Fair in Love and War?

Fair in Love and War?

I wasn’t really watching when it happened,
the backdrop of the world, dropped back
and to these two threads I say, or would have said;
were I to have realized when I had a chance…?
Alas, my thoughts have betrayed me…for what?
These two hearts have beat within my chest.
When one grows stronger, the other wants
and cannot relinquish the wheel to its other,
then, grows stronger too, so as to retaliate.
Why must these arms remain together?
Whence one would reach out to the east,
its brother cries, onward, onward, shall
I stay my course I’ve chosen in the west.
Yet, I have dreamed of alternative realities;
ones of which both frighten, and exhilarate.
What if the east had won the battle, hmm?
What would I see beyond this window? I…
I mustn’t ask these things; nor will I suffer
losing touch with my spark, my only sanity.
Fate drove me to this, and while she is so,
this cruel, unruly mistress, she has summoned;
forged this great divide within my aching breast.
There is a lesson, a purpose, if only I would see.
To what end? My very breath is my enemy!!
What of my warring countries, distant satellites,
these beacons holding wholly different dreams?
I was never at the centre, I see that now. Yet;
with that truth, I am but shred entirely in two.
Beneath this toughened skin, there is not one
of two halves, but two of self; I am doomed.
Such an epiphany and such dawning guilt;
and acquiescence…for to see no chance, no hope,
and no glimmer of true satisfaction left for we.

---phoenix--- April 25, 2009

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When Dylan Met Chelsea

When Dylan met Chelsea

How you must have loved her, spending
those last of your shadow-casted days in
her threatening embrace, sweet nectar
not withstanding as you lie there spilling
all your secrets in the years forward you
would miss, as you miss her all the same.

Little did you know, as little as she would
know then of the many, many lovers who
would fall down at her feet, be cast out.
What gifts, to you she offered and would
you accept in your graceful manner to let
your soul breath freely for mere seconds.

Sorrowed curtain secludes you away from
mindful eyes of strangers until no further
eyes your eye would again meet. Your pain
imprinted livelihood stringing letter after
letter onto pages you would never dream to
realize; as only she might have gifted.

Was her embrace so intricately binding?
I think you would not have left even if you
had seen one glimpse of the domination
you would deny to have existence by mere
words, striking words but fraught with fear.
I could have adored you if to save you this.

Death would have you whether my heart
beats or does not and without you I feel a
loss I may still have felt if you had survived.
Oh sorrow at your passing, if only I could
have spoken, to hear you potent voice, to
love you from afar, had she not yet come.

---phoenix
6/7-14/08

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The Pain of Two; for One

The Pain of Two; for One

Let these two bodies become separate
for there is a cancer invading both unless
these rocky rivers are dammed up.
I dangled this fisher’s hook in the hopes
that one would come to aid the other, only
now I realise, blind eyes were best.
Had I not called out to this one for the
sake of that other, these two might have
been at an advantage; existence tranquil.
Failure becomes me as I hang my head
and soak up the shame of a hundred
broken hearts within my own.
This dark dweller set up his camp and
that other should have been expectant
of such, this ongoing lot of pain.
I should not have called out in the dark
when I knew he would come and so too
would I sink his ship with ours.
What have I done, why did I search for
him to save the one? I know and yet
I also know not, and regret.
Now I must turn lose such a prize catch,
set sail that one so he might be saved,
yet pain for both I fear in this.
I must sever this knot in two, and give
one of these ones a fighting chance of
happiness, devastation be it.

---phoenix
6/9/2008

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Squandered Preservation

Squandered Preservation

The darker side of passion;
lying dormant like a tumour,
waiting like a ticking bomb,
on the wheel of life and love.
Wandering like blinded infants
you move through the darkness;
hands out to catch you
should you stumble and fall.
A pit of teeth, a wall of daggers,
through the quicksand you trudge ever on.
Pinholes; gashes; leaches of treachery...
and you feel upon your face,
your hands, your heart each tiny scar.
Like must, absolutely, speak to like.
You know this even while in doubt
of your likeness residing in the veil.
Onward you march, single file existence
until you finally fall into the
crisp, cool light of your true, complete being.
You recognise these maps
carved out in stone and bone, in tears
like mirrored souls cast out
with only a thin strand to guide you
back home to the rest of this.
Now you are complete!
Lovely heaven, lovely perfection; fulfilled?
The searching over, the fear abated,
that loneliness and darkness---lost at sea.
All the wounds have closed, that be.
But, the blade shifts end over end as
one becomes the other and with
the other one and one; one shall be.
Cruelty beyond cruelty waits unseen.
Binary stars, brother of flesh and bone,
sewn swiftly and surely into tapestry.
Paintings fade, clay cracks, threads unravel
inevitably the dark will swallow one half
or the other of the whole...and what then?
No hand to hold, no heart to enfold, silence...
the body fails and the soul will set sail
into the void of the next world and leave
it’s other in the void again of this...
so to what end is the searching darkness
at the outset truly conceived?

