While poetry is not my usual form of expression, I find comfort in it during emotionally trying times. This page features a collection of verses written during such a phase in my life, and it is dedicated to the friends I made in therapy, the sorrows we’ve shared, and the healing we might each someday attain. Thank you all for your support, and don’t hesitate to reach out to me if you ever feel you need mine.
Table of Contents:
- “I’m tired”
- “The cliff”
- “Stories”
- “The Cosmos and I”
- “Ghost”
- “Spelunker of hearts”
- “Alive”
- “Hell”
- “Pilgrim’s rest”
- “My home”
- “Unspoken”
I’m tired
I have a family, it’s true,
And friends that might be wired,
And life that’s often fun and new,
I’m just so goddamn tired.
I’m not that old, and there are those
Who have been hotter fired,
Like clay in kiln, to weather blows;
I’m just so goddamn tired.
I know there’s life ahead of me;
I might be re-inspired
To forge ahead contentedly;
I’m just so goddamn tired.
I live in wild and untamed land;
In mental swamp I’m mired.
My heart is full of needles and
I’m just so goddamn tired.
The cliff
I stand here at the precipice
Above a sea of black,
Stunted by my cowardice–
The courage that I lack.
I look upon the waves that crash
On stony crags below,
And think of all that turns to ash
If I should settle low.
The back-wind says there’s no return–
I fear the faces there–
But drowning dark makes stomach churn;
My feet stay anchored there.
My train of thought runs off the rails
And smashes all to bits;
This crisis fills my heart with nails,
My mind dry of all wits.
Can I take this leap and fall
Into the chilling deep?
Would I sacrifice it all
Just to no longer weep?
Who should care if I am gone?
Won’t they spare me the pain
Of playing happy for so long,
Of feeling wholly drained?
What hope is there that I might be
Tomorrow fine and well?
Of this torture ever free,
Released from my own hell?
I shudder on that rocky shelf,
Afraid to leave its rim.
There is some hope, I tell myself,
Although it’s very dim.
Returning to the life I know
Is not an easy thought,
But more so would be letting go
Of all that might be sought.
And so with heavy-footed step
I walk back from the brink
That stormy cliff I might have leapt
To cure my need to think.
A hard path lies before my feet
Between me and my rest,
But rest I’m sure I’ll someday meet
To soothe my aching chest.
That cliff remains a haunting friend–
The route there I know dear–
If needed, I’ll return again
To overcome my fear.
Stories
My mind wanders back
As my feet move ahead
To memories packed
With the stories I’ve read
I know life is wrought
And too oft bittersweet
But I never thought
Such an end I would meet
No heroes exist
In a world of gray sludge
But still we persist
For some meaning we trudge
And so I go on
Though I’m stuck in before
My tragedy’s writ
And I fear nothing more.
The Cosmos and I
The planets roll on
In their horrible way,
Each with their own dawn,
And their own length of day.
They circle the Sun
That I’ve always known well,
But their different run
Is like none I can tell.
More terrible still
Are the stars far outside,
The blackness they fill,
And the secrets they hide;
Unknowable things
So displaced from us drift;
Strange notes they must sing
As through stardust they sift.
The nightmares I’ve had
In that shivering deep
Have driven me mad,
And in waking they creep.
No thought can be sealed
From that chaos and dark;
My mind is congealed,
All my hopes become stark.
Why should I pursue
Any meaning or end
When all that rings true
Is an uncertain trend
Of cosmic decay
And the black hole’s rank breath
Of endless dismay–
And no promise but death?
Our planet is small,
And our universe vast,
I’m not even tall,
And our lives will not last–
What can I derive
From an outlook so bleak?
How can someone strive
With willpower so weak?
It is in this place,
My nerves locked in fear,
My heart’s rapid pace
A calm tempo comes near.
To know of my size
Is a burden, no doubt;
But if handled wise
A good life might play out.
That life might be brief
And may have no impact;
There may be real grief
As I struggle to act;
But act I must try
To make something of me,
If before I die
I might make myself free.
So I’m at the whim
Of the galaxy’s laws,
But with vistas grim,
And in spite of my flaws,
There’s much to be found
On the journey of life,
And love might come ‘round
To allay my worst strife.
