Some Hurts Go Too Deep

[For IJSH]

Some Hurts Go Too Deep

weeping

shrouded from light

in a heavily patched

moth-eaten blanket

well-worn

torch-light flashing across memories

photographs faded, crumpled or

jaggedly torn

hands shaking

palms to fingertips

oozing sweat

briny perspiration

seeping

playing cards with

dated portraits

flicking faster through them

dropping them

to the floor

one-by-one

are they really tears?

picking at a loose thread

tugging too hard

unravelling

nearly undone

my life, my psyche, my ego

hypersensitive, raw

coming across his photo

stunned to pause

at the child

I bore

but the hole is

too far gone

too late to sew

time, new love, distance

cannot mend

the breach

I will never heal

not even till I reach

life’s unsolicited,

torturous end

a begrudging, stoic acceptance

the damage is done

a permanent rend

in my now ragged mantle

drawing it tighter, closer

about me

breathing in the stale odour

I lost my son

I lost my brother

I lost my sister

I lost my father

I lost my mother

I lost more than one lover

I lost my self

taking comfort, reassurance

I did love

I did live

under my tired, old, grubby

cover

settling down to fitful sleep

eschewing pain in imperfect rest

half anticipating the hit

ready for the next

unwelcome test

unexpected death

or a new someone

taking another look

at the boy’s photo

perhaps really I died

years ago

I’ll wait for him

to come…

[Image description: my favourite blankey goes with me always on my travels]

Yishaq's Bequest

No poetry for months and then two poems in a row. My ditties tend to be my less than most popular jottings from a statistical perspective. Nonetheless, they are a part of me: of who I was and, thus, who I am.

This one was written about a decade ago about the person I have most loved thus far in my life-span. Today I publish it to mark the young man's birthday.

*

Yishaq’s Bequest

The mansion rose from the waters,

afloat,

towering above the settlement;

the river, its moat;

on closer look

its wooden façade appeared

charred, ebonised

or covered in a layer of soot.

Even as he approached

the journalist was startled

for laughter was heard

tinkling, coruscating

cutting the pendulous air;

his jaded heart

let down the barriers,

shed its studied cynicism

momentarily;

a gleeful chortle

slipped out

reciprocally.

Inside: blinds wouldn’t go up;

windows’ shutters remained stuck shut;

plaster flaked in discomfiting chunks;

soft furnishings grew mouldy;

woodwormed furniture lay collapsed

where once it had proudly stood;

no pictures hung on the walls;

gilded treasures and objets d’art abandoned,

all hideous grotesquerie;

chrome and acrylic minimalist items,

installed here and there,

festered unused, unpolished

and coated in dust.

The servants tottered, torpid:

marionettes with strings half cut.

Her ladyship and the paterfamilias,

in Edwardian morning dress,

greeted the reporter:

the lugubrious formalities

and so-called pleasantries

cut short by laughter -

the joyous sound of a child.

Behind the ark spread the mooring,

a flowerless alpine garden.

Freikörperkultur was the fad:

the writer shed his inhibitions

and all in which he had been clad;

he reposed on his front,

bathed under the bright clouds

in the unfiltered UV-rich light,

his milky skin warmed;

laughter suffused his being;

his tightly controlled humour relaxed.

And finally the child emerged:

laughing merrily;

yawned once,

and shivered.

The man jumped up;

grabbed a rug;

swathed the boy.

The blanket, holey,

let in the cold.

Laughter died.

A steam-train rumbled in;

quaking shook the land,

the station’s promontory;

root vegetables spilled from a barrow

to the shaking ground.

Almost silently,

almost with dignity,

the mansion fell in on itself,

a house of playing cards,

and sank.

The dreamer, somnambulantly

made his way to his carriage,

clinging on to a solitary root;

a memento of love’s demise;

a promise of love’s future fruit -

an unconventional marriage.

But no more laughter.

*

To IJSH,

with my love…

*