"Open the gates; the ones that threatened to dull the shine of sword, with intent to sheathe, instead used to serrate the fine, fragile edges of ego and self-worth until there is nothing more than tattered pieces used to dry the eyes and dull the pain."
In such a compendious acquisition of heart
Should anyone trace the outline of its steady rhythm
or merely stare at the scars?
Much like the verbarhypotheca,
remitted debts of life and existence were paid
with tears that tarnish
the metal shield of strength.
They run from eyes;
tiny trickles of blood spewing
rivers of emotion seeping from
torn seams
that aren’t self-inflicted-
saturated within the soul.
The unease of the contrary:
to save one’s own soul,
or another’s?
Open the gates; the ones that threatened to dull
the shine of sword,
with intent to sheathe
instead used to serrate
the fine, fragile edges of ego
and self-worth
until there is nothing more
than tattered pieces
used to dry the eyes
and dull the pain.
Emotions can easily be corroded
if left out within the volley
of a hailstorm.
Standing there, alone
with nothing to gain
and no more to lose
than its polish.
It becomes a relic;
a once-was,
an idea that
never existed.
As rain streams, the wind of words whip
the flag of independence
creating within it
an implodent sound;
its sullen twang upon metal
disenchanting the illusion of change
until the core is rattled
and its shell becomes dented
cracks,
falls away.
A dream of being
one’s own liege;
a sovereign independent
immune to the stronghand
that bears down like weighted pebbles
thrown at a window
to attain an amount of attention
required for existence.
Time, in essence
pours through veins
producing the anticlimax;
the end to which
there lies no happy ending.
Draining out fronds
of dried crimson
are used to disimbitter;
to forget
and replace with
an alternate sense of healing.
An auxiliary sense of escape.
Here, the latimer,
disperses truth,
inconveniencing those with
preconceived notions of
unconditional love for
the chimerically impaired.
Debts paid in the apoplexy
as emotions continue to
hemorrhage;
debts paid with every slice of sword
whose whetstone once used to
brandish the obvious complexity
of misinterpretation
now left to embody the
misconception of
self-sacrifice
feeding upon it like a glutton.
The invoice strikes the blood ties
paid with interest ad valorem
without the hope of the shield
whose strength enables
the soul to become
incompressible
despite the avarice.
No longer safe within its harbor,
its anchor cast well past the shore;
the buoy of hope floats absently
in hopes that perhaps
by distance
by the sheer intrinsic will of spirit
hope can be seen
and remembered
before the armor sinks to the bottom
and becomes consumed within
the rust of its own red rivers.
©2013 J.V.Stanley from the forthcoming epic poetic novella and poetry collection "Irony, Karma, and Fate Walk Into a Bar" with expected publication of sometime fall 2013