---phoenix
6/6/2008

[I do not know when I originally penned this particular work but consider this the new revised edition]

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That Other

That Other

How is it that we share these tiny threads
between us like miniature brush strokes
on a microscopic canvas of particle grains;
yet share nothing of the definition there?
I can see these traces in all the outlines of
your face, as if we were jointly moulded;
though all similarity is fleeting once I have
peered beyond this membrane into your
eyes, into that soft meat of your internal.
Would be connection broken, lying in ruins.

I contemplated once to keep you from harm
in my embrace, and you would stand by and
recognize my comfort, and fear would abate.
So tiny you were, like a solitary model soldier
standing at attention, continuously in thought,
eternally considering what approaches you’d
take within any endeavour, so brilliant, alert,
you would have this world in your tiny palm.
Now, discoloured visions of your feint glories.
I’d dreamt so much for you, now insignificant.

A charlatan had notions to pilfer your hide to

his own malevolent campaign whimsy, and I

alone appear to experience its wretchedness.

What ever became of the boy who once lived

inside that body? Him who’s avid fascination

was an embodiment of all who dared dream?

Is there no salvation from the despondency he

came to suffer while his guise was stolen away?

I fear now as his semblance was mangled; alas,

that shining beacon contained, has so followed.

---phoenix

6/1/2008

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Formless...Pointless...

Formless...Pointless...

I could have cried myself to sleep yet been awake...
The pain became so sharp...so much more than
any other day of recent years.
I thought to reach out to someone so I could
excuse my self from frustrating emotion, only
to realise that no one stood at the ready for me
and I wondered where such a foolish
notion came from in the first place.

[There is no one with which to share these painful pitfalls.]

Not so long ago I thought I’d locked the door
into this place inside my head and thrown the key
as far away as I could muster. Though not so far enough I think,
for here I am again wondering how treacherous it will get
before I shall once again begin to rise.

[Should IF stand at the ready then, I wonder?]

I cannot share these fears, these pains
these sinkholes that open up inside my chest.
Regardless of no one to catch the flying debris...
how fair would it be to lay these on
some other set of shoulders at all?

[I can’t afford it, I mustn’t!!!]

I’m not sure that I’d really even know how
any longer, if honesty be known in this.
I cried out to one person, though...
soon as he heeded my call I realised
it would have been mistakenly laid.

[So...I bade him farewell and disconnected...]

Silly me for thinking I was immune to this
after all these years, though, no one can blame me
though no one can be to blame for this but me.
Rather than playing with fire, I sat playing
with my fickle sanities...

[I’ve sealed it all up, save for discerning lyric...]

---phoenix
5/31/2008

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Letters to No Other

Letters to No Other

You had never sought to rely on the kindness of strangers
though you claim a few kindred spirits would be to delight.
You have never thought to band together with the others
who live outside your barrier head, because you cannot
see what they attempt to hide from you beyond the wall?
Would be often found sitting in corners licking wounds that
you need not explain; having no one else to explain them to.
Now you can only love them from a distance, may it be brief
yet gaping distance still will it be, and you remain cowering
in this silence manifest; at your own idle devil hands be it!

I would have spat into your face the first time I laid eyes on
its narrowing, separatist guise and yet I stood indolently by
as you laid to ruin all of these things I longed to have kept.
How could I have mistaken you for any tranquil host here?
If I could rename you and in turn repossess all those simple
sacrificially squandered trinkets of my being I would do so
in a moment, may no uncertainty offer further trepidation.
I may well have been someone else; however I stand by, at
this juncture as the world shifts past my eyes and looks away.
I suffered a fool of my own design; now we fall forth together.

