Foothills in grayscale

Ascending trails along a Babeling brook

(or rather a Tower that shares its name)

The mire smiles as the rain prepares its sticky hands

To grab the souls of those

Who tread soon overhead too carelessly

Some come as challengers, some come as courters,

But she sighs and turns as men with big sticks

Carve their borders into her bosom

Silver mist conceals her tangled hair,

She is both free and fixed, loved, unkissed

Serene and violent, unquiet, silent.

But the soft pitter-patter of pilgrims

Up her supple slopes awoke the sleeping sun

As sunrays grope their way through the swaying mountain ranges

Shades between black and white

Illuminate with morning’s light

Her paths; They are home for the heartless

Her ashen branches hide where my heart is

She intimates, embraced tightly

Muted colors, (pine needles green)

An epoch age’s ageless dream

The soft breeze blows, no finish line in sight

My 40 years climb wildered heights;

A Burning bush; Another night

#Nature #Poetry #Freeverse #Running #Trails #Freedom #KZ

Is there healing for the broken lands?

Broken people? Broken souls? War-torn grief?

Can I hold Perspective's hand?

The child shall never return to the mother.

She is left without brother 

     or son or husband.

No halo hangs around her head,

Instead she wears a funeral wreath.

As we sat round the eternal flame

Wondering "What makes us burn?

"What's in a name?"

Wicked men with sickly souls

and cancer reaching to our bones 

Justice seems so far away

And what of restoration?

Life is but an invitation 

     for sorrow

And is there hope for tomorrow's 

     Kingdom?

Surely man is born for trouble.

My walls have ears,

I ask them a question,

"If your lock's on the inside

why do I feel so constricted?

Why do you feel less like a Village

and more like a box?"

My walls can hear,

But I'm not sure if I want them to talk.

They hear every lazy moan and groan,

they hear my half-hearted self pity.

They hear calf stretches on foam rollers

and petty arguments through clenched teeth

& gritted molars.

If my walls had eyes what would they see?

A tar pit Wonderland, sinking sand

castle palace,

Half naked full mockery hypocrisy;

Alice.

If my walls had eyes would they see

empty wine bottles, records on repeat,

and pity me?

If my walls noticed anything

would they suffocate in smoke rings

as thick tobacco fills

the Summer night humidity?

A sojourner, a sinner,

just another tenant,

Would my walls at least find me interesting?

Days and weeks of cheeks

literally cramping from dopamine buzzed smiling

More than "Happy" you made me high.

Even more than your body I loved your mind.

But, insistent on monogamy,

I could not love your multiple personalities.

I'm sorry for your diagnosis, your trauma, your MPD

I thought I loved "you"

But I could not love you & you & you & you.

Cheeks literally cramping

from incessant smiling

More than "Happy" you made me high.

More than your body I loved your mind.

But, insistent on monogamy,

I couldn't love multiple personalities.

I'm sorry for your diagnosis, trauma, your MPD

I thought I loved "you"

But I couldn't love you & you & you

Depression is the discomfort of a thousand pound comforter,

soft blankets, weighted down;

My bed's a prison filled with muted T.V. sounds

occupying the background of my room & my mind,

doing little to muffle the deriding 

voice of my false self, unkind, saying

"It's O.K.

"You were never good enough anyway."

Depression is running for hours & hours,

and as the rest of the world awakes,

fighting fatigue, wet cheeks, & shakes,

too exhausted to rest, no cares to shower,

summon what little willpower is left,

drone into work & occupy a desk.

Depression is apathy,

uncaring,

sea-faring ships wistfully unmoved

in stagnate coves under uncovered skies

as the sun, hot & relentless,

burns the insides of my chest

and slowly dulls my eyes.

Depression is endless hours

of feeling profoundly uninspired

doing absolutely nothing

but growing increasingly tired.

Dissonance, Dysphoria,

Secretly resenting Gloria,

relief only in the war abroad.

And I am Anthony Patch:

Unmotivated writer,

Alcoholic aristocrat,

Ungrateful heir

and severely detached.

Depression is entropy

as daylight grows shorter,

Energy lost,

gradual decline into disorder.

Stars are the souls of old characters

who never see the light of day.

They illuminate the dark of our minds

and shine through cracks of private pages.

Brought to life through white-knuckled scribbles

and unanswered riddles

where anxiety & self-doubt intersect.

Originality is a ghost town and I am its specter

An apparition,

with haunting aspirations,

to expose the old souls in my mind

and bring some company to the celestial divine. 

Luna's mad chariots

(visions of wrought iron, green copper, & golden calves

visible through literary spectrograph)

hangs our waning stars over the night sky,

as the writer's penultimate epitaph.