7 poems

By storyteller

1



Who are we in these coffins of flesh?

What covers the soul?

Peeling away the layers of skin
does not loose the soul to fly.

The covering of the covering must be removed,
exposing the false image inside.

Open the trap-door of the prison,
skin away the dermis of deceit.

Still our soul cannot escape.

The coffin of flesh is used but once,
soft steel stockades in which we are trapped,
wrapped and buried alive.

So I ask:
who are we in these coffins of flesh?

2

Your barbed words plunge into me,
hanging from my chest
like pikes from a Bull's hump.

I bleed slowly, a shimmering liquid,
a river of stolidness flowing down my breast,
I do not stop,
but return again and again
for you to plunge another of
your tongue's lances.

I never turn away from my learned pattern of life

I never heal

You think that words cannot hurt me,
that I shal continue to charge.
But the blood that has been let
weakened me so that, though,
my body still stands,
my soul has bled to death.

3{?center}

A man works and listens

Speaks seldom

Never crys when hurt

Like a rock

his hard shell

protects his heart,

but this pain erodes
the outer layers

eating like a cancer

Emotions hammering against
the stoniness

until the heart cracks
and allows the weathered pain
deep

eroding the senses

but he must never cry

4

A man fishes
casting his lure along
the bottom

hoping for a strike

listening to the water
erode the river bottom
in minute amounts

Like the pain of being who he is
erodes the hardness he has
sealed around his heart

Not a pearl, this hardness

Nothing so beautiful

but a sore that never heals
is never acknowledged
even when worn away by time

He must be a man
even if it kills him

5
You lure me to charge with words
waving them like a cape before a bull

You, the Matador, tease me to anger
then lance me for being myself

You create pain and anger in my heart
the words slice away the strong muscle of protection

My soul's blood runs and stains my chest
I do not know how to stop you
or remove the lances

The wounds open daily,
the bloodflow never ceases
The lances of your hate hang in my heart
like feathers in a headdress

I resist each one with stoniness, not falling
And you place another beside it, not failing

Yet, all my blood flows from one wound
I cannot repair the shell covering my heart
you pierce it too quickly

Like the bull, I seek to end the torment
to destroy the matador
But I am blinded by my hurt and do not

When I seek you again
you lure me to charge with your words
waving like a cape ...

6

From the joining of flesh
grown in wet warm darkness
Extruded from the womb
Forced to conform to life
Lost in the maze of living
walking the path trodden by amcestors
the walls, bricks of opinion
Moving through fetal darkness, still
Molded by society
Shaped by woman
Unable to discover myself
only who I am supposed to be
[who someone else wants me to be]

To be true to myself is to fail to compete
and fail in the eyes of the world
But to compete is to lose
For there is no way to win;
the maze has no outlet
Try and fail
or not try
and fail
which is the shorter path?

I wed, joining flesh
Creating another grown in swollen darkness
until extruded from the room
into a cold fierce world
Forced to conform
lost in the maze
Still

7
I see my footprints in
the ashes of my dreams
Retreading the lost paths
looking for the spark to
rekindle the fires that
once burned fiercely

The gray of the long
landscape behind me drifts like snow
covering the paths before me

The heat is removed
The ashes of my dreams coat everything
I sink to my knees as I walk
I am covered
ashen gray
like death

I plunge my hands into it
seeking warmth and memories
I touch the soft powdery remnants
which fills the whorls of my fingerprints

Of all I touch,
only smudged marks remain
Perhaps that is all I will leave

I turn again and
I see my footprints
in the ashes of my dreams.

© Copyright 2006 storyteller (UN: leno at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
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