The Distress

What questions do those barracks raise?

What answers do the embankments give?

What secret knowledge is clasped between your fingers?

What happiness is amongst the curls?

 

I have lived in the mud lands before I met you

laying in wait for the wasp

to sting me into eternity

but I have never known such bliss.

 

Had Herodotus seen you before

history would not have been known as it is now

for he would have stopped dead in his tracks

collecting sawgrass from your everglades.

 

The enigma in your eyes is like the labyrinth of a sadist

the smile on your face is like the flash of foam

the slenderness of your fingers is like the thatcher's reed

the tenderness of your lips is like the rose leaves in a coppice.

 

You light the path through which I walk

set ablaze the road I take

ring the crooked bell as the harmonica sounds

and steer the chariot into nirvana.

 

But the roots that you have left behind

cry out to you the melancholic despair

it blows out a mournful sound

and death awaits as I hardly can see.

Reviews

[Laura Lynn]

This is a poem of deep sympathy and gratitude, I am glad the language is so diverse as to make different lines possible for each of us that we may all exhibit this originality. I have felt like this, beautifully written,