Tuesday 1 April 2014

A Poem a Day (54): Blade

It's a dark one today. I imagined a murderer and what her motivation/past might be. Cheers.

Blade

I wonder in the moment how it fits,
The twisting of this knife in this flesh
That flits and squirms, seeking an escape,
Yet none will come in this foggy gloom
Where my anger shifts like a hurricane,
Sweeping all asunder in its desperation.

Pleading with my conscience so torn
It rips, and I listen to these cries in the dark.
Unhearing, unseeing, my reaction is all,
But I feel it not, so detached as I am.

In this space in time I try to wake myself,
Yet all is lost in this sinking maelstrom.
I cannot rise
Though I seek it,
Wish it as my mind breaks.

Filling the cracks the sticky blood sweeps,
Creating a pool of red to seize the grey.

I spy my reflection seeking to pull me in.

In my protest I stand, gripping the steel edge
That ravaged him here in the silencing
In less time than it took him to be born.

Now he is gone and only I remain,
The watcher,
Contemplating.

Here the darkness plunges,
Writhing with me, caressing me,
Exhausting me until I am but an empty cage,
Yet it is also my prison and here I must stay
Uninvited, unwanted, unmuted in my desire
To kill.

Brushing the knife along the edge of my shirt
I drift slowly away, the alleyway growing shorter.

I am deaf to the rush of traffic and people walking
Who know not what lies here, breathing his last.
I feel his eyes penetrating my back, my skin,
But I will not turn to look at him again, I cannot.
In knowing I will tear apart, sense it, know it.

Walking away is the only thing I know how to do well;
My speciality
Since I was a child,
Since he left me not a child.

The curiosity is too much and I glance back at him;
He who created me in the same degree of dark,
Wrenching away my innocence, abandoning me
With the remnants of my spirit ripped in tatters.

A smile curves itself upon my face in the still breeze;
The moment dives into the ground, rooting me down
Where blackness dances in this pitch heart of mine,
But my heart is his,
Dying where my father breathes his last,
Knowing it was me who extinguished his last sigh.


So our secret will finally die as I turn into the light.

copyright Vickie Johnstone

2 comments:

  1. Absolutely chilling, and very true. This is a horror story, told in verse. One could launch a book from this one poem. Very well done, Vickie.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks, George. I'm never sure which direction these things will take.
    And thanks for visiting. Have a cool day :)

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for commenting :)