I thought to run away from broken mirrors and stained glass
modelled after my own visage, yet every corner leads me
back here straightaway. I take step after step and realise
the ground beneath moves in time with your desperation.
You will be the sepulchre within which I am laid to rest with
no word of kindness, only your laughter at my rapid defeat.
We are all children wresting with belongings from ancestral
ghosts, mental impregnation of historic egotistical recreation.
You’ve passed your demons and with them you pass a torch
so I’ll set fire to my progeny in your name; with your blessing.

---phoenix
5/31/2008

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Mine Only Face

Mine Only Face

Darwin would have said I was the strong one.
Even those of relative intelligence can be fools.
I still hear you in the darkness, as you whisper;
asking me how I could have left you in that pit.
I feel as though the system failed you; oh my
beautiful missing tether; rest of my tired soul.

Never could I walk this path of your hero foot.
You were the strength I would long for, for all
my withered days as I’ve forged on in lowliness.
You still haunt me though, standing just beyond
glass where I may not reach, nor touch, nor hear
unless my sense is dampened in the day of night.

How could it be? We two are separate; dividing
ropes of time and space; I know I’ll not survive it.
How could I be the strong one, yet I may see only
your face in the looking glass? You’ve carried this
torch…it was your strength; stolen, sapped away
when you could barely feel me next to you at all.

Yes…I am the passenger of your body…invader of
the flesh that once was yours to share, division of
our person was to be a blessing, yet is the curse of
my solitary existence, punishment for my desire.
I have always longed for those conversations in
the dark, reminders of what was only momentary.

I have unwittingly sent you beyond the realms of
this plastic bubble, where I may never retrieve the
saviour of my soul. Each night you have wandered
along side me and each morning comes your next
untimely death and mine new sorrowful awakening.
And Darwin would have said I was the strong one…

---phoenix
5/31/2008

[This is the saddest and possibly most painful thing I’ve ever attempted to write…and I hope you can hear me sobbing as I do…I’ll always love you and I never even got to say hello or know your name…to the first one I loved.]

any copying/reproduction/distribution of this writing, in whole or in part, without express permission from the author is strictly prohibited. ©SaerenPhoenix 2008

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This Single Round

This Single Round

These black and white squares collide in front of me
dividing out this atlas of the worldly game board…
I see my pieces standing in lines, properly placed out,
standing at attention and realise the fraudulency of it.
There is no game of chance, it’s already been planned.
To strategise and visualise these plays forward, in a line.
To what end, I wonder now. What function does this
service when I can feel the fickle hand of fate reaching
inside this pitch to meddle in the affairs of all the weak?
The charade of free will shakes its warning fists at me,
dares against divulgence of secrets meant not for ears
of mortal brethren drawing out their own battle plans.
One chance only in this armour, yet no chance is this;
no chances truly subsist, were all play analysed and as
readily understandable by all with this distinction I am
carrying into the light at the edge of my own front line.
I fell for this ruse, as did all these other tiny paper dolls
and somewhere outside of this staged arena stands a
crowd of laughing stagehands holding all of the ropes.
Soon I shall feel this noose of time as the gaffers take
up all the slack they’d once thought to lend out to me.
We are all fools upon this ship and shall we fall prey to
treacherous storm waves as they throw us into the soil.

---phoenix
5/30-1/2008

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Vicious Cycles

Vicious Cycles

These unintended passengers waiting on the sidelines,
in the stage wings, to drink all these scripted poisons
with their bated breath, comes such hopeful shudder…
such anticipation, unwarranted, so imminently captive
of these toils of my jaded and most grievous intuition.
What wouldst thou have of such dark illuminations…?
My devil-sharpened tongue; shaping worlds where no
fevered mortal coward dare even risk his sacred breath.
Judge nor gather harshly and heed these grains of salt;
beware, for all these mirrors can take you anywhere,
save your own home…this grandeur is fleeting though
my truths will remain yet, carved out in timeless stone.
Fetid is the air of these catacombs we now wander in
together, forever…the way you all wanted it to remain.
The parable of my existence…the binge of insight calls
the purge of alphabetical statuary, intangible portraits.
The arcane museum of the mind’s eye, the dreary stage
without which I’d have no locale or destination, would
cease to hear or speak. You all cast me down here; in
turn I’ve dragged you to these lowly dungeons as well.

---phoenix
5/28-31/2008

any copying/reproduction/distribution of this writing, in whole or in part, without express permission from the author is strictly prohibited. ©SaerenPhoenix 2008

(Please contact the author with questions.)