As Far As the Sunrise

Grotesque-romance sonnet crown. Two lovers, their pasts, and the pain and pleasure used to deal with it all.

The pale chip off your velveteen armour,

blinded I gawked, light of day ‘cross your skin.

My umber desire for your beat black gore

reveals the villain of my pillaged sin.

All faint expectation crawled ‘cross my eyes,

yet never I touched, and looked but in vain,

the shadow your hunched figure casts now cries.

A desperate plea made in spiteful pain,

a masochist’s holy joy now regained.

But happy is her tender swollen face,

her honesty toward me all that remained,

blushed with the feathered sweet of saintly grace.

And if I strike her heart but twice with fear

one weapon lies in “love,” the other “dear.”

One weapon lies in “love,” the other “dear.”

A space made to break us deep pigeon-holes

where good days deceive us, and bad days rear

their pretty heads, defining rocky shoals,

sketched out in newsprint, and my fountain pen.

We walked through the world, both desperate and lost

I begged God to find my way time again

til I found you bound to St. Andrew’s cross.

I took you for lying, took you for good;

I knew you would leave, you could never stay,

many times in the past saying you would.

Despite it all I allowed you to say:

“I trust you, I trust you, like no one else.”

But my loneliest pain, it never melts.

But my loneliest pain, it never melts,

recalling the violence of blind lost love,

I aim for your skin, praying to raise welts,

preying on you, your millet to my dove.

Something you cry out, in pleasure or pain,

“stop!” or “release me!” or “everything hurts!”

whatever it is, I hear it again,

and again and again, my mind reverts

to a time when I didn’t need love to

hurt. A sweet gentleman, clouded with gold,

despaired by my tendencies, unlike you,

when my dreadful nature slowly unfolds.

So no one has peace, there’s nothing but fear

We cannot say yes, we have to have tears.

We cannot say yes, we have to have tears.

No is a lie that is perfect to bear

in the dark hole of our ramshackle years

and the undercurrent of dreams we share.

You were the same, a minefield vagabond,

with ash and spite in the way you sparkle,

destined to crawl these roads we live upon.

Too sharp to cry and too dull to startle,

I approached you, an offer of metal,

of force and fire, to burn down the ash

which melted your skin down to each freckle

and boiled your heart with each ghastly gash.

Your agony’s splendid like nothing else

in every disaster we’ve ever felt.

In every disaster we’ve ever felt

the Hunter’s Moon led bloodless orbit home

and chert gravestones eclipsed the asteroid belt

in short revolutions like metronomes.

On these days she would say to me, “My dear

burn the lids from my eyes, that I may but

look at you.” And I reply, “Listen here,

the both of us, we’ve found a lifeless rut,

with no where to crawl out except apart,

so take your eyes and take your soul, go! flee!

before I rip a choice cut from your heart,

batter it in ashes, eat it with tea.”

She says, “You are no dear, no love of mine.”

And I, “Of course, I live so you may die.”

And I, “Of course, I live so you may die.”

If this is my love you wish for my hate,

my passion, a scar, a lovely black eye.

With every suggestion you would forsake

your churning guts for just another taste

of the saccharine chrome laid ‘cross your wrist,

crossed over wrist, crowing double time, traced

in chalk, a death, printed fingers ink-kissed.

Dig deep in your stomach and tell me that

sweet butterflies live there rather than worms

that stir, and eat you like blood-sucking bats,

gnaw nebulae of bruises, scar your burns,

leave you wicked and alone, in the dark,

where I always lie near, never depart.

Yes, I always lie near, never depart,

for why would I let you escape, like he,

who was small in my hand, perfect as art,

and always the one to sweeten my tea.

I envy how we think of the other

while enveloped in the harrowing clamp

we feel living on the love-hate border.

Don’t think, I plead, to myself, to the damp

cellar, cold wine and platelet-white plaster,

where I fish dinner from the rumbling

freezer, hide my heart from the bulldozer,

and stew your bones to cease your trembling.

I want your skewered ribs in front of me,

you have been dining with the enemy.

You have been dining with the enemy.

“How fortunate,” you would say, removing

the breath from your lungs to smile at me,

conspiring to catch me, lost musing:

I wanted her to say, “Here I belong,”

but her eyes reminded me of the one

who said no and meant it, worshiped and wrong,

crying into lashes bleached by the sun.

I was good at finding love sweet and soft,

washed in streams and trimmed in gardens, lilac

spun purple under his hair, wheat fields waft,

pulled ponytail and grieving tale, climax

of unconditional love rent to parts

by the rose’s thorns living in my heart.

By the roses thorns living in my heart,

you were attracted, unlike his silk touch,

unlike the caress of your dear consort,

a man who lived your broken ice-slick crutch.

He carried you, and insisted on it,

shouldering you like a weightless newborn.

When your strength crushed the jelly-bone man’s wit,

to me, like I could fix something so worn,

you ran, and we watched the sink together.

