If I went to bed tonight,
And fell into a dream,
One that I wouldn’t awake from,
I would be content.
When I die
I will die before my time,
At 3am my heart will fail,
It will read, I died in my sleep,
But I can assure you,
I will be wide awake.
The Persistence of Time
Why does part of me always seek the harshest of feelings,
Why am I not content when I’m at rest, the peace never visits for long,
It is though my mind actively seeks out negative pathways,
Rather than remain quiet, stay at rest, be calm and content,
Instead, a pursuit haunts my sleep, and affects my waking day,
I don’t like it, I don’t want it, but it’s there,
I seek comfort in the hunt for objects that bring me pleasure,
An obscure part of my mind knows I’ll soon be unable to attain them,
So, I collect, I stockpile, I obsess, I spend, I hunt further,
Everything is recorded, everything is placed in correct order, all but me,
I foresee darkness on my horizon, and I fear the grey days that it will place me in,
I’m unsure I have the strength left to again walk that long hard road back to the light,
I don’t want that feeling, but it is inevitable.
I resent the persistence of time, and the silent murders that it commits,
Time is never held accountable, it has no day in court to answer for its crimes,
Lifespan, not death itself, that is the real ticking time-bomb of the mind,
There is no going back, just a subtle pushing forward from unseen hands,
Dark days are coming, I don’t want them, but they are inevitable.
Wreckage
A morning sun packs early heat, high in the sky,
After a dark night of wreckage and ruin,
Another mother mourns the loss of a son,
As crows cry for carrion on the green roadside.
A Whisper in the Dark
You can hear me in the depths of Winter,
You can hear me in the home of elders,
You can hear me by a baby’s cradle,
You will hear me when you are unable –
To take your final breath.
I am ever present, ever whispering,
For my name is death.
The Poisoner’s Bride
For too long now you have fed me lies,
You told me that you’d be only mine,
The one whose hand you’d forever hold,
Happily married until the end of time,
But like sniffing dogs, other men arrive,
And my intimacies you did decline,
and greeted me with derision so cold,
So, I laced all your meals with strychnine.
I no longer cared when you did decide,
To fill your deceitful mouth with lies,
I just made sure your dose was double,
And was serenaded by your painful cries,
When I saw the regret in your lifeless eyes,
My cruel heart was filled with vengeful pride,
Silenced by poison, and buried by shovel,
Now you rest by a tree in the countryside.
How do we get past broken?
How do we get past broken?
When we can’t quite locate the injury,
Sadly, it’s not the heart, that’s for poetry,
It’s hidden in a secret place,
Somewhere so deep we cannot trace,
We cannot get passed broken,
Because we were never fixed.
Dan Verkys 