Love Found Again (With Song 🎸 🎶)

I see the earth clad in red and gold
Starry crown for this visage so old
Lakes of ice, streams of tears
My long lost love appears
Her cold whispers warm me
They told me she drowned at sea
She had died
So long ago
But I saw her there
She said hello

Listen to Love Again.mp3 by Tanmay on #SoundCloud

https://on.soundcloud.com/kbHNH

[My first try recording and mixing. That’s why it is so short. I think I did okay. There are lots of mistakes, but I’m too tired to get it right. I’ve already tried about a dozen times. I don’t have any recording equipment, but I figured out how to plug my guitar amp to my laptop. I didn’t realize my voice was so bad. Two decades of smoking will do that to you, I guess. I can manage a baritone, but not much else. I thought whispering would work better, and give it a ghostly feel. Yeesh, there are a few grammar mistakes, but I don’t want to record again.]

[I should have lowered the volume on the whispering. I will try singing my next one. ]

Necropolis

Far below the city
A seed began to grow
Leaves of toxicity
Merged with all the hedge rows
Fires trapped in concrete
Their smoke veiled all the stars
Tendrils ran through the streets
Dreams of penthouse cigars
And love bought with a card
Sprouted out from the vine
Blood spilled on the front yard
A crow gazed at the sign
A psalm above the door
Plaque broken by the plant
And inside on the floor
Corpses covered by ants
The neighbours laughed and sang
And threw in crumbs of bread
They danced to the sirens
While the watchman played dead
Their egos flashing red
They boasted of their kills
While the watchman played dead
They looked for some more thrills

My Time in Hades

For the longest time
I slept like the dead
The longest journey
In the caravan of Dream
Death taught me things
I used to be filled with rage
At the world
Now,  I just yearn to Live
And find Truth
Discernment
Is a precious gift
Taken for granted
Until it is lost

For the longest time
I slept like the dead
The longest journey
In the caravan of Dream
Death taught me things
I did not drink
Of the waters of Lethe
Every second of my past
Was revealed to me
Breaking free of Chronos
And his cycle of pain
Was the only thing
That mattered

For the longest time
I slept like the dead
The longest journey
In the caravan of Dream
Death taught me things
Had I been possessed
When I ODd on prescription meds
To end this pain?
Every moment since then
Was a haunted house of horrors
I ‘live’ now in stark terror
Of still being ‘alive’
And losing the little I have left

…

Responsibility
Too heavy on my weak shoulders
No talent,  no drive,  no future
Everything I touch withers
Will I live in pain forever
Damned for eternity
In this hell I’ve created?
No friends,  no tribe, no people
I shut myself off, to dream
Safe within a foetal embrace
Too ill to Live, too guilty to die
Too scared to cause pain to the few
Who still love me

…

I dream of Life
But I’ve not forgotten
The lessons of death
Specks of dust, souls divine
Goodbye
To all the plans that we made
No contracts
I’m free to do as I may
No hunger
No sleep except to dream
Mild and warm
Safe from all harm
Calm

Can I use these lessons to live again?

My persona is slowly crumbling

My ambitions, my goals…

Good riddance

The Photograph Eater

I placed roses near your grave
It’s already been a year
The wind seared my eyes today
I thought I’d shed no more tears
I found an old photograph
Specked with mold I cleaned away
The paper then tore apart
I needed to make you stay
So I tasted your colours
Ate without any wasted
And that’s when I heard you say
My name,  like I anticipated

I Reap What I Sow

My solitude has made me sick
There’s no one to lay my heart on
It’s always been I, me, and my
Would be nice to share this journey
But when I fall asleep… oh my!
The strange folk I meet in my dreams
If only I had that same will
During the day when I wander
To meet people and bond like this
Asleep I thrive, awake — desolate
But moonlight can’t help me grow my field

Sick on my journey
my dreams will wander
this desolate field –Matsuo Basho

旅に病んで　夢は枯野を　かけ廻るTabi ni yande/ Yume wa kareno wo/ Kakemeguru

For The Skeptic’s Kaddish

Ange’s prompt guidelines

1. Select a haiku written by someone other yourself;
2. Construct a “Golden Shovel” poem from that haiku.

Golden Shovel?

A golden shovel is a poetic form in which the last word of each line forms a second, pre-existing poem (or section thereof), to which the poet is paying homage.

