Monday, November 5, 2007

The ashes and the roses.

I have for the last time cried for you.
The tear has faded to the air.

I have taken the last flower from your hand.
It's petals crushed in yellowed book.

I have seen your back for the last time,
that you've given me in so many fights.

Oh-yo you knew how to make me pay for wanting you,
by making me want you more.

It was a price, so eager to pay,
that I would open and pay again, and again,
to see if each time the coin would shine as that first
that first time when touch was wire that carried life electric upon it.

When crumbs of your words would make glow,
and droplets of your glance spattered across my face,
would be the coming of florid monsoon.

But it it was shards and shreds that ever you gave,
that ever I took.

And now they are the last oh the last and gone.

But it is a long and lonely ocean that has been crossed,
and there some where to the West,
is the lightning touch of another land.

So it is the last words I write to you,
knowing that they find you dipping in another well,
one that you shall barrel and be gone from,
until she, to, looks lost and wonders,
why this day is the last for her.

But today is not my last day for you.
That sun rose and set,
rose and set on another distant day,
when quietly I stole up,
face still stinging from you slaps,
red from the sharp impact,
and went out the door,
softly to close it behind me,
and bare of anything but dressing gown, wandered the streets.

I was found by waiting strangers, my feet cold from the snow,
burned by the melting frost.
It was dazed isolation that they found me in,
my hand still curled around a rose, that rose,
that now sits pressed in that yonder book.

Friendly arms took me in, and took me to a gate,
I thought that I was come to death, and this was white heavan.
For days I turned sick, half between dreams and death,
as oblivion's henchmen played dice for my soul.

But wakening to a sallow sun,
to this new life I live,
both were left thirsting, for today, that draught of all I am.

I am not all that I was,
my mind pounded upon by your hands is not all their,
like flower petals on the street,
it is strewn in the broken battering bombardment,
laying in bits and pieces in all the rooms we shared.

But I am here, it is enough,
I spend my days ladling out water to the others who come here,
and scrubbing clean the floors,
wiping the grime from the corners,
polishing the silver and the brass.
Making waiting for the next and the next and the next after that.

There are no more tears here in my eyes,
my smile is slight and wane,
but never sets from face.

Would that I could have back all that I was before I met you,
and still have the peace that I now know,
and truly be a free spirit awandering in the fields of love.
Yes, please oh yes.

But I am as you made me, your last sculpture I know.
Because you will never find, so long as I live,
where I burned your hands that night.
The last ash is pressed aside entombed with that last rose.

2 comments:

  1. lillie, I don't know how you do it. It seems like you have the ability to look into a person's soul and know exactly what they are feeling.. this piece is no exception. Its beautiful.

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