Tag: despair

“A Few Haiku (29)”

On By Mike U.In Poetry36 Comments

(c) 2022 by Michael L. Utley

(#169)

my unsettled thoughts
blanket my winter world
in restless stasis

…..

(#170)

winter’s bitter dirge
prelude to spring’s soliloquy
hope waits in the wings

…..

(#171)

from womb to tomb
winter’s ever-present shroud
white cloak of despair

…..

(#172)

heaven’s secrets
whispered in the hiss of rain
on elm leaves

…..

(#173)

to those whose stories
go unheard by dearth of care
nature lends her ear

…..

(#174)

all hope is not lost
though harsh winter batters me
the golden suisen

“A Few Haiku (28)”

On By Mike U.In Poetry33 Comments

(c) 2022 by Michael L. Utley

(#163)

old apples
frozen to the ground
the silent orchard

…..

(#164)

juniper berries
blue sky’s children nestle
in cedar cradles

…..

(#165)

my horse is old
and my cart is broken
the depths of winter

…..

(#166)

winter granary
rice sacks are empty
and spring may never come

…..

(#167)

thoughtless chickadees
bear the winter’s burden
while I succumb

…..

(#168)

in the evening snow
hare tracks on the mountain path
silent, soon to fade

“Exhale”

On By Mike U.In Poetry19 Comments

“Exhale”
(c) 2021 by Michael L. Utley

A handful of words hastily shaken
Thrown like dice against a filthy brick wall
Skittering across deserted sidewalk
Bouncing into foul gutter rill
Profound thoughts from a tired mind

Is this all I have to say and if so
Does it even matter when no one cares
These words buoyant as a waterlogged corpse
Sink slowly beneath the surface
Of a world bereft of conscience

I mix metaphor and stark imagery
Insert heart and soul, blood and torrid tears
Craft a paper boat to launch on oceans
Of antiquity and futures
Yet to be and watch as it sinks

Words fall like proverbial autumn leaves
Raked into pretentious piles of damp dross
To become compost to feed the dull worms
Of bitter earth and mindless murk
Where nothing echoes but darkness

I have shouted from the tops of mountains
I have whispered in sepulchral shadows
I have groaned in blackened pits of despair
I have lost my voice so often
I can no longer hear my thoughts

Sharpened edges of serrated starlight
A thousand vapid cuts my soul bleeds out
I offer up my penance to the gods
Ragged blood-soaked sheaves of parchment
Etched with runes of my existence

It is not sufficient for redemption
For what are words but empty utterance
The fetid breaths of wretched souls exhaled
As dying light slips languidly
Beyond aloof eternity

“Red Hats”

On By Mike U.In Poetry2 Comments

“Red Hats”
(c) 2021 by Michael L. Utley

“The end came just like the fella predicted,”
The old man said. “They were legion,
Wrapped in flags and carrying crosses,
And they were insane.”

He regarded me with a resigned calmness
Across the flames of the campfire,
Studying me intently as his eyes flickered,
His haggard face ensconced in a fiery
Red-yellow glow. At his feet, a small black dog
Lay curled in a tight ball of oblivious slumber
Beneath frigid late-autumn stars,
Occasionally twitching in some
Alien canine dream. The denuded woods
Surrounding us were silent save for
Sporadic cries that echoed remotely in the dark.

“They caught us unaware,” the old man continued.
“Their lies were slippery and darkly enticing,
And they awoke a feral animal bloodlust
In the gullible low-hanging fruit. It was
Modern-day sorcery, a triggering of
Mass psychosis, a mental blitzkrieg,
A philosophical paradigm shift of
Cult-like proportions.”

He stirred the fire with a stick as he
Gazed into the embers, scrying memories
Of the end of all things. The dog let out a
Muffed whimper and kicked weakly in its sleep.

“You never know a man’s heart until you
Dangle a piece of raw meat in front of him,”
The old man said, still lost in his contemplation
Of the embers. “All it took was the raw meat
Of lies and fear and hate, bow-tied in a
Pretty box of false patriotism. Guns and ammo
Included.”

At this, he looked at me through the fire,
His eyes burning. “And they had all the guns.
And when they ran out of bullets, they
Used their fists. And when they ran out of
Enemies, they fell on each other like a
Pack of rabid hyenas…and their
Mad orange god was pleased…”

To the east, the bilious moon climbed
Above the bony fingers of the trees
As a gust of wind kicked up sparks
In the fire, sending them heavenward
Like a swarm of hellish fireflies.

