Winter

He's here again
Winter
Icing up the parlor window
Blowing cold through
Ancient cracks
He frosts my plants
I'm passed depressed
Cannot gather effort
To move them back

Presently
Spring will come
As she is wont to do
And Winter he'll depart
The eternal cycle thus
Restarts
Yet this time
He'll hold his ground
And wait it out
Cold so cold
Within my heart

I'm dwelling on it
Why that is
What has changed in me
To make it so
I'm not the same as when
I was
Burnt beyond ashes  
Inside
Still I'm not certain that
I want to know
Who I was meant
To be

Maybe it's years piling up
A more impending doom
Perhaps that last dream
I lost
No, I think not
I'm sure I'll get through
The ache will melt away
Like morning frost
I need it to happen soon
But it's not to be

You see
I got wise
When I woke up
Today and
Realized
No matter
What I want
What I try
No matter what
I do

I will always be
In this place
The winter of my life
A me without a you

Reviews

[Joyce S. Greene]

A very sad song, Brian. I believe you've moved beyond this gloom now and are appreciating life again. Spring does always come and no matter your age, you can rejoice in the world and its beauty. Your poetry is a gift to us all, and I'm sure creating it gives you much happiness. Write on!

[ba_mcfarlane]

thank you for such kind words. I wrote this while renting a place in this huge century house in Stratford. I had the parlour, the window was the original one, and huge! It was a bitter cold night, I moved my plants from the cold , then wrote this all in one shot. Long time ago. 7 years?

[ba_mcfarlane]

I wrote this looking at a frosted up, huge, window, in an old house, the window must have been close to a century old. I could see the thickness at its base, compared to the top. Glass flows like water, but ever so slowly. It had me thinking about a love that had ended badly. It worked for me.
I haven't loved since then. I haven't written much since then, as well. B

[Lydia Shutter]

Winter....a state of mind as well as a season. The emotions are icy...the feelings are lonely. While the seasons change with the calendar pages, it is not quite so easy to change our state of mind, is it? A very real poem....one I enjoyed. Lydi**

[ba_mcfarlane]

thank you so much for your review. You can really write, so it makes this all the more rewarding to hear kind words from you. B

[ba_mcfarlane]

Like a few people who write a lot, I start with a snippet of reality that interests me, build an air castle from it, then write it down.
It is a dead easy process for me; I don't recommend it, unless you want to risk being mediocre, like me. I really am lazy about it all. Anyway.
Not this poem. For a year I had been with the woman with whom I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, happy in true love and all that bullshit.
Then boom, in a flash she is with another man. The lightening bolt caught me flush in the heart.
She pretty much crushed my spirit, which is where I was when this piece hit paper, so to speak.
Now, the new man had huge coin, I kinda understood, didn't like it, my self esteem survived.
Time does heal, and I am now happier that it ended quick, it could have been worse.

I never want to write another one of these taken whole cloth from my own life.

Never again.

Never.

[Henry]

A powerful expression of lost love.

[Alexandria Reece]

Very nice ending, showing us the symbolism here contained. I loved especially the stark contrast between the winter world you depict and the damage dealt inside which you describe as 'burnt to ashes'. That direct difference left something powerful with me. The rest of that stanza is also incredibly well-put; overall, a great read.

[Neva Flores Smith - Cha..]

the last stanza tore at my heart strings. Beautiful sad elegance penned here.....

[Ruth]

This is so intricate and beautifully worded!
Really reached my heart, absolutely consuming!
xoxo

[Penlady]

The other side of "mostly contented."
Always and never are two words we should need a license to use. Change is something that is sure.

[Southern Cross]

Such raw emotion to this piece. I could feel the coldness surrounding me and the desperation of the emotions. I was gripped with the lines, "I will always be in this place the winter of my life without a you".