The People Complain

Deliverance.

I run through the dead, yellow hills,
the shade of the sun my guide.
My grey coat streaks between the white bleach trees,
the black and silver shavings giving relief,
blending me safe.

I am a free wolf.

Surrounded by smoking sand,
I gather with others to hunt.
Gleaned moisture steams from the ground.
All seems dry in the light.

We search between rocks for pools of relief
and seek marrow for our bones.
The fare is plenty, quickly earning distaste in abundance.
I crave after old lusts.

I remember the plenty of captivity,
the provision of my diligent masters;
I think nothing of the cages and pain
- only the meat I didn't hunt or request.

And I demanded rain.

As though thousands of fowl had flown over
and carried water on their wings,
so the ground caverned for the spilling.
Rot was the name of the land.

I prospered chains.

-----------------

Inspired by Numbers 11:4-20

Deceptions of Hell

Oh, the memories one can find in a dream,
the time you survive – an era in an hour

- a moment augmented through the night.

The pain you can’t feel is greater
in the night
in slumber
the life you live seems no illusion.

You are Mother, Husband, Animal, Empty.
You give life, you take it,
you rape it apart.

When you wake it seems silly
to tremble with fear,
to weep with wonder or sadness.

The vision was more vivid
than the living moment
it questions.

I consider and ask myself
which is worse:
torture by day or trauma by night?

The end of the darkness in dreams
is a death – myriads of deaths by each trail.
The end of the days in a life
bring Glory – the inheritance of the Wakeful.

Night is for sleeping,
sleeping for Hell
- a playtime for goblins of darkness.

Day is for sleepers,
sleepers who chose night
- may fight tenebrae with the sun.

Home

Tucked behind the blossoms of the ash tree
a canary flaps his fair yellow wings.
Preening them, readying for his feast.

Landing on the beads of the pomegranate
he swells and sings his love song,
dropping his wings low to the ground.

The arced head of his mate peeks from the myrtle,
the white breast and the browned coat gleaming.
She only answers to this voice
for she long searched and slowly decided.

Landing next to him, she gently preens him,
tilting her head and eyeing him with a gleam.
He lowers his head to the pulp beneath him,
breaking through the skin and into the heart.

The red juice coats his throat in richness,
and he offers the droplets on his beak.
His mate accepts them with a ruffle of her feathers,
rubbing his neb affectionately.

Chirping quietly, she flies to the ash,
nestling in the roost of twine and blue ribbon.
The petals of the orange rose are soft beneath her,
and the warmth of her mate subdues.

Settling both, they sing together,
night throwing shadows and luster,
and they sleep as the dead.

Soul Music

All is quiet as I ready myself for the plunge,
accepting the eye of the storm;
a relief before the next wave crashes over me.
This reprieve has become a familiar friend.

Permeated by the scent of pain, the taxing of my aching body,
I ask the unforgivable question.

Why?

On the floor, curled into myself,
a babe asking for comfort.
Warmth flows out of me, a sea of heat,
a stifling, choking hand.

Sucking in gasps, I lose myself.
The beast has won my body,
and it ravages.

Tearing through me, it eclipses my control.
I can no longer stop my tears.
Sobs shake my broken body.

It is this moment of abdication that I truly surrender.
The suffering, though master of my body, loses my spirit.
Even as I weep through the pain, I rejoice;
this is not my permanent temple.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
One day, I will break free.

This is my soul music.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I am frustratingly unable to give music for this partly because it was inspired by sections of several pieces, two of them composed/improvised by my fiancé. I will share those so that you may choose one (or all, as I did), if you so desire. If you read it once with each piece, you will understand, I hope, a different level of the poem.



Of this piece, it is the prelude which inspired - in fact, a particular 28 seconds of it:


I don't even know if you can access this one without a soundcloud account, but it was the original inspiration; the others were extensions.