“After that, it was just mop-up duty
For the shock troops,” the old man said.
“The base had fulfilled its sacred duty
Of wanton slaughter and blasphemous
Self-sacrifice. The plutocrats performed
Their symbolic fellatio on the
Mad orange god, then everyone hunkered
And bunkered down. And this…” he said,
Nodding at the cold dead woods,
At the distant insensate stars, at the bloated moon
Clawing its way up the night sky,
At the howls of the damned echoing
In the darkness, at the utter extinction
Of all hope, “…is what’s left…”

“Eleven Days”

On By Mike U.In EssaysLeave a comment

“Eleven Days”
(c) 2021 by Michael L. Utley

The wind blows
Those shadows deeper
Into gloaming recesses
Of pine corridors
As aspens
Denuded and shamed
By autumn’s fickle fury
Huddle shivering
In dim dusk

In my heart
Those eleven days
Of silence tore me apart
Like carrion birds
My soul chipped
Away like frost-cracked
Rock on frigid granite tor
Mind numbed by gelid
Confusion

How could I
Have foreseen my gift
For you would shatter your heart
Send you spiraling
Into your
Personal abyss
Disrupt delicate balance
Leave you retreating
In the dark

How could I
Have foreseen my love
For you would turn you away
In anger and fear
When all I
Wanted was to say
I would wait for you as you
Sought to find yourself
Once again

I was so
Afraid that you would
Disappear into the void
Of black depression
Lose yourself
Among demons that
Barred you from the healing flame
Of lucid mind and
Sanity

I was so
Afraid all was lost
All we built on tenuous
Foundations destroyed
Fragile trust
Dashed upon the rocks
Of hopelessness and despair
Fledgling dreams of joy
Now sundered

And how could
I foresee that when
You returned to me at last
Those eleven days
Of heartache
Gone in cautious hope
Never to return were but
A harbinger of
Our demise

That the next eleven days
Would last a lifetime
Without you

The wind blows
My sorrow deeper
Into gloaming recesses
Of my heart and mind
Memories
Denuded and shamed
By regret’s fickle fury
Huddle shivering
In dim dusk

“The Trunk”

On By Mike U.In PoetryLeave a comment

“The Trunk”
(c) 2021 by Michael L. Utley

There is a place for things
That don’t belong in
Other places
That sere and weathered
Trunk that hunkers lupine-like
Amid dust-addled attic shadows
Wood split and gouged
With time and neglect
Iron bands and fittings
A crumble of rust
Lockless clasp broken
From endless breeches
And pryings
I should have
Replaced that lock
Eons ago
The ill-fitting lid
Is too loose
More decoration
Than function
And tends to rattle
Of its own accord
Much too frequently
For what’s inside wants to
Breathe
Stretch
Pop knuckles
Champ teeth
And feed
And only I can
Contain it

I am the guardian
Of my thoughts
The gatekeeper
Of my soul
The sentinel
Who slumbers
Far too often
And I have the scars
To prove it
Pandora knew nothing
Of depression
Of the sticky ichor
That coats minds
Chokes souls
Rends hearts
Ends with
Restless bones
In paupers’ graves

There is no light
In this trunk
Rather
It devours light and life
Siphons energy
Drains minds of clarity
Its bitter harvest
A wretched bounty
Of lies and darkness

I have discarded
This trunk hundreds of times
Thousands of times
Banished it to
The furthest reaches
Of the void
And when I turn around
It’s still there
Lurking stealthily in
Tenebrous attic shadows
Slavering
Grinning
A dead-blue
Feral glow
About it that
Bespeaks of
Baleful knowledge
Best kept under
Lock and key

Mere vigilance is futile
Hyper-vigilance exhausting
This night never-ending
The callous sun
Cannot penetrate
The claptrap slats
Of my mind
I must stand
On my own
In this blackness
And fight to keep
This trunk shut
To render impotent
Its contents
To save myself
Or die trying

“The Footbridge”

On By Mike U.In Poetry9 Comments

“The Footbridge”
(c) 2021 by Michael L. Utley

That derelict footbridge
Has finally failed
Stranding us on
Opposite shores
Of the abyss
Words
Like rotted planks
Litter the gorge
Below
Desires and dreams
Dashed
Upon indifferent rocks
Silence is all
I hear from you
Subdued echoes
Of regret
Perish
In opaque mists
Impenetrable
To starlight
And hope
The absence
Of closure
Rooting me
In place
Heart seized
By fear
And uncertainty
Did you turn
And walk away
Or did you
Plummet
Like our words
Into the
Sepulchral gulf
And must I
Remain here
Forever
Waiting for
The answer which will
Never come

“The Daisy Ring”

On By Mike U.In Poetry2 Comments

“The Daisy Ring”
(c) 2021 by Michael L. Utley

“I found thee in a faerie copse…”

“Hmm?” she murmured
Her gaze caught somewhere
In the rainy neon night-world
Beyond the coffee shop window
Her fingers weightless
Feather-like
In my hand
Ethereal
Furnace-hot

“I found thee in a faerie copse
Alighting on each flower fair
And as I ‘proached thee in the hopes
Of snaring thee in lovers’ ropes
Thou disappeared into thin air…”

She looked at me then
A faint smile teasing
Her lips
“Your poetry is terrible,” she said
Her tired eyes regarding me warmly
For a moment before
Returning to the
Pouring rain beyond
Our personal universe
Of rickety little table and
Untouched mocaccinos
Her brown eyes
Glistening
Misting
As she scanned the night
A single tear tracing
The curve of her cheekbone
In the garish glare of the
Outside world

