Chiaroscuro

i. Sonata

How curious I find... this mysterious force...

Creation - every tale's primordial source.

Harnessed by man ever recklessly;

that this should be-- because of Me.

This graven task of Godly misappropriation,

toying with the lives and lusts of nascent ink,

twisting reality in any profane permutation I think...

Why... what better task can there be for the charlatan?

These dreams are but a taste of the precious wine.

Your fickle palate shall ever thirst for the divine-

A cup forever runneth with bitter, night-black poison,

may you quench your thirst beneath our frozen Sun.

Peace-- let close your eyes, awaken the scene,

as veils of darkness dissolve into seas of green.

Bound in a robe of effulgent luster,

enticing the wilds alive around her,

wisps of mistral, sweet perfume, enchanting the air...

Dawn, my dear- won't you let down your golden hair?

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ii. Adagio

Here I lie tonight, undreaming;

drowning in the wake of thoughts unmeaning.

My muse hid from me, for my sanity,

devoured by feelings I dared think buried for eternity.

Their gnawing claws forced their way back inside me,

and so, coward I may be, I gave up willingly...

It seems fantasy has always belonged to the disillusioned,

those who've lost their love for senseless confusion.

Yet who am I but the deceiver, skilled in the art

of selling you nothing but this snake-oil heart?

Once you're aware of my frivolous game

what's left of me but this contemptuous name?

No, don't call me a poet;

I am precisely the opposite!

A charlatan whose prose is doomed to covet

those hallowed lands, forever unworthy,

exiled beyond the crystalline gates of authenticity.

I find I prefer the confines of alternating lines and space:

black for despair, white for disgrace.

If only You'd come back and sing for me...

An anthem to transcend this broken reality.

To feel your ink-soaked wings around this fettered soul...

please, allow me one last chance to feel whole.

It still comes for me, this villainous entropy,

seeking to smother my... my everything.

But You- you've always been the remedy;

through you, I find the courage to sing

the exultant chords to escape this terrible dream.

Guide my hand, precious melody...

Lead me back to your enduring embrace.

Together, we'll write a symphony

for all the souls lost here in purgatory--

this formless land of nowhere, where you found me--

We could destroy the darkness of this wicked place.

I'll be their beacon... if you'll only allow me-

Wait! Please, just a moment, let me catch up...

I'm only asking for a little taste of your divinity--

a brief reprieve from this suffocating mediocrity...

Do you honestly think anyone else can harness your beauty?

No... your elegance is mine alone to corrupt.

----------------------------

iii. Scherzo

Broken cogs in a dust-dammed wheel

that yearns to turn despite these flaws.

Scars unseen, and wounds that just won't heal-

signed in blood by Fate's fickle claws.

Disabled... Enabled... 

To stick me with a label.

Implicit permission to decide what I'm able.

Without a doubt. Without concern. Without consent.

Into the bleached-blank margins I'm sent.

Carrying on with this condemned charade,

and making a mockery of creation's parade,

solely for the sake of another agonizing breath-

an ephemeral exhalation in the face of Death!

"Ah, you wanted satisfaction? I'll have none of that!

After all, this play is so much more than one Act...

I will destroy you - methodically and slow,

and from your life, I'll get one Hell of a show!"

So tell me - should I prolong this futile game

if my strategy only involves more of the same?

Pain and sleep, ad nauseum; a monotonous rhythm-

teetering along the edge of a dream-death schism.

Bourne below in a coffin of flannel sheets,

held aloft on wings glued together with concrete.

So, even if the world somehow turned upside-down,

I'm starting to believe I'd still stick to the ground.

As if, overnight, I'd wake up and sprout roots-

maybe after a few more pills, I'll think it's the truth...

--------------------------------------------------------------

iv. Rondo

With a fertile mind, and a frozen heart,

I breathe new life in this decrepit art.

To hide my plight was of no use-

Vanity had become my best excuse.

But to gouge a page in vitriol

seemed more profane than a bullet hole

within the walls of my sanguine mind.

I'd spare the world my moaning lines-

defunct and broken, scrapped designs;

blood and tears and ink combined-

'til I could crack this flawed facade

of blind hope forged with jaded fraud.

Endlessly spiraling within the white,

consumed by a destructive appetite:

What's the point in writing if I can't do it right?

Drowning in the tides of butchered graphite.

No more capable than some nascent neophyte.

Staring down the tunnel - hoping for a light...

Well, to Hell with this self-accepted annihilation

of every last shred of my soul-raking isolation.

I realize now that I wasn't barren of inspiration

but blind to the words I dared not share.

But, since when was it noble to simply replicate

the lies you love over the pain you bear?

And thus I'd become the very thing I hate.

Nothing.

Shallow, hollow, craven prose.

Far too afraid of scaring those

whose words were raindrops among a storm.

Their loudest cries couldn't once create

a salve to cure a heart that aches,

nor skin that screams or hands that shake.

Now I see I must at once transform,

and embrace the hate I sought to scorn.

Scrape the surface 'til the flesh is raw,

and snap every bone like the twigs they are.

If that's what it takes to again make these gnarled lips sing,

I'll fill the night with their ink-curdling screams.

Long will I be cold in a cobwebbed crypt

whenever the echoes finish their silent trips,

and not for one single moment, will I be missed-

but I refuse to stay hidden, forever within the mists.

No, there is no key to the chains that bind me.

For all I know, it shall elude me throughout eternity.

But tonight, resounding through ghostly halls of paper white... 

if you listen closely, you might just hear the whispers of a melody...

dancing to the rhythm of a lilting, dulcet harmony...

And so, through this force of creation, I am forever free.

Reviews

[Nolo Segundo]

I shall call you a poet, and your poetry is rare in its beauty and brutality, and I re-iterate that I envy your grace with words and I cannot understand how few people have read this poem but then I never understood how millions could not see the extraordinary power of Van Gogh's paintings whilst he lived, yet pay millions for them now. Life is not fair, and even less fair is humanity. You were born out of time, Sazaku, by 2 centuries-- but that does not mean the world will never re-awaken to such souls as yours.