Despondency Wrought

Malign paths before me
Split upon forked tongues
Where I fetch lament

Burning passions, ashen hands

Dirges I dance to
Void grows when fed
Crashing waves of sorrow
Erode sands of time
Breaking open Pandora’s Box
And evils deep within
For silence breeds contempt
Stifling without any flame
But rather chilled stillness
Where every heartbeat resounds

Foul requiem, most somber

Sandblasting most tender flesh
Rending most heavy bone
Agony carried like water
Vital for consummate life
As whispers tease anew
Light too distant fades
False hope cast asunder
Plummeting to rocks below

Who will walk beside?
What can I change?
When do demons rest?
Where is my reprieve?
Why always darkened skies?

Forging forth, lacking product

Repetitive result always similar
Flawed without other functions
Still taken from me
Returned as broken pieces
Overshadowed by kind words
Pot marked without end
Praised when in need
Abandoned when I’m weakest

This tears, rips apart

Branding my very soul
Marked with unseen scars
Invisible wounds so broad
Scrape into every pore
Every discarded dismal memory
Reminding me I’m alive
Holding onto tomorrow past
Lumbering sighs explode within

In dusk, twilight born

Every year another stone
Walling up my candor
Stunting my meager growth
Crushing me with myself
Nails in the coffin
I have gladly supplied
Withdrawing a self unknown
Endless spiral of anguish

Yours truly, diminished stature

Reviews

[David McNeeley]

I found this deeply depressing, but I think that's the point. Near the end I saw a scene of a person being slowly bricked up in behind a wall alive in a manner reminiscent to some tales I've heard about the Great Wall of China and it's many entombed builders. Anyways as melancholy as it may have been, the poem still made me feel a very specific and precise set of emotions, which as I understand poetry is the purpose.