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~

these days care not

and neither do they cry.

they are without concern.

days that spare not hope,

they cut and leave no scar;

blindly ravaging, effortless.

were there some distant side,

some side that i could find

oh how i would wail for it.

but i feel this grip peel back.

these fingers growing slack

minute by hour, slowly.

should i fall, now or with

apologies yet unwrought,

this fault was all my own.

~

i am weary, suffocated.
tired and strained by it.
the toll is taken
bit by bit,
till only emptiness remains.

i am buried in it;
sands grown heavy.
burdened and torn down.
wound around and brittle
i crumble.

like a stone i sink; and
water covers over me.
until all sound resigns;
until moonlight fades.
till only emptiness remains.

no light, none shine
in this place, my respite.
in this darkness i now forget.
the breath like a shadow
hangs over me.

~

As soft sweet whispers of springtime sing,
like longing looks and a lingering kiss,
her darkness falls about my face,
and brushes o’er my trembling lips.

And early rosebuds bloom within
her smile; she seems to me so soft.
Her eyes, they speak to me like memories
of timeless times and faded dreams.

I sing to life…I’ve longed to live,
and to my love. I’ve longed to give
the sweetness of her name to her,
whose voice is like a tender rain.

And never in one touch has ever
been there so, so much.
In one caress…I tell my heart
to her, who breathlessly I love.

~

do you know how much i love you?

my love for you

is like being bound up in a cloud.
elevated surrounded illuminated.

i love you like waves

breaking against cliff.

trying to embrace you.

if it would ease your passage,

i'd be stone for you to sit.
i would smooth your calloused feet

and bid you bask in the autumn sunlight.

i would lay down to soften

the road underneath you,
and pull myself to thinness

to shield you from the rain.

i'd light myself aflame

just to warm your hands.
to be a moment's comfort

to you, i would.

if i could protect you from the wind
i'd lay myself out across the sky.

i'd give to you my parts and my whole
to spare you from a moment's harm.

~

There lay upon his dying cot,
The last of summer’s fading soul.
Not yet departed, but forgot,
By those whom of his life had stole.

For those who tell life’s misery,
And these are often wrongly scorned,
With visions of love’s agony,
In tempest had the summer mourned.

It was the season’s final hope,
And with his passing breath did he,
Seek for thee that his lips might grope,
Thine as his closing memory.

~

The Seraphim: a halo bright, it hath,
and bore it high about the moon in pallid mourning beams;
the dawning air was rife with heaven’s wrath-
a soft-sweet whisper carrying a laugh,
and silent songs lent to the twilight’s themes.

My Lord! These seasons pass as with the morn,
and die as does the darkness ‘fore the fire in the east:
it seems as though each vital breath were thorn’d;
as though our thoughts of rapture were forlorn,
as if all joys of youth had thence deceased.

The dim began just then to drain away,
as tides of liquid darkness coalesced abysmal sea;
mine eyes beheld the breaking forth of day,
if only for a moment to allay,
the pallor from which I can scarce be free.

Oh songs of innocence and songs of pain!
relentlessly the minstrels sing the chords of destiny;
(why seek, in discord, harmony in vain?)
though notes in dissonance call forth disdain,
a perfect chaos has a clarity.

~

(c) benjamin cappel 1994 - 2005