Every day, these walks get longer.
Every hour, these hands, they tremble.
Every minute, these eyes get weary.
Every second, this existence is fading.

As light approaches this darkened room,
We are shrouded in to the fog of melancholy.
Devoured by misery, consumed by life,
Slowly and slowly we burn into nothingness.

These gaps exist with the soul of our hearts.
The void of joylessness approaches.
All these *** that emotions can’t afford,
Our tears are kept in a jar.

What sick, ****** contagious lives we have.
We are fools to the repetitious cycle of despair.
We continue to gaze at the fields of the condemned.

How about a cigarette for us to breathe?
But let us quench into the foolishness of life.

To S.B./T.H.

it matters not where you meet St. Gabriel
whether on earth or in heaven    for
writ large on a person’s soul is a deepening
an aging
an inevitable annunciation that your casket of buried
fears and joylessness
is being dug by the gravedigger   an ancient
angelic presence   who keeps you safe
that you may hear the annunciation of your worthiness
to serve Love
that your immaculate conceptions are beloved
of Love
that you are the hands and imagination
of Love
and that the poetry of your life
is a chrism
an anointing     by Love,
                        for Love, and
                        in Love



c. 2017 Roberta Compton Rainwater

I accept
only
wish
to change what cannot be
changed
delusions of
ecstatic
union
fade
smothered
under
silence
disinterest
triviality
joylessness
wouldn’t be minded
if the brief
glimpses of
affection were
less rare
but maybe
they wouldn’t be so
noticed
cherished
guarded
shepherded
into my secreted soul I
forget
on purpose
that which I cannot
swallow
learned to
eliminate
the day-
to-day
deflect
small building
damages
yellowing
psychic
bruises
or absorb
dead
(ening) shrivel
(ing)
cells of self
I wanted
to share
but now
can
not.

i. calypso

in my soul I seek the
calypso
who hides me
from myself
to keep me for herself
against all odds
I seek her
daily
and thus am
lost
to myself

ii. stupa

but this odyssey
now
has other rules
        to lose
        that self of unremitting
        joylessness
        who professes no love
        for me
        who compensates
        with fantasies
        of love unrequited
        who keeps me yearning
        for a ghost in a glass pain
        who keeps me blinded and cold-pressed
        by her charms

iii. belltower

in the rugged terrain
of the soul stands
a belltower
a beacon of measured
tones
sounding for Love
with Love
in Love
of Love

a hermes bell
commanding me back to myself


c. 2017 Roberta Compton Rainwater

Everyone wants to block out the sun
so as to preserve their own little world
as if they were the only one
as if they wouldn't expect to touch a soul if they twirled
and twirled and twirled until they got dizzy
and promptly took a seat upon the floor
this is about the time you tell me you miss me
before you rise again and twirl some more
We fall away from happiness
in fear of the sadness it may bring
but a world without pain and joylessness
feels like a world without anything

I stare down the ticking clock begging for the hand to stop
because a life's worth nothing if time is all you've got

A sunrise has no trigger warning, no:
The dawn is not that misty night which was;
A sinister click, and the radio speaks
Tidings of discomfort and joylessness

          Someone must be made to suffer for this1

There is no trigger warning from the clock
Announcing brutally the need to rise
As from the dead, and dress for this day’s work
Which lacks all hope of glamour and success

          Someone must be made to suffer for this

Life is not fitted with warnings, and so
One’s discomfort is the fault of others

           Someone must be made to suffer for this


1“Someone must be made to suffer for this” is a mimeme from Frederick William Rolfe’s Hadrian VII.

Lost - reality in multicolor shatters
Scattered by the breezes from the sunrise
Gaping holes with ragged edges
Filled with swirling mists of sadness

Perusing maps of certainty
The tick-tock of the day grows louder
But the tide washed out the roadway
And the darkness didn’t leave at dawn

There is no clay for making bricks
So nothing will get built today
And the penny found along the walk
Will only buy a feckless dream

A can of worms not good for fishing
Sits atop a dusty shelf above
A dog that wants more petting
Than you or I have hands to give

The echo of this joylessness is deafening
And there’s no reason to go on.
      ljm

hello world without surprise.
good morning gentle tedium.
****** me, please, monotony.
kiss me, sweet emptiness.
hold me rough, nothingness.
dishonor me, meaninglessness.
ravish me, joylessness.
whew... can a girl get a cigarette?



no, I don't really smoke - yuck - that was a joke  =]

Foremost gratitude heavenly indebted,
jumbling kindling, linkedin mourning
numbness overlaid, pervaded, quashed,
routed thoroughly undermined vibrant
warbling, when xing yesterday's youth

zigzagging, accompanying blitzkrieg
cleaving deafeningly exploding,
formative grim homelife, indelibly
jabbing kid, (little me) nonstop,
overwhelming progeny, quintessentially

robbing, stunting, tormenting
unrelentingly vitality wrenching,
why xyst, zapping assiduousness,
begetting, crushing, destroying essential
fortitude, generating grievousness,

hellacious intractable joylessness,
kneading loneliness, murdering nascent
opportunistic potential, quiet, reserved,
timid, untested voiceless x years,
zilch accomplishments, boyhood

cheated, dieted, extremely famished,
gifted hirsute heir, ill, jettisoned
kippered lunkhead mealy mouthed,
nerdy, outlier psychologically quartered,
repressed self, tamped universal vitality,

withheld Xmas yearnings, zapped
animalistic basic cravings, denied
endeavoring fulfillment, gouged hole
inside, jawboned, kept lid mentally,
nixed opportunities, pronouncedly

quarantined, rabidly snatched tasting
ultimate vibrant x2c, yanked zipline,
aborting bequeathed capacity depriving
eats, forever ghosting hated individual,
jackknifing, kickstarting livingsocial

mortgaged, never ordained physical
quests, ruined self, thoughtfulness
vanquished, worthiness Xrayed,
yabadabadoo zone agitated
beyond crafting development,

executed firstrate glorious human,
impounded jailed kindred love,
manifested nebbish, obliged pleasing
quirky ridiculous travesty, unleashed

vapid wretchedness, xyz, attempted
bizarre concoction, decoding
essentially fruitless, go head issue
joker kick.

Sleep deprived
the thief decides
to steal the twinkle
in her eyes.

Knowing that
verdant glow
that grows spring,
that emerald
green scene
behind nature.

Dulling and dimmer
the color loses its
vibrant glimmer
thinning till
pigments pass away
like a corpse’s
cold gray figure.

Fatigue is the villain,
stealer of vibrancy
or has it been misplaced,
the flush of life
that once painted
her angelic face?

Reality becomes
very numb
as she is struck dumb
then succumbs
to the joylessness
of a colorless
world.

Today I saw no sunlight in the air
And yet I know that somewhere it exists.
That way up in the skies, so bright and bare
A giant fire’s burning through the mist. 

On such a day it’s easy to believe 
The world is made of rain and heavy clouds.
That sun made up its mind to take a leave
And nothing’s left but joylessness and doubts.

Our human love is similar to light
You may not feel it always in your heart
But when you think you’re being drawn apart
It shines behind the clouds of a fight.