Tag: depression

“My Jade Remembrance” (reprise)

On By Mike U.In Poetry48 Comments

(originally posted 10/5/2021)

“My Jade Remembrance”
(c) 2019 by Michael L. Utley

I used to know you
9,000 tears ago
A tear for every mile
That kept me from you
A tear for every moment
Not spent with you
A tear for every hope
Not shared with you
9,000 tears

A jade remembrance
For my brown-eyed love
A dusky green heart
On a silver chain
I keep in my pocket
It was for you
Everything was for you
Everything I had
Everything gone except
My jade remembrance

You were already dead
Before I ever met you
Your path etched in stone
I was just a detour
A distraction on your way
Into darkness
A temporary reprieve
An unplanned respite
For the lost girl
The girl who would learn to fly
Or die trying

And I was the lost boy
The boy who had
Never seen the sun
Until I saw you
The boy whose shattered heart
Had one last beat for you
A final crescendo for my
Brown-eyed love

I couldn’t fix you
You weren’t broken
You were destroyed
Crushed by the weight of
Damnation
Hounded by demons
Unknown to me
Yet you smiled at me
And pulled me from
My own abyss
And I loved you

My jade remembrance
Are you still there
Did you close your eyes
And take that leap of faith
Did you learn to fly
Or did you die trying
You didn’t just take your life
You took mine too

I keep your heart in my pocket
On a silver chain

“The Barn” (reprise)

On By Mike U.In Poetry25 Comments

(originally posted 11/12/2021)

“The Barn”
© 2013 by Michael L. Utley

On weed-strewn verge of fallow field
The barn still stands, a silent revenant
Of ages past, a mournful sentiment
Amid the dying elms concealed

Its boards the hue of ancient bones
The wind has long since scoured paint away
As season after season rendered gray
Once brilliant lively crimson tones

Dead teasel husks caress its skin
A memory of lilac, wild rose
And hollyhock a melancholy prose
No longer whispered in the din

Of bitter zephyrs in the loft
That magnify each sorrow-laden groan
Each pensive sigh and every hopeless moan
Of dreams denied and yearnings scoffed

On cupola atop the roof
The antiquated weather vane points north
In rusted rictus, ever drawing forth
That demon wind on cloven hoof

Inside, the haymow lost to time
Illusory, a phantom from the past
Whose gilded straws have disappeared at last
An unseen grotesque paradigm

The ladder to the loft on high
Clings stubbornly amid the swirling motes
That dance in hellish pace to eldritch notes
The song of death, fey herald’s cry

And from the loft extends the beam
That transits barn so high above wood floor
Above the stack of hay that is no more
And from this, like some ghastly dream

There hangs a rope no longer there
Recast ephemeral by passing years
Whose insubstantial form allays no fears
Whose memory I’m doomed to bear

All silence now, sere winter’s grasp
Has stilled the air, the motes drift in the night
In moonbeams pale, and from the rope drawn tight
About my neck, my dying gasp

Lilts softly in the midnight frost
As it has done each night for years gone by
Eternal recompense to rectify
All that I’ve done, all that I’ve lost

(Author’s note: I debated whether to post this piece for quite a while. Some of the imagery could be considered disturbing, particularly in the last two stanzas. I used the narrator’s suicide as a metaphor for guilt, shame and loss and how those emotions can haunt us for a lifetime. I considered inserting a trigger warning at the beginning and spent several days researching studies and opinions on such tactics, with the results varying widely and no real general consensus met on how to handle sensitive or disturbing material. In the end, I decided against a trigger warning for several reasons, and chose to add this note instead.

If you or someone you know is suicidal, please talk to a healthcare professional, call your local area suicide hot-line or discuss it with a friend or family member. Above all, know you’re not alone. There is help available to get you through this difficult time.)

“Ripples” (reprise)

On By Mike U.In Poetry50 Comments

(originally posted 10/5/2021)

“Ripples”
(c) 2017 by Michael L. Utley

There are no ripples
On this frozen pond
The puk-puk-puk of
The pebble
Skittering on iced skin
Dampened by
Frost-thick air
Breath caught short
In lung-numbed gasps
Silent words
Suspended
In wintry sighs
Eyes pools of
Frigid tear-prisms
Bitter empty gelid rainbows
Where are you

You missed our flight to Tokyo
The cherry blossoms whispered your name
As Fuji, incurious and remote
Gazed white-helmed
At my solitary shadow
My empty hand
Holding more of you
Than my heart could bear
We did not walk
Beneath flicker-flamed
Paper lanterns
On blood-red bridges
Spanning koi ponds
Under the spring moon
The rising sun
Sought to kiss your cheek
But was denied
As I was denied

