Tag Archives: Loss

eidolon (she)

paint the room
herr weltschmerz has come to stay
and nothing will ever be the same again

tho’ the weather’s properly clement
tho’ he’s never cried the blues before
what’s left that can be properly said
of a man who’d tried to claw back the earth
to kiss his truelove’s final resplendence

the ghost of she keeps count with him
there to haunt his bereavement vain
what can he be but indentured to sorrow
a pain as wide as the days unstemmed

he sorely regrets he’d ever been human
mouths silent words oft kept for silent roads
and for fear he’ll decant so many more along the way
stands deathly instead as a stone unyielding
locked inside with his grief… and fading

herr weltschmerz has come to stay
veins shockingly open to the unspooled light of day
paint the room

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2020

aeaea (the prodigal childer)

to reveal the door long fraught for
is to reason why fate has led us here
by hand of you who’d known us once
our mother of mercy

o mother circe
who’d embosomed us through the blackest days
when omega dipped red our wings like bread
in canticles of twitting sorrow

in remembrance of you, we close our eyes
watery slides on blue tarpaulin
badminton upon zest green lawns
barefoot padding under orange skies

to reveal the escape long fraught for
is to reason why fate has chanced us here
by hand of you who’d known us once
our mother of mercy

o mother circe
neutral is the colour of our mutual extinction
all consciousness othering into decline
the collapsing of minds in a cage on fire

in remembrance of you, we close our eyes
your embosoming through our blackest days
past colours all fixed to forever rainbows
where we’d tabled our youth and sailed away

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2021

beneath the burnt out sky

a black-clad harridan sits in the parvis
gazes into the dark sky with watery eyes
knobby yellow fingers stick out from mittens
like tilted candles on the requiem stone

by TETIANA ALEKSINA
© All rights reserved 2019

TATI’s & TONY’s DEAD POET TOUR // Daedalon by J.R. Ackerley

Aye, I am foolish for I know
That I shall sadden when you go,
And I am blind because I see
That you were more than God to me:
A brighter sun than Heaven’s shone
When I was with you, Daedalon.

Can I find strength enough to stand
The last slight pressure of your hand;
Can I find fortitude to bear
The knowledge that you are not there,
Then turn my Book of Life upon
The memory of Daedalon

Remember you! No, no, I’ll shut
The Book, or from its pages cut
The image of you graven there,
The dingy tangle of your hair,
Your ill-kept hands and lifeless face,
And seek friends in some other place.

Forget you? … When my heart repeats
Your wisdom to me as it beats? …
That always you may be the same
My rhymes shall vivify your name …
Aye, cunningly I’ll play upon
The happy name of Daedalon.

But you were cold to me, I know,
Who never dreamed my thoughts to show,
But sat content to hear you speak,
And see the bronzeness of your cheek,
Your sunburnt nose and wounded eye …
But never told you, no, not I.

Yes, I am blind; but still I saw
The beauty of you all the more,
How slowly came your drawled reply,
How gleamed your artificial eye;
And on the morrow you’ll be gone …
Ah, but I loved you, Daedalon.

by J.R. ACKERLEY (1896-1967)
Public Domain Poetry

100 WORD SKITTLE // Keb’s Descent

Do you remember where you were the day the red god fell? Like a cannon shot from the heavens it was, and I was only six. Ma was bouncing me off her knee. She stopped that quick smart. A lot of things stopped that day. My childhood for one.

I couldn’t possibly comprehend all that this singular moment of deity impacting earth would take from me, but I’d soon come to. I’d learn that suddenly pa was gone, that I’d have to ‘step up’ and be ‘the man of the household’.

There would be no more pony rides for me.

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2017