I stared at her hand
Too pale and fragile
Almost transparent
As it nestled idly in mine
Like some sickly dove
The delicate silver band on her
Too-thin ivory finger
Etched with some flowing
Unknown script resembling a
Daisy chain
It was all I could do
Not to look at
The rest of her
But I did anyway
I had to
And it hurt

I closed my eyes
And allowed my
Memories of her
To replace the despairing image
Burned into my mind
As she sat in somber contemplation
On an unremarkable stormy night
In some nameless coffee shop
In an arbitrary world
Where prayers go unanswered
And hope dies on the vine
And nothing is what it seems

The image that settled
In my mind’s eye was
The first time I saw her
As I made my aimless way along
Some mindless city sidewalk
In some pointless other reality
Her face ensconced in a
Breeze-blown mane of
Luxuriant onyx hair
As she peered out the window
Of a passing bus
Looking at nothing
Lost in some reverie of her own
A faint bemused smile
Causing her face to glow
So brightly I had to
Look away or be blinded
And though she didn’t see me
I couldn’t stop seeing her
And was it fate that I eventually
Found her?
A miracle?
Random chance?
I chose fate
But I was wrong
I didn’t find her
She found me
And by that point
It was too late

I opened my eyes
And all pretense fled
Immediately

She was fading
Diminishing
Before my eyes
Her essence draining
As though her soul
Had been punctured
By some eldritch poisoned dart
She must have known
What I was thinking
(She always did)
And she looked at me
Out of anguished eyes
Drowning in
Dark forbidden pools
And squeezed my hand with
All of her might
Her grip so weak by now
So frail
“You can’t save me…”

I looked at her angrily
About to deny this lie
This horrible, god-awful lie

“No…” she whispered
She reached out and
Touched my cheek
And after a time
All my anger dissolved
Into shame
And ran down my face
She wiped away
My pathetic tears and
Placed her moistened hand
Back in mine
Her sterling daisy ring
Gleaming dully

“Tell me again,” she said
As she tried to smile
“Tell me again of how you found me…”

And I looked at her
A solemn, resigned calmness
Settling over me like
A sheet pulled over the face
Of the deceased
She knew it wasn’t true
She knew she’d chosen me
Not the other way around
And I’d been powerless to resist
But she indulged my silly-sad
Fantasies
Because she loved me
And because she loved my
Puerile poetry

I swallowed hard
Shut my eyes against
What was about to happen
And said

“I found thee in a faerie copse…”

Her hand began to tremble in mine

“Alighting on each flower fair…”

The din of the coffee shop quieted
As the subtle incense
Of pine and myrtle
Wafted delicately

“And as I ‘proached thee in the hopes…”

A distant, stifled sob lilted softly
In the silence amid
The nearly indiscernible cries
Of birdsong

“Of snaring thee in lovers’ ropes…”

Her hand pulled away from mine
As gently as a parting lover’s kiss

“Thou disappeared into thin air…”

There was an almost imperceptible sigh
Like a forlorn forest breeze

When I finally opened my eyes
Her burnished silver daisy ring was
All that was left of her

She was gone

“Sea of Trees”

On By Mike U.In Poetry9 Comments

“Sea of Trees”
(c) 2019 by Michael L. Utley

To slake my thirst
With dew from leaves that never see the light
Arboreal the tears that fall and quench
The darkest dreams

To fill my bowels
With loam whose cloying scent bespeaks of death
Arboreal the taste of living earth
My hunger begs

To see the gleam
‘Neath tenebrous shadows and rayless groves
Arboreal the blackest night in day
Below the boughs

To run rough hands
O’er scabrous bark and hardened boles and moss
Arboreal the pillars scrape the sky
In breezes weep

The silence holds
Forbidden knowledge
The silence holds
The universe
The silence holds
The truth

The path wends through
This living thing, this thing that sighs and cries
And dies and eats itself a cannibal
Whose roots betray sorrowful sentience
Whose trunks hold back the sky with anguished might
Whose limbs strain forth in melancholy pleas
A beckoning

A reckoning
The path into the gloom is just a path
With littered leaves and lichen on the rocks
And overhead the canopy to keep
The sky from falling down under the weight
Of lifetimes filled with torment and regret
It’s just a path

No need to fear
The forest welcomes me it knows my name
Envelops me in arms of somber green
It sings to me a song of silent peace
It pulls me down the path on wings of leaves
It whispers of a place where I may rest
And leads me there

There are others
Herein among the endless sea of trees
Herein among the caverns and the gulfs
Herein among the secrets and the cries
Which echo faintly in sepulchral voids
Herein where many come and none return
There are others

These are my kin
These shades that linger far beyond their time
And welcome me with soundless empty stares
And follow me along the darkling path
And shimmer as mirages in the air
And fade away as if they’d never been
Into the trees

The silence holds
Everything

Arboreal
My personal Aokigahara
My sea of trees my jade remembrance
There is a place just off the path ahead
A place of sodden leaves and broken twigs
And bitter cold that numbs away all pain
A resting place

I am not that boy who saw the sun
I have never seen the sun nor shall
I see only trees