OBSIDIAN ELEGY

Viewing life through obsidian glass
Time’s obscured by circumstance,
Fields of stone, in tall gray grass…
Clouded thoughts and games of chance.

Sense of purpose long since dead,
Traveling blind, and so, pretend.
The path we see inside our heads…
Will often lead to bitter ends.

I long for secret suns once known;
Shadowlands and Ice-blue days.
Falling grace from sacred thrones,
Faith to lead lost souls astray.

Clinging to my heels like dirt,
Follows through the darkness, still…
Into realms that hold my hurt,
Running in my dreams until.

Now the moon becomes my truth,
Praying mantis, midnight gloom.
Welcomes misery from my youth,
Solace for an empty room.

Prisoner of the books I write;
Chained to paper bars, I draw…
Poems that feed me, hands to bite,
Shackles round the foot, I gnaw.

Love’s confusing, so elusive,
Ink as blood flows from his soul.
Wanting, craving, inconclusive,
Writing as the night unfolds.

Shades of winter… never leaving,
Even though the seasons change.
Longing for that ever after,
Endless laughter. Love in vain.

Yet, having’s not the same as wanting,
Bloodied foot placed in your mouth…
Escaping one cage for another,
Keeps you inside looking out.

Tongues will lacerate the moment,
Speak too soon, and so you miss,
She responds with measured silence…
Keeps you longing for her kiss.

Endings, middles, muddled verses,
Fueling fires, lines for stories…
Sacred psalms and charms for curses,
It’s me, not you, no need to worry.

Pain for prompts and posts for pity,
In the friend zone, once again…
Never learned to listen, did you?
Empathy follows with the grain.

These margins are not large enough.
For shallow notes or written rage,
For feelings best expressed or not,
For questions better off the page.

A paper cage may hold emotions.
As metaphors hide certitude.
And words are chains of vain devotions.
They bind as well as misconstrue.

They deepen chasms for delusions,
Until the light of reason dies,
Fear, or flight, or blind acceptance
Chances that have passed you by.

Like time and tides and foolish pride;
Constants for a fractured mind,
The future he can never see,
Only what he’s left behind.

Now the wheeze of winter’s breath,
Vibrates frosted window panes…
Words for loss as time forgets,
Echoes of your lovers’ names.

Remember how she kissed you?
How the moment was defined?
You drew a boundary in the snow,
Deliciously, she crossed the line.

Remember how you lost her?
With words, you built a wall.
With silence, you denied her.
With selfish hearts, we fall.

With every dawn, the day begins.
With loneliness, they end…
With life, we speak in poetry,
With death, when we hit send.

Now you fold your good intentions,
into origami birds…
Secrets, heartbreaks, never mentioned,
Perfect forms for useless words.

Hung upon your Christmas tree,
Reminders of some precious times
Testaments to what was when,
Elegies and scattered rhymes.

For an IG eight-word prompt by @ramrockspeaks

TM DiSarro