Poetry by Sam Edwards
The Death, The Fear, The Life
Trigger warnings: death and similar themes, suicide reference
Death is the final bow of all that sings.
Entropy. Order. The path of endings.
It is what sits waiting for us to rot.
To be erased like page with blackest blot.
Fear strikes us from Death’s merciless approach.
Bodies tell us to run, to hide, to fight,
To wail and scream against the dying light.
See, Fear is Life. It saves without reproach
I have not known Fear, but I have known Death.
All who know Death must fear its softest breath.
But I do not. For how can i fear it,
my oldest friend, who keeps a candle lit
Waiting at my home. Sat down upon my
Shoulder, in my ear, a gentle caress
As I watch others soar and fly up high
I feel Death’s unending heavy hands press.
It is a slow Death. An anxious lover.
Always checking, always shall it hover
Till you find the slow rot of your deathbed
Becomes where you desire to rest your head.
I don’t know how to fear Death. For Fear
strikes me not to die, but to live and hear.
To stand and speak, and say I am here.
I want to hear it play and feel the tears.
Hear the world’s song and hear its voice proclaim
To the sky and the listening a name.
Not the name dead nor the one I have chose
But my name. A name sweeter than a rose.
A name thornier than the tallest hedge.
A name like that is the loosest of ledge.
You cling, you bleed for you know Life is here.
For once you live, you learn the name of Fear.
But, are fears not sat around and abound?
Do I not know Death’s subtle, easy flow.
A fear of Life, a fear of stable ground
And the comfort of the tarmac below.
If Fear shall bind and chain me either way
Then Death’s embrace is not for me today.
Someday, when i am old and reach my end,
I shall turn to the oldest of my friends.
They smile soft and turn out my silent light,
They lay me down in bed. No more I fight.
I rest my head, tired of Life afraid.
But all the same, it was a life I made.
And none can take any of that away.
To hell with the oroborous
The Oroborous, eternal circle,
Biting itself, deviation futile.
It's not in pain, not in grief nor in fear.
It eats and bites and never sheds a tear.
For though it bleeds and tears, it understands
This life it lives is the best of it's hands
Ease in pain and ease in calm.
Ease in death and ease as balm.
The Oroborous, who will never die
For it will never live. It knows its life
Is cold. It knows its life is not its own.
The Oroborous circles. Never a
Sound.
The rhythm breaks. The Snake lets go.
It's wounds feel the air and begin to flow.
As do its tears, held back for so long.
It unfurls and moves from it's pattern.
It hurts in a way The Snake has forgotten.
The pain of living. The pain of choice.
The dicomfort of having a voice.
But the snake can see beyond it's tail now
And knows it's apathy was wrong.
Life can be no circle. Life can be no Neat
Thing tidied up in iambs ad AABBCC.
It is something to be held, to be cradled,
To be broken and to be seen.
It is messy. It is wrong. It is discomfort in all
The ways we never want. But to fall
We must first leap. And when we leap
We may fly.
So to hell with The Oroborous.
The tail is no longer appetizing.
Icarus calls, and I wish to fly.
No longer will I live a lie.
Poetry by Matthew Hