Death Diary - Endymion

thanks ehBeth

i like your... hula -ing thingy - avatar

Dead Antelope





Here is the promise
The calm constant yearning
Cancerous and without sin
Loving brother to my conscience
Hottest night, churned by burning skin
The incomplete dream fades oblique
Pale lit, solitary drone
Relentless bell …. ringing, ringing….
But no one home save for this grim ghost
Lamed by the names of each gone-onward soul
Hello my friends… … old friends, hello
Token words a calculated glance
Strangers smitten each by temperance
The flowing tears freeze spoken lips
Laughed at to the tenth I circle death
Drawn deep the longing
I Watch for signs of hope
These boneless fists … the beaten antelope
I've forgotten all she said to me
I'm alive and with intent but inside empty
Plucked by her inferred pity
Her crossed fingers like ivy
Her lost smile inside me




Endymion 2008

Conflict



When you take me down
To dark tunnels underground
Beneath this skin
And into bone
Then on
Into the marrow of my soul

When you grip me tight
With all your crazy, desperate might
Burning red coals smoke
As you circle my throat and choke
Full of rage
A battle waged, caged within

When you begin
Spewing out your sins
Clawing at the pain
Fed like poison to the brain
Insane and unforgiving
Watch blood run dripping

When you grab me
Pull me in and stab me
Elbow, punch and jab me
Break my nose
Raining blows
Razor cut
Crush ribs
Head-butt
Upper-cut
Whack and hack
Axe attack
Like a killer on crack

Explode

When you invade my head
Push me out onto the jagged edge
Telling me I'm dead
When the light in your eyes
Is lead like the skies
And I'm bled







Endymion 2008

oh
speechless

Dead Antelope calls to mind recent emails from an A2K friend currently in Iraq





(and thanks - she was my birthday rhino - decided to keep her for a bit)

thank you for telling me that EhBeth, please send the poem on to your friend with my best wishes, if you think it is appropriate

Endy

I'm posting these three together, because I wrote them that way. They're nothing polished - nothing like 'Dead Antelope' (and i'm taking about style here)-but they're important to me (if a bit dark)

I'm not in that dark place right now, though

Anyway thanks for looking.










Mountain




Scottish valley dark
Mountain stark
Incessant slopes
Black slabs like solid dope
Teased on a chill breeze
The thinning mist
Trembling arms
Aching wrists
The thrill of the twist
A memory
Of how it used to be
The whole me
Crunch of stone
The rasp and moan
Echoes back
The hammer crack
The creeeeeak
The lone ledge
A sliver, toed
Raging river curled below
Beneath my feet
The widest world
So sweet a feat
To greet the stubborn peak
Rapture captured in the quick heartbeat
Rain stung eyes
Surprised to realise defeat
Horizon bleak
The meanest treat or treachery
Here the fear releases me
Sheer energy
The past has never beaten me
I decide to over-ride my angry pride
To die or stay alive
As suddenly
Sun lifts heavenly
A morning tide so bright
New dawn born from sorrowed night
The mystery a part of me
As I take flight
A lasting cry
A slow nose-dive
A laugh
A love of life





Endymion June 2008

**************************









Gun Son




The man who raised me as his son, taught me how to shoot a gun; to pull the necks of pheasants bright, blood-spotted, stilled in flight, jerking on the ground in pain with mangled brains.

I watched the rabbit flip back legs to the sky and lie with glazed eye.

I fired again and again and again.
I took careful aim.
My mind held to the eagle's bright, deadly gaze. Focusing sight.
Stilling myself. Sharpening my eye.
Relaxing into the tension.
I floated free from apprehension.

Squeezing the trigger with slow, patient might, my breath held in suspension.

On the rifle range, the same.
I paused where I lay, on my belly.
One eye focused down the sights held…Steady!

A silhouette centering the target, tacked - small and black.
A blank face below a German helmet from World War II.
I knew what to do.

Remember, he said (so many times, I still hear it in my head)…

If you can see them… they can see you. Smell you, hear you.

Feeeeel you.

One wrong move… (he slyly said)
…and you're dead.

He tracked me through the woods. He was good. Trained by the elite British Army and without question, barmy.

He taught me to crawl on the ground without making a sound. To listen to the wind in the grass and with it choose my path…

Remember, he said, pressing the barrel of his gun to my head…

As I smelt…

…as I felt him appear…

Never… show…. fear.




Endymion 2008

**********************************





Dog Days II



Sunbeams lead to tall arches
Glittering turquoise ceramic smashed
A lone dog watches with cool mustard eyes
standing guard to a pile of old rags
Rib thin and filthy
The growling throat bares teeth
A ribbon of colour
Ground down
Dust curled
Trodden beneath his feet
A stench of something rotten
A glimpse
A stilled heartbeat
Breathless sweat submerges my brain
Please God, let it rain





Endymion 2008

Siren



Midnight blue
Cornish bay
The moon glows faint
Scattering clouds stretch charcoal scales over silver grey
The late-night gulls patrol black breakers on the beach
Silent in flight, they swoop ghost-like, watching the tide-line beneath
Listening to shingle stones as they tumble and foam
Underfoot, pale pebbles smooth as bone
Lips pressed hard to the bottle's rim, I moan with the wind
It whips me with its cold salt kiss
I can smell its abject loneliness
Its haunting embrace
I watch the slow curl and crash of waves
As I hide inside my mind - lost rage
Seeking peace in her gaze and her harmony
As silently, she calls to me
I cross to sand and then I climb
Over crab-pool rocks and along the top to where I dive
Plunging to the salty, black ink void
I swim through surf and beyond, listening for her song
I go deep
Falling into love's dreamless sleep
Wild waves above build mountains in my head
And her words retract
My love is dead
My love is dead
My love is dead







Endymion 2008

Haunting ... & such beautiful writing, Endy.
Very moving.










(gosh, you're good!)

many thanks, Olga

sad about Noddy, isn't it?

Yes, very sad indeed, Endy.

did you know Noddy lived in St. Ives for a while (can not do most punctuation on this keyboard)

she really loved her time there

posted about it here

talked about it each time we met

...

and the danger of posting about writing to the writer ... boy, that hit a chord

hey ehBeth

thanks for posting
I didn't know Noddy (other than the times when i was ready to quit and she told me to .... you know... .....hold my dominion

Cornwall is a beautiful place to spend the summer (i say this as a Londoner)
I recommend walking the coastal paths if you ever get a chance to

the thing about writing to a writer... it hit a chord? Why is that? If you don't mind me asking

hey - can anyone let me know if they are seeing corrupted characters inside my work?

I contacted the web master who can't see anything wrong - but i need to check
that readers aren't seeing what i'm seeing - In the poem dead antelope i see 5 boxes with A inside scattered through the text - anyone else seeing that?
thanks for looking
Endy

I can see those little boxes in that poem, too, Endy.

Guess there's nothing to be done, eh?
It's like a test in humility : )

thanks for looking Olga
cheers

Gone (To Dust)


My friends
My friends are dead
They are gone I tell you
Gone bones gone dry to dust
Gone dreams
Gone thoughts, ideals and such
All gone
Old friends
Lost leaves blown far astray
Gone
As the old peace songs from yesterday
Gone down beside the road along the way
Gone cold gone burned to ash
Gone souls gone broken up and smashed
My friends
My friends are dead
They are gone I tell you
Gone smiles gone cast astray
Gone mould gone on to clay
Snatched from my loving touch
Gone from this life
Gone bones gone dry to dust





Endymion 2008

This Coming Autumn



These days are warmth
Lands lie deep in haze
With bird and insect song
This mellow Indian summer long
Sweep English fields, still dry
And yellow-browned beneath bright sky
The smell so sweet
While late-to-leave
Swallows kiss the sighing breeze
A last caress
Oh but i can feel this autumn
Beautiful and solemn, coming
With brightest flecks of sorrel red
As lung bled breath
And even as the sun carries me home
I can sense my death




Endymion 2008

missing the old a2k

The Moon
Grief and The Beauty of Loneliness





Tonight, all I can think about is you,
As I lie here watched by a secret moon;
Its melancholy light,
Solemn and refined,
Keeps you constant on my mind.
Unashamed, I breathe your name
As if time had never stolen you away;
Nor ever tore you from my eyes.
This naked moon that careless rises,
Once bathed us both in perfect light
That danced upon the deepest dark of night.
And I remember
The wild scent of moorland heather;
Our brave hearts pressed close together,
Cool stars above us, bright.
You whispered, "Hold me, please, hold me tight."
As we lay locked in love and laughed at future fate.
You were Aphrodite and I, your willing mate.
But then, the world was still young;
We were foolish and fierce, but our hope was strong.
And we knew didn't we? We knew where we belonged.
Like morning dew on meadow flowers, we kissed as one.
The thrill of your tongue
A sharp burst of memory that awakes in me
This deep, inconsolable ache.
My very breath it takes;
Tonight the pain inside grows too intense.
Yearning and immense.
Filled with longing - for it has been too long.
Tell me, now - where have you gone?
Is the face of the moon still the same?
Has time embraced this sacrificial shame?
Or is it really that loneliness is a beautiful thing;
Its agony a part of love's most perfect dream?
As I hold you tight to me - I am blind but see you in my mind.
I am paralysed, but feel you at my side.
I long to share with you all that haunts me.
To grieve somehow; for love lost, restless, taunts me.
I yearn to fall into your warm embrace;
To feel life's breath upon my face.
Woman hold me, please; hold me tight.
Hold me through this strangest dead of night.
Here where the pain shall never end.
Here, where you remain my greatest friend;
And in my soul, my wife.
Sometimes, I howl my anger at the moon,
And ask why we must be denied so soon.
Why death must steal away the best of life,
Cutting through the laughter in surprise.
But I think tonight, I shall just peaceful lie,
Beneath this clear and deep transcending sky;
Remembering your face.
The feel of you; your smell and touch; your taste.
I'll listen close and watch the night until I sleep;
While the moon alone shall guide
This sorrowed tide, of my heart's grief.







Endymion 2008


FIN