Everything I used to touch
was touched with sadness
Everything I used to make
or say out loud
or joke about
was infused with sadness
A pathos to deepen all
a blackness
to accentuate all light
Everything I hung
was waiting to be hanged
in every tale I spun
I was waiting to be hanged
Somehow, the sadness
magnified the brightness
shifted perspective
brought my dark art to life
Everything I used to hold
was held as I was gripped
by a deep sadness
Artefacts now
from another world
Carried across the borders
of ancient space and time
tinged with all
that passed through me
And coming back
artefacts of the past
have one question to ask
repeatedly they ask:
‘Why and how did you go on
why and for what did you hold on?
swaddled in your black sadness
held back by your blank sadness’
I think I liked it
I think I thought it was all I deserved
I thought it rang true in me
at the cost, at the expense
of all else
O, how wrong I was…
[2015]
Thanks for reading.
Tom,
This poem is perfect for reading aloud. The repetitions, the rhymes, the rhythm all work to great effect. It touched me deeply as well.
D
LikeLike
Thank you Devon. You’re very kind, as always. This one means a lot to me, I don’t know why I had to be such a sad and melancholy teenager and twenty-something, but at least it led me to poetry. Now I can look back from a distance whilst also scribbling my lines.
LikeLike