You missed auroras
Over Iceland
The Arctic colder
In your absence
The night sky draped
In shimmering iridescent
Thought
The emerald musings of some distant god
Snagged in dark desolation
My own thoughts of you
Caught in my own
Desolation

You missed the candent sands
Of Morocco
Capricious zephyrs
Erasing my footprints
In a desert bereft of
Your footprints
We did not dance
In the summer swelter
Beneath date palms
And stars that sought
To light your way
But failed
Your body absent
In my arms
The scent of your hair
A distant memory which
Hot breezes scatter
In the night

You missed our train
To the Rockies
Where larkspur and columbine
Awaited you with open arms
And later mourned in silence
My singular form without you
By my side
We did not hold hands in
Flower-burst mountain meadows
Azure lakes reflected only
My lone countenance
As conifers murmured
Demurely in cool breezes
Wondering if you
Would ever arrive

You missed our drive
Through New England hills
Autumn maple and hemlock
A conflagration burning for you
Yearning for you
The birches and beeches smoldering
In my heart
Red-orange-gold leaves
Suiciding in silent sadness
Loneliness wearing my face
Stalks these woods
You are nowhere to be found

You missed my arrival
In Singapore
The airport a swarm
Of faces
A blur of oceanic humanity
As I searched for one safe harbor
One stormless island
In this storm of chaos
Your face
A lighthouse to guide me home
Your beacon never appearing
No fog horn guiding me safely
Through treacherous surf
Your bottomless brown eyes
Nowhere
Your smile cut roughly from this mural
Missing
A ragged hole where you should be
In my life

Perhaps you were a
Phantom
All along

Puk-puk-puk
No ripples on this frozen pond
Not enough pebbles remain
To last until springtime thaw
One ripple is all I ask
One ripple to finally reach you
I’ll save a pebble
Just in case

“In Time to Come” (reprise)

On By Mike U.In Poetry28 Comments

(originally posted on 10/4/2021)

“In Time to Come”
(c) 2017 by Michael L. Utley

She had that look about her again
Eyes like chips of coruscating amber
Caught in the westering sun
Her over-there gaze snagged
On some distant memory
Like thorn-caught thread
Hands prim and pale
In her denim lap
Amid foxtails and dandelions
And oak shadows

Things move too fast
When they move too slowly
The heat that summer was unbearable
A bludgeon wielded by a chrome sky
Its merciless swath pounding
Everyone everything into submission
We were not spared

I could reach toward her forever
And never touch her
I’ll tell you in time to come, she’d say
Her tired smile dying before
It reached her eyes
Time to come never coming
Never time enough
Time running out

Let’s sit and enjoy the shade, she’d say
The sun slipping languidly
Into oblivion
Her face haloed
In a warm orange aura
My ephemeral love
Ensconced in flames
Flickering
Flickering

Broken pieces of her
Litter the oak-shadowed grass
One touch and she’d shatter
One embrace and she’d be
All over the place
Delicate balance was
The ruse of muses who
Knew nothing of reality
Who knew nothing of
Love and sickness
And the terrible nectar
Of the tainted honeysuckle

Even the birds are quiet

There is no darkness
As black as love
No pit as plumbless
As that filled with regret
Her brown eyes
Smiling and weeping at once
Succumbing to demons
Unknown to me
So much of her slate blank
Her portrait only half-finished
Before the paint dried out
And the canvas rent asunder

Broken pieces of her
Litter the oak-shadowed grass
I used to collect them
Their razor edges
Slicing my hands bloody
Only a few remain
Among the foxtails and dandelions
Her voice only an echo now
I’ll tell you in time to come

“A Few Haiku & Senryu (60)”

On By Mike U.In Poetry47 Comments

(c) 2023 by Michael L. Utley

(#355)

this sorrow
and so much left unsaid
November dusk

…..

(#356)

beyond my window
the cracks begin to show
this broken world

…..

(#357)

place my hardened heart
on the cairn of remembrance
the spoils of war

…..

(#358)

kitsunebi
lost souls seek solace
in a lost world

…..

(#359)

take my hand, November
it’s time someone showed you warmth
the hearth of hope

…..

(#360)

all these fallen leaves
and no one cares to mourn them
humanity’s disgrace

“A Few Haiku & Senryu (59)”

On By Mike U.In Poetry45 Comments

(c) 2023 by Michael L. Utley

(#349)

thunderclaps
the sound of birth and death
bookends of nothingness

…..

(#350)

between earth and sky
there is only everything
in the emptiness

…..

