Without Malice, 6/26/10

There is no malice in her
All the little wounds she brings
are accidental or providential,
but always inadvertent
symptoms of her misery
And yet I die from a thousand little cuts
but somehow continue to breathe
To walk, to work, to sleep
or not to sleep,
perchance to dream
Living on, if dead
wondering
Is this Hell ...
or just the rest of my life

6/25/10

For you, I would give my life, he said
Yes, she agreed, but ...
would you give something you valued?

Two poems

Vanishing, 6/24/10


She is always
Vanishing
Leaving nothing but a ghostly image
burnt across the retinas
of my imagination
She disappears
until she again returns
If only as a thought, a wish
a longing, a promise
For again,
she has vanished,
has gone,
and again,
I am without

Light from Another Room, 6/23/10

Seen through the crack in a door not fully closed
Creating shadows where it is absent
but no real illumination in its presence
A sliver, a wedge
There only to present a contrast
to the darkness
Nothing more

Numb 6/22/10

Numb
Is how she wants to be
So that she won't have to feel
and everything will fall away
Numb
It's how I have been
but no more
I'd rather live the pain
than know it's there, unnoticed
For pain is the warning against the burn
Better felt
Though it hurts so much
than to be nothing
but numb

6/21/10

APOSTATE 6/21/10

Looking away from Eden's Gates
with a long road before me
and an empty place growing
where once there was ... what?
Belief? Hope? A promise?
Once a fool
Now, a sage?
Hardly
Only an apostate
feeling the vacuum
that was once faith

The Dry Wash, 6/20/10

The expanse
Broader than anything I’ve ever known
Except for maybe the distance between us
Not like the canyons I have loved
But rock strewn and arid
A gulf separating the hills
Waiting for the rains
And what then?
A torrent raging
But now, just a dry place
Broader than anything I have ever known
Except for the distance between us

Regret, 6/19/10

I regret
therefore I am

HAIKU, 6/18/10

And then there is love
Sweet sweet miserable love
It's all that I know

MUSE, 6/17/10

Words strung together
to express a thought as yet unknown
A simple melody
a line of notes
or chord change
A minor to F maj 7th
Simple line across canvas
a dash of paint or a charcoal smudge
to find a way
to move the world
make the girls weep
bringing wonder and marvel
and perhaps, just perhaps
to live on for the ages

SLEEP, 6/16/10

Maybe someday
I'll sleep again
through the night
without waking to look
longingly
at the morning star
Maybe someday
but no time soon
For now I'll be awake
and see the star
Venus as she moves
and think of you

HAIKU, 6/15/10

I would give the world
my life, my heart and my soul
just to hear her laugh

Want, 6/14/10

Want to need
Need to desire
Desire to something more
and always
There is you

6/13/10


We walked the world
like gods and heroes
of another age
What we wanted we took
What we couldn't have
we destroyed
We were young
and we were fools
and now amongst the wreckage of our design
we live on
perhaps not wiser
but closer to wisdom
and at last aware
of our mortality

MORE 6/12/10

It was my first word
and what I have always craved
more booze
more joy
more love
And it is what has been missing
since my first word
What is enough when there is only ...
more

LAMENT 6/11/10

My heart will break
And in breaking I will see the world as it is
not as I want it to be
And that, in the end,
is worse than death

Lost Dreams of the Fallen, 6/10/10

We live on
biding eternity
lounging in outdoor cafes
and all night coffee shops
drinking wine as the morning passes
or cheap cups'o'joe throughout the night
We stay in rented rooms or cheap motels
in the outlands
where we belong
at least in a way
We watch a world we can never have
and cannot love
dreaming of heaven's fall
and all that was lost

Copyright Ryan Cole, 2010