Writing and Reading

So far every time I’ve posted a new entry for “The Lounge,” it’s all hits galore. People like to listen to poetry and read, I suppose. So here’s my third installment. This is one of my longer pieces. Enjoy.

“The Onyx Ashes of Time”

Surrounded by stonewalls and broken stairways,
Cobbled stone beneath my callused feet,
An onyx ring around my pale finger—
I look at ‘me’. The ‘me’ I used to be.

And I see the solemn past
In his dead eyes, dead mouth, dead ears.
He’s dead. Because those voices whisper words
Of pity and praising the great present
Because they say I can unlock a free future
In my blind, broken mind.

But I still remember my darkness.
I look at ‘me’. I try to talk
To ‘me’. The ‘me’ I used to be.
His mouth moves, but only silence bleeds
Into my maddened eardrums—
And his skin decays in the same way time
Burns when the earth’s end reaches the final breath—
And his bones weaken slowly as memories
Slip away from their hallowed homes in my mind—
And his hair whitens, pale, empty,
Like death of stone by water
Over eternal time’s rhythmic countdown,
Counting down to a death already dead.
Because it’s me—looking back at ‘me’.
The ‘me’ I used to be.

All I can do is watch
His mortality make its way—
His flesh crumbles like an avalanche of ash
Around a famished fire eating away at oak,
The skeleton bare and gray,
Same as the sky after an icy snowstorm,
His barren, black eyes still staring at me
As every piece of him melts into a pile.
The onyx ring falls in front of my feet
On the cobbled stone into the darkened dust.

The weak wind from the open window
Somehow can carry away the remains of me—
But leaving the ring behind.
I’m all that’s left in this sanctum.
Nothing but me and the ring—
And a blindsided future without a past.
I’m without the help of hindsight.
I’m without the ‘me’ I used to be.

So I gaze down at what remains: the ring.
Shining ebony onyx. Exactly like mine.
I pick it up, the wind still breathing free—
And I wear it on my other ring finger—
As a dim, dark reminder
Of the ‘me’ I used to be.

Vmoblogger Entry

I particularly liked this one I wrote–about six years ago–because it was longer than what I’m used to writing. I was essentially presented with an image of a man decaying into dust while facing an exact replica of himself, staring him down. While decaying, he wore a black-stoned ring. When the wind washed away his ashes, the ‘replica’ took the ring that had been lying on the floor and placed it on his other ring finger.

The image had such a profound meaning to me. Sort of like shedding an old skin, putting the past in its place, maybe? But always remembering where you came from–hence the putting on the ring on the other finger. In a way, it’s about death–but it’s also about life.

Comments, questions, Kool-Aid? Have at it, people.