This is my reply
When black feelings give pause
To questions of why,
I say love is my cause.
Ghost
There is a ghost that’s haunting me
That fills my nights with pain;
It lingers in my agony
And holds my heart by rein.
I see it every waking hour
And even in my sleep;
It’s turned my life so gray and dour
That I can barely weep.
This spectre manifests itself
In doorway and in sheets;
On hand-writ page and picture-shelf
Its eyes and lips I meet.
Of its visage I’m not afraid–
In fact I love it dear–
But love is why I am so made
To tremble when it’s near.
My body shakes and becomes cold
To see incorp’real form,
For shadowed face in days of old
Kept my heart soft and warm.
In that embrace I sheltered fair
Through thunder and through snow,
And with that hearth no longer there
I’m left to weather’s flow.
It was so fast and such surprise
When my soul lost its muse;
I dare not shake its ling’ring guise–
I’ve little else to lose.
And so in tort’rous agony
My heart retains this wan;
I have no hope of being free
From ghost of love bygone.
Spelunker of hearts
I am a spelunker,
But I do not sink
Into earthen bunker
With blackness like ink
To seek thrill or treasure
Or any such thing;
I only find pleasure
In heartbroken sting.
I delve into caverns
Of flesh and of blood;
Such pits are the taverns
Where my thirst is flood.
The lonely and broken
And all their cores dire
Are the only token
I seek to acquire.
When I soak in sorrow
I feel life and death
My chest becomes hollow;
My hesitant breath
Slips from lungs so tired
You’d think I’d give up–
But my mind is wired
To sip poisoned cup.
I don’t care that it hurts
To drink from that pool,
To with sorrows flirt,
To let sadness rule.
For in those dark heart-shafts,
Their rivers of tears,
Their most chilling wind-drafts,
Their horrible fears,
I find my belonging
And practice an art
As creature of longing:
Spelunker of hearts.
Alive
I long once more to feel again
The springtime rain, the summer wind
The freshly-blossomed flower-blend
–I long to feel alive.
I long once more to dream again
Of ceaseless bond, of happy end
Like in so many stories penned
–I long to feel alive.
I long once more to breathe again
The hearth-warm air, my lungs to mend
In shelter from the blist’ring wind
–I long to feel alive.
I long once more to dwell again
In close embrace, my heart to lend
There all my sorrows to expend
–I long to feel alive.
I long once more to love again
A tearful soul, my life to rend
Who might remain eternal friend
–I long to feel alive.
Hell
It was once Jean-Paul Sartre said
That hell is other people,
And nothing else that I have read
Can be this statement’s equal.
But what is in translation lost
Is Satan’s not our brother;
Instead what’s often over-glossed
Is how we change each other.
For people are not hellish beasts
Who must be fought and routed;
I need their contrast to complete
The self I’ve often doubted.
It’s also paradoxical
But can’t be overridden
That others can be toxical
And force me to be hidden.
When other people I’m around
I’m terrified of seeing
How they might act if I am found
Authentically being.
But how can I be what I am
If I have no existence
Beyond the thick-cemented dam
Of my bad faith’s persistence?
When I say social life is hell
This is what I intend:
To state that exiting my shell
Is like a pyrrhic end.
For I can’t be what I am not–
I have to write my story–
But it’s through flame and judgement hot
I leave this purgatory.
Pilgrim’s rest
In the dim light
My body is still
I lay here until
I merge with the night.
My staff at rest
Worn boots have been shod
My head starts to nod
The calm fills my breast.
At window sill
Cool breeze hits just right
The sheets ‘round me tight
I dream verdant hill.
Never has God
My tiredness wrest
Yet I don’t contest
The paths I have trod.
My home
Alone
My home
The closest I’ll be
To feeling so free
Just here on my own.
Alone
My tome
The story I’ll write
This beautiful night
Just here on my own.
Unspoken
I wish I could have told you just
Exactly how I feel
But often I feel that I must
Emotions inward reel
I would have told you that you are
So beautiful and true
A friendly face, my guiding star
From whom so much I drew
I would have told you all these things
Plus hundred-thousand more
And now regretful echo rings
Throughout my aching core
I wish I’d overcome my fears
To all these feelings say
Now I’m alone with all these tears
Since you have gone away.
J.D. Smirl 