Ferlinghetti - National Poetry Writing Month

the keening

when i came into this chamber,
i felt the vibrations before i heard the whispers,
it was a room where mourners chanted and wailed their broken hearts' emotions,
o'er the losses of their loved ones.

it was a room for keening.

the vibrations (or echoes) came after i sat still and noticed how silent the still air was,
i had not been in a space so quiet ever before and it immediately made me slip into a dream.
eyes half closed, a vision entranced my consciousness.
i was in this room, in this time but i crossed a barrier that separated times.

the room suddenly felt full. there were others here with me, sitting, standing, pacing, whispering, chanting, moaning, sobbing, keening...


i felt separate from them, disconnected from their individual sorrows, and i could not really see them, but i felt them. i gathered that they were not aware of my presence though, certainly, because they were not real. i'm not psychic, nor am i crazy. i'm just sensitive to energies that have been.

i felt like i could sit here for ages it was so comforting, this missing, this loss of the beloved...

the cosmos unspirals...

from the wishes

of my heart.

do you have 

a wish?

then serve me,

please me,

obey me,

and i will consider

taking your desires

into my dreamworld

where all creative power

is at my beckoning

to make

psuedo-civilizations

rise or fall.

i master my own

destiny,

but my ability

to influence others',

well,

i'm as fickle as hell.

don't fuck with me.

an effigy...

the weight of a lifetime

is burdened into an effigy...

you want to die by the time

the weight becomes so intense

that it sucks all light from your inspiration,

your desire...

is it only because you did all that you could do?

is it because you tried harder than necessary to

bring light and love to all around you

and they sucked your life away

like black hole suns?

you should not be to blame,

do not fade away in shame.

yes, you will be forgotten by the living,

but here in the land of the forgotten

you will be welcomed as a queen.

I am stretched on your grave and will lie there forever,

If your hands were in mine, I'd be sure they'd not sever.

My apple tree, my brightness 'tis time we were together,

For I smell of the earth and am stain-ed by the weather.

When my family thinks that I'm safe in my bed,

From night until morning I am stretched at your head.

Calling out to the air with tears hot and wild,

My grief for the girl that I loved as a child.

Do you remember the night we were lost

In the shade of the blackthorn and the chill of the frost.

Thanks be to Jesus we did what was right

And your maidenhead still is your Pillar of Light.

The priests and the friars approach me in dread,

Because I still love you, my love, and you’re dead.

And still would be your shelter through rain and through storm

For with you in the cold grave I cannot sleep warm.

anonymous - Irish traditional

(((rewrite)))

she emerges from the past,

she climbs through time,

she wants to be remembered.

lonely,

forgotten,

she bursts forth from a faded photograph

into someone's murky dream.

an old name scribbled into a genealogical record.

a young girl who died unfairly early,

yet who's vibrancy shines eternal.

Emakhet - Cemetery Girl

girl speaking silently to angel:

do you tire of this view, oh angel?

will i tire of it (after i die), do you think?

how long have you been here?

must seem like an eternity.

well, your flesh doesn't rot, though it may crumble one day.

and your thoughts can't flutter like mine do...

staring into the endless void is our bond though.

thanks for being here as a support for me.