A Morbid Exchange of Comments

There was a guy on RoyalRoad
Prepared for battle,  in blue woad
His comments were filled with blood and gore
I played along in this comment war
We communicated in verse alone
Singing tunes that would chill you to your bone
I now render a pale imitation
Of our morbid conversation

The night was dark and filled with screams
He was cutting himself in his dreams
And hanging from the old wooden beams
A dark reality lit by moonbeams

She licked the blood from her lips
Swaying her seductive hips
Her eyes like the apocalypse
Lit up during the lunar eclipse

Red from the heat of the seventh hell
He woke up after he bid her farewell
Just in time to hear the funeral bell
Tolling for the pretty neighbourhood belle

Clothes and the Man

This story is not for the faint of heart
But I have to get this off my chest
So take a deep breath before we start
And keep a handkerchief in hand for your tears

His glasses were like a painting’s frame
‘Eyes that can speak a thousand words’
That was the idea, or so he claimed
But they always seemed so cold and distant

His wardrobe was way too tacky
‘Exotic’ He called it,  ‘trendsetting’
Colourful bandanas and one in khaki
Maybe he was trying to overcompensate

He had a fondness for the art of drag
Wigs galore and tops of every size
Dresses, miniskirts and so many handbags
But nothing that could cover his pain

We all thought that he was just a strange guy
With a love for fashion in all its forms
His red cheongsam made my girl cry
“It’s too pretty,”  she said,  “for a hairy oaf”

He finally told me his story one day
Thirty years ago he had lost his twin
Spun her in the washing machine, just some play
But then he accidentally locked her in

Too young to understand the locking mechanism
(His parents had gone away for the day)
He couldn’t open that damned front loading contraption
The neighbours came when it was already too late

She died of asphyxiation, he said
His eyes for the first time showing something
For fifteen years he wished he was dead
His sister,  he said, loved her sewing

He couldn’t live with himself now, unless disguised
Making up new identities and stories
I have never met a man so traumatized
‘I was so wrong about this sarong , ‘ he said before I left

Dance Macabre

Minutes after midnight
A waltz with Death
Strings, flutes and timpani

The skeletons sway on the stand
While they play their violins
With bows made of moonlight

The red haired queen in the centre
Clasps arms with a shadow
Ready for the dance

The little street urchin behind her
Frolics to the sound
Of a xylophone made of bone

From its icy tomb below
An ancient being rises
To find a new partner

The pope and the saint at the door
Fervently chant their prayers
As they join in the dance

Faces half bone half flesh
Twirl twirl twirl in the ballroom
With frozen grins of rigor mortis

Though covered in finery
They still feel the chill
Of their midnight host

Angels sit by the walls
Guarding the propriety
Of this ballroom dance

All who hear
Cannot help move their bodies
To the tune macabre

Ghosts ascend and descend
Singing ‘Salva me’
To the beat of the macabre

On his blood red carpet
The Grim Reaper leads us all
In the Dance Macabre

‘Ashes to ashes,’ a Phoenix sings the coda, before dawn sounds the gong

image: Lucerne Dance of Death, Jakob von Wyl

The Musician

He plays a song
On a ferry
Heading to Hades
Never wary
Of the others
Travelling along
Lost in their thoughts
Of their every wrong
Leyenda’s opening
Those echoing notes
Sound past the river
Struck chords shake the boats
On the river Styx
Reverberating
In all their damned ears
Devastating
Their depressing dirge
Their inner demon
Their unceasing
Carousel of sin
They stare daggers
At the musician
They’ve grown too used
To their condition
Any new tune
That forces new thoughts
Triggers new pain
Of ten thousand watts
Coursing like lightning
In their electric chairs
They’ve grown addicted
To solitary despairs
Eurydice dances
Her anklets’ tempo
Inspires the player
With soulful vibrato
The song’s soon over
He draws in a breath
The river ends
In the Land of Death

A/N: Strictly speaking, Asturias Leyenda is an instrumental piece and not a song

Here’s a video of it being performed:  https://youtu.be/inBKFMB-yPg

Three Shaman Thieves Journey into the Netherworld

A trio, shamans all, they walk in step
A somnambulant drawl, they speak with sleep
One single tell showing their trespassed depth
Wan faced, gaunt, ragged, torn, the trio creep

Through the Realm of the Dead… their disguise keeps
They make it past the borders of a town
Looking for the house of the Judge of the Reaped
The passers-by stare at the three and frown

One shaman starts to panic, and turns around
His companions steady him with a smile
They quicken their pace, their feet centre bound
Where the Judge of the Underworld hears trial

The land transforms, it’s suddenly much less vile
They walk on past homes with trellised gardens
Posh suburban homes, green lawns by the mile
Not what they expected, these big mansions

Their destination reached at long last, ‘Sanctum’
Much smaller than its neighbours. Two storeys tall
They open the door with a stolen key, and ‘Umff!’
A cat greets them, peeking from behind the wall

The two older shamans play feline ball
While the young one remains focused on the mission
The two relieve themselves in the toilet
While the young one searches for the object of vision

Time’s short, young Walker thinks, though he’d like to relax–
The journey was hard, but the Judge will soon be back
The lure won’t hold him for much longer, he can’t be lax–
Young One finds the object of search at long last

A tap that was right there, near the front door, he laughs
Young One summons a magical object
An empty Coca Cola bottle, he chant-crafts
And fills it with the clear waters of Death

The Judge has so much, he won’t miss this little bit
The Young One tells himself to assuage guilt
He rallies his companions and they make their escape
Returning again to the other side of the dreamscape

(The Judge watches the thieves enter and leave from atop an adjoining balcony
He decides to let them return to the land of the living)

written: October 16, 2018 (I added in some missing articles which screwed up the syllable count)