(#351)

this frozen sky
tries so hard to snow but can’t
my winter heart

…..

(#352)

do not interrupt
the slow dreams of drowsing trees
fickle winter moon

…..

(#353)

pardon the mountain, dear moon
for his heart is stone
and his burden heavy

…..

(#354)

somewhere in this life
I’ll lose myself or find myself
a soul’s journey

“A Few Haiku & Senryu (58)”

On By Mike U.In Poetry49 Comments

(c) 2023 by Michael L. Utley

(#343)

in these dead woods
only the storm crow
knows my name

…..

(#344)

an entire universe
in the bowl of my old hands
and still I’m alone

…..

(#345)

red-wrought destruction
right-wing nihilism wears
a death’s head grin

…..

(#346)

there’s no need for books
when guns speak louder than words
red-hat terrorism

…..

(#347)

blood on our hands
bullets don’t discriminate
another child gone

…..

(#348)

love and lenity
the earth pleads for sanity
as the bullets fly

“The Farm” (reprise)

On By Mike U.In Poetry44 Comments

(originally posted 10/3/2021)

“The Farm’
© 2021 by Michael L. Utley

Nighthawks scream
With evening’s descent
They know the truth
Black god’s-eyes
See everything
From salmon-hued
Heaven
As wings fold
Bird-bombs dive
Preying on the
Prayerless
Powerless
Oblivious
Strident-throated
Shrieks
A mindless alien-avian
Warning
Turn back
There is no hope here

Across the fallow field
Elk bugle mournfully in
Twilight cacophony
A hundred dim smudges
Herding in
Paranoid precision
Against the dusty dun of
Evening’s solemn soliloquy
Scatter
Coagulate
Statue-still
Amidst dusk ground-mist
Trumpet-cries betray blind fear
A prose of unearthly moans
As pinyon-sage-scented breeze
Lifts this omen skyward
Turn back
There is no hope here

Dead-yellow fox tails
And cheatgrass
Bend
Break
As I pass
A sickly meadow of
Thin-boned weeds
And cloying sage
Crackling underfoot as
Stickers pin-cushion
Socks and shoelaces
Ground beetles
And spiders flee
Stupidly
Languidly
Dissolve into
Cracked earth
Disappear
Each footstep
Dust-choke-inducing
The shrill trill of crickets
Distant
Distracted
Dispassionate
They know, too
Turn back, they sing
There is no hope here

A skeleton crew of
Haggard, stunted trees
Stands sentinel
Against the coming darkness
Pinyons felled by
Insidious Ips beetles
Squat
Naked
Bony
Sap-dried cones
Long dead
Among carpets of
Desiccated yellowed needles and
Sparrow-emptied pine nut shells
Tinder awaiting a wildfire
Fragrant junipers stand
Amidst dead-berry piles in
Shaggy bark-suits
Peeling like scorched dusty
Sun-burnt skin
Swarming with black ants
Pungent piss-scent
Overwhelming as
Paper-bark crawls
In the shadows
The subliminal hiss of an
Errant breeze
Wheezes dark portents
Among barkless boughs
Turn back
There is no hope here

Muffled yips and
Strangled howls
Ride chilly currents from
Far obscure fields
As coyotes practice
Weird secret sorcery
In the gloaming
The cries of the damned
Of pain
Of madness
Of red-eyed tricksters
In shadow-garb
Preparing for midnight hunts
And the tearing of flesh
Yellow grins reeking of
Fear and dead meat
Champ and drool as
Festivities draw near
Their primal chaos-chorus
Announcing to all
Turn back
There is no hope here

In hushed
Sepulchral silence
Muted coos of
Mourning doves
Float softly in
Penitential pleas
Stillness magnifying
Lilting lamentation
Grief too much to bear
Their sorrow-song
An ache that
Never ends
Unmendable
Rends hearts
Cleaves souls
Tears flow
Unknowingly
Purity and
Sadness
Immeasurable loss
A calming balm
Inadequate to heal
All that ails
Ineffectual against
Forces of fear
Reduced to a
Whispered admonition
Turn back
There is no hope here

The broken garden gate
Aslant on rusted hinges
Unleveling the horizon
Of faded, ephemeral corn stalks
And rotting squash-husks
A tangle of ancient weeds
And briar bushes
Encases this bleak place
Age-drained of all
Color and scent
Poisonous soil
Long since emptied of life
Only dead things grow here
Rows of sorrow
Trellises of despair
A forlorn bounty of
Loss and regret
A stilled silence
Proclaiming
Turn back
There is no hope here

