Arriving on an unclaimed fief

The metrical confinements pertaining to an assumed existence TW: dark thoughts

A hunter (inspired by Salt to the Sea– R. Sepetys)
The sea of death thaws only to let grief breathe
Blood, fear, and bodies encased in sheets of ice
For they drowned, weighed down by treasures
Treasures for a life that took lives

Faulty promises lured thousands aboard
Weighing the vessel five times down
Not enough means of escape remained
Many chose a wet steel tomb

War’s wounds had divided nations
Only the sea would never know race
Soon their only hope would sink
But death would unite

Three explosions brought people to water
Drawing them down to cold that froze souls
Distress, entrapment, trampled limbs
The voices of thousands begging for a chance

Endless lives were lived, then taken
The sea knows no civilian
Frozen children bobbing, heads in the water
Bodies jumping to their icy doom

Soldiers saved while mothers died
Only nine groups could leave
The bell survives but thousands are lost
Frozen, forgotten, forever in the war grave

From life or lack
the mother, recently stripped of her title
grips the lifeless form on her lap
as if her warmth might provide life
to what she already gave life

children are meant to attend funerals
of their parents, not reversed

the mother mourns her child
taken much too soon
wondering what she could have done
to cease her child's restless thoughts
to prevent this wrenching choice

could she have altered fate?

the mother wonders
what eternity awaits her child
for hope was lost in that decision
next to her child, her own flesh
lies the containment of the destruction

with which they became the fifteen percent

the mother's thoughts morph
from grief to blame
she might have saved her own
she never saw, never understood
the extent of the situation
if only, if only, if only

so, please stay
if only for one

A written farewell to Stromness (inspired by the song by Peter Maxwell Davies)
We’ve stolen enough from the tides
Stripped enough life from the earth
We dare mar your cliffs no more
More than years are needed to repair
The damage man’s hand has done

A glimpse at the future proves not so far
Your streams are already tainted
Perhaps you were gone before we bade you
Generations remember the mistakes
Unalterable choices that man has made

For now, the sword remains sheathed
There may be hope for you yet
May the powers that be not silence those
Who will never your life forget
May we never truly need to bid you farewell

To discover mountains
Longing for a piece of soul the people cannot provide
Searching for the blanket of solidarity
Where stars outshine all uncreated light
Even the ground mends the broken
Youth on heights cannot be taken
Replaced with only the rows
Life in the green cannot substitute grey
But to find them all must keep silent
For they answer only to one
The bounds of superficial ownership fail
When there are no concentric rings
They collect the pieces, but are blinded by wholes
Finding is rewarded to the last
For the first have dyed the magnolias
The others strip the bark
Scarring and clawing the heart
Looking through what they search for
Collecting every rock within reach
Weighing down the bag tied to their ankle
Drowning themselves
The longing shall continue
To ensure the map and key remain
Within reach of those who look
Those who hear the silence
Found only in the souls
Of mountains

Who’s this?
My gaze has never before met yours
Would you remind me of your name?
I’d begun to think I was the only
Human in this mirrored room
All the other bloodthirsty beings
Don’t seem to reflect on the walls
We’ve been dancing for hours
And their plastered grins never fade
Their same windowed eyes are curtained
With the illusion of light
So nice it is to finally meet
Another belonging to man’s race
Through your eyes lack the light
Your flesh is not nearly as gaunt
No, I’m afraid I cannot dance
My legs long since have given out
For these beings have eternal stamina
And they never stop moving
Perhaps you’ll join me for a walk
To fetch a cup of tea
Then we could rest awhile
And pray, tell me of yourself
Would you shake my hand?
Then my fingers brush
The glass of a mirror
Conceivably, I’ve been alone long enough

Merely a vessel
Who left this shell
This thing that I am
Unfired clay
Whole, but permeable

Who left this life
These things that I do
Or do they happen
Upon but a few bones

Might any stitch me back?
Put me together
For now brain and frame
Are like water and lotus

Seems nice to live
As if it is real
Seems nice to feel
What finds the rest

Now, waking and living
Are a separate choice
Rise another day
In the temporal loop

For one day here
I’d give a great sum
To live as living should
To be and not to question

And ‘haps shall I find
The time for being
If only I’d look
As if I had eyes