,
to lift one more poem from breast,
shed tears of welcome, and death fears banished,
a battle to the unknown from the foretold past,
and, but


you shout
no!
<>
tis a day like all others,
of rectitude sans gratitude
another quantity of known drudgery, another,
“Woke up, fell out of bed
Dragged a comb across my head
Found my way downstairs and drank a cup”

The breach is within me,
a splitting of the head,
laid flat out upon my desk,
writing down scrupulously
officiously,
the same figures inconsequentially,
letters deranged, daily merely rearranged,
prison vista,steel and glass appearing with
the same exactitude of every day ever prior,
the sun invisible, the unceasingly unchanging
dark deep of the shadowy of manmade canyons…

speak to us no more of views, vistas,
but the fistulae, the empty places
where interconnected dots and dash’s,
light and ombre blends of dark ochre  
gradations of bland de~gray~ding
are our time’s patchworks of familiarity,
cursed with annualized daily reciprocity,
a *** for a tat,
a woolen watch cap,
a  black Balaclava,
drawn over our heads
lest the drudgery be too readily apparent!


<>
mere mortal am I,
mortal wounded by our disparate
and desperate differing points
of view,
and we split ourselves in two,
hoping for a way forward of
reconciliations,
successful hostage negotiations,
pushing these contradictions,
back inside my heads,
until confronted
once again,
and find new words coming,
to bind me of the divisions between
or even,
to blind
me to the gaps between
my left and right
brain.

for I am both men,
one and the same,
forever
battling


until the morrow, then…
morning into mourning
June 14 2024
tween 3:30 AM ~ 10::00 AM
fitful sleep, fistfuls of vision's pieces
Mark Wanless Oct 2021
so the dog the dog
bleeds in to my i am i am
a solid random
Chelsea Rae Aug 2021
Such hot tears, that sizzle and evaporate
as they drip off the sides of hot cheeks.

Mist slowly rising off my shoulders,
out and off my head, and down my arms and legs.

Smokey fog swarming me from the humidity that begins to emit in the room from the heat.

Anger that boils blood
Now secreting through the skin
Through sweat and tears.

I clench my jaw, cemented shut, and squeeze my eyes tight.
Hoping to wring out all the pain and anger through the tear ducts.

Juice it to salty pulp.

Such hot tears pooled on top of burning cheeks.
Turning into hot springs.

One of the warmest things I have felt

In such a long time.
The ebb and flow
of a mind which knows it is in flux
yet also belongs to that unchanging one
whose breath animates us.

I fall into unconscious shuddering
with desperation and mute wonder
and hidden hopes and silent screams

I recognize what's become fixed within me.
Lost progress, traumatic laughter.
The Apotheon is calling

once again, I'm stone cold
but don't want to be sober. I try so hard
to get over myself, my loneliness.
I got all this poison, and I don't want to share.

I'm losing my time on earth
to the gods of the underworld.
I turn around and see Orpheus
following me
before vanishing
John McCafferty Dec 2020
Done are the days of May
You could say we moved on
Spent into early retirement
As raw breaths fade away
All there is is change

The importance of a moment
Instilled inside this frame
To have and to hold in exchange
Consumed to idle eyes
A gift for you and I

The view of which describes
Is fleeting if you let it pass by
Who you are and what to do
Escapism clasps many masks
Only shown to grace the task of life
(@PoeticTetra - instagram/twitter)
John McCafferty Nov 2020
Emotions tend to turn the tide
Our thoughts and dreams are magnified
Into just a single life

Priorities are often rushed
Once committed hard to stop
Foresight is incongruous

As the route to pass multiplies
Such pressures placed upon our kind
Consumed inside collective minds
(@PoeticTetra - instagram/twitter)
John Darnielle Nov 2020
It's not the barnacles that do all the damage
Figure this out too late
It's not the destination that makes the difference
It's the freight

Everything becomes a blur from six feet away
Get used to this
Every card ever turned over remains in play
Get used to this

Not every wave is a tidal wave
Not every wave is a tidal wave

It's not the mutiny written down in the diary
It's the manifest
Forgotten cargo in obsolete measurements
Anybody's guess

Even the proud, even the very proud
Probably die on their knees
Twin masts out on the open seas
Mistaken for trees

Not every wave is a tidal wave
Not every wave is a tidal wave
this song may or may not be titled after the Magic: the Gathering card
John Darnielle Nov 2020
We sail we sleep we scry by land
We dig a pit beneath the sand
A place to keep the sun at bay
At dark we rise and find our way

With our faithful companion by our side
Put it all on the table and let it ride
Close to the drop-off on our long slide

The land we left becomes a dream
The ghosts we knew, they rise like steam
They leave some trails against the sky
All but invisible to the eye

With our faithful companion by our side
Put it all on the table and let it ride
Close to the drop-off on our long slide

Call off the search party,
Let mourners wail by the shore

Point to the spot where our ship disappeared
We're not coming home any more

Should you succeed and breach the coast
You tell your friends you've seen a ghost
You tell them all there's nothing here worth dying for
You leave it there

With our faithful companion by our side
Put it all on the table and let it ride
Close to the drop-off on our long slide
song from the new album, Getting into Knives
we were so into each other's lives,
not minding anyone at all.
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