The house
A gray thing
Hunched against
The gloom of
Bruise-tinted sky
Like some
Feral beast
Skull-socket eyes
Peer
Blackly
Blindly
Balefully
Through diseased elms
As cement tongue lolls
Cracked and pitted
From front door
To yard gate
Lawn only a distant memory
Weed-choked
Littered with
Shattered window glass
And random roof shingles

Silence

Stillness

It’s been years
Since I was here
Since I fled
Since that day
The monster was real then
The fear was real
And it’s been with me
All the while

Concrete dust crunches
Bone-like underfoot
I reach the front door
Push through a
Latticework of spider-silk
Filled with memories
So many memories
Dust and the scent of
Ancient mildew
Rotting wood
Hang in mote-filled air
It’s smaller now
Empty
Hollow
Ceiling plaster
Coats rotting carpet
In a patina of snow
Water-stained drywall
Bent and bulging
My room is there
Dark and cobwebby
Kitchen
Sisters’ bedroom
Parents’ room
Bathroom
Everything accounted for
Except the monster

There is no hope here
Dead monsters leave
Memory echoes
Down the years
A legacy of pain and fear
And while there is
No monster here
Neither is there reason
For rejoicing
This place is dead
Just like my father
The monster
Nothing will ever be
As it was
So much lost
Still more buried in
Dark locked crates
In my mind
I look around
One final time
Then make my way
Out the door
And into the night

It’s time to leave
The farm behind

“A Summer’s Field in Winter”

On By Mike U.In Poetry31 Comments

“A Summer’s Field in Winter”
(c) 2022 by Michael L. Utley

let us sift through summer’s solemn ashes
let us scavenge rusted hopes from twisted
hulks of yesterdays amid the swelter
and the din of frigid silence
as crows circle

this broad swath the acreage of sorrow
garden of the gods whose feckless mewling
echoes ‘cross the eons and the seasons
crumble into dust as autumn
gives up her ghost

we were never long for this cold world, this
dispensation of abominations
sunset fell before the flax had faded
bleeding out beneath indiff’rent
constellations

paradise, oh paradise eternal
dashed upon the stones of human hubris
we the stewards dined on milk and honey
as our world descended into
oblivion

thus the world was burned and we burned with it
rendered lurking shadows in the gloaming
flesh and bone have failed us as the season
of regrets approaches; we have
earned winter’s wrath

in our dreams we’ll gather wild flowers
fetch the wicker basket for the poppies
crowns of woven larkspur shall adorn us
we will rest among oak shadows
in the clearing

and when we awaken from our slumber
and when we espy the desolation
let us sift through summer’s solemn ashes
in the winter’s frigid silence
as crows circle

(Author’s Note: This poem was originally published in Chewers & Masticadores in January 2023.)

“The Cairn”

On By Mike U.In Poetry45 Comments

“The Cairn”
(c) 2023 by Michael L. Utley

a handful of stones
the currency of a hardened heart
cannot purchase a reprieve
from the weight of mountains
upon my soul

scree of memories
who can navigate the slope
of ankle-breaking regrets
the sharpened shale
of the empty slate
where hope
was once etched
and now only
dust remains

we walked that path
through the foothills of yesterday
where everything was evergreen
the eternal evening
redolent of lilac and honeysuckle
and wild rose
and the wan moon
dozed in the lavender sky
and you were there
but you weren’t there
your body in a mountain meadow
and your mind in
a roiling pit of despair

I held your hand
more tightly than I should have
I couldn’t let go
not then
(not now)
but you didn’t seem to mind
your trembling fingers
nested in my palm
like a dying sparrow
losing heat
as you lost opacity

I could see you fading

we walked that path
where the trees thicken
and congregate
and whisper furtively
and the air hangs in tatters
from gnarled, pensive boughs
and you closed your eyes
and hummed an atonal tune
more of a whimper than a song
and I tried to accompany you
but my voice was gone
stone-silent
lungs airless
mind blank
and your strange aria
stirred the moon-dappled patches
on the path
into a kaleidoscope of sorrow
and a smile touched your pale lips
as my heart broke

I held your hand
until it was nothing
but a memory
the sky above
now an empty void
your skin iridescing
in the gloaming
as though tinctured
with fallen stars
and glowing novae
evanescing
your essence diminishing

we walked that path
until I walked alone
your silent song
forever in my mind
an echo among
cold indifferent granite peaks
the sound of emptiness
of a heart in pieces
of a life bereft of solace
a handful of stones
to remind me
that you existed
long ago
and far away

should you ever
pass this way again
look for the cairn
along the path
there you’ll find
what’s left
of my heart