It fills and overflows, becomes blood drool

on the floor, reflects you like a mirror,

his, your, disdain reflecting in the pool.

I will, dropped in a sinking den of red,

destroy all things held dear to you, held dead.

Destroy all things held dear to you, held dead,

inside me, the place that makes you cry, “stop!”

that craves the sound, your jaw creaks in your head,

your twinkling ribs exposed to your rot.

Doesn’t it feel good? To be slain, dying

in my hemp arms, slit-wristed, open-heart

surgery, purging your faith in my wings.

What should have saved you made you cancered parts

of organs checkered beneath my mallet

and skulls bleached with the weight of acid rain.

I, “Tell me your last breath. Your tongue’s habit.”

Your response, all through pain, his name, his name.

I guess you aren’t dying any time soon.

I’ll crush that which saves you, that thing that soothes.

I’ll crush that which saves you, that thing that soothes

you with a loving embrace, suspended

above the mellow waters battered smooth

in quiet creeks, wooden bridges mended.

Sucked underwater, you swim for his back,

while I sink, suspended between grabbing

your sturdy chain, his golden locks. Attack

with the palm of my hand, my fist holding

your hair in petaled braids, tight as a cuff

in my hot grip. I will not let you go,

and when your hair unravels, quick and rough

I turn you to face me, bask in your glow.

“Weren’t you over there?” her smiling face said.

The retreating backs were all in our heads.

The retreating backs were all in our heads.

I grab her and strangle, choke breath in my

hold; her pitiful eyes, her trembling legs,

tell me to not kiss the good things goodbye.

I writhe and you scratch, pull us to fresh air,

you scream in the sunlight, throwing your shade,

your crystalline, killer looks of despair.

With voice that could raise our god from his grave,

“Damn us, damn us, from heaven to black hell,

we’ll never be more than ghosts in these shells,

was this the feeling when Babylon fell?”

She raved as I held her, no one could tell,

to no black velvet band could she be proved,

but with every berate, salt to sweet moves.

As with every berate, salt to sweet moves,

as sun to horizon, back to the moon,

my anguish, her horror, starts to subdue.

Her symphony brings us back into tune,

into loving and killing, dusk ‘til dawn,

into pushing as far as the sunrise,

never further, or the horror is gone,

fleeing from the depths of her doll-black eyes.

The sin of the darkest depths of the night,

the scratches and plagues that fall on our skin,

are never forgiven, even in light,

so let us rise up to face this passion.

And wounds gouged by our passionate torture

carefully I’ll fill, with glue and mortar.

Carefully I’ll fill, with glue and mortar

the beat-black cracks round our gemini

hearts, bound together, with spice and murder.

A killer queen I held to ecstasy,

with trash down my trachea, a gimmick

this worthless self-preservation deserves.

You offer your body as the Heimlich

and I accept, to the scream of your nerves,

and hear there a light I don’t deserve, trust

under the weight of what I, we, destroy.

I beg to turn your blood to angel dust.

Though you say you’re hatred, horror devoid,

even after time and dark you harbour

the pale chip off your velveteen armour.

One weapon lies in “love,” the other “dear.”

But my loneliest pain, it never melts.

We cannot say yes, we have to have tears

in every disaster we’ve ever felt.

And I, “Of course, I live so you may die.”

so I always lie near, never depart.

You have been dining with the enemy,

and the rose’s thorns living in my heart

destroy all things held dear to you, held dead.

I’ll crush that which saves you, that thing that soothes,

the retreating backs running in our heads,

but with every berate, salt to sweet moves.

Carefully I’ll fill, with glue and mortar

the pale chip off your velveteen armour.

Author's Note

This took such a long time to write I want as much feedback on this as possible!! Please!

Reviews

[emipoemi]

This is an interesting form! I think you actually might start a new fad with this if it ever gets anywhere of prestige. An epic in sonnets....where the final line of each "stanza" begins the next! Fantastic imagery and simply a fantastic story told through these various sonnets. To better the musicality and flow, however, because the sonnets are supposed to be in iambic pentameter - as shown by the number of syllables per line and the fact that it each stanza emulates a Shakespearean sonnet - it would be better for sound and musicality purposes that each line hits the right note on every word (each word is stressed properly and what not), for due to the metre of the Shakespearean sonnet, some of the lines in certain sections of the poem are wonky in their word order from words landing on the wrong sylLAble and/or ending the line on a down beat when the word ending the line ends femininely (stress is not on the last syllable).

This is not to say that anything else is bad, and the poem is wondrous beyond belief in its imagery and narrative (and form! Never seen someone write a epic solely in sonnets - that was a genius idea)....it simply lacks in musicality (which is a crucial part of poetry). I will read this again to see if there is any trace of a musicality despite the conventional sonnet flow, but for what it's worth, if you go through the poem, and take the time to tweak the wonky lines, mark my words, you would have a genuine gem on your hands that deserves to be in print, and I could very much guarantee it will if sent to the write place. Fantastic start!!

[😂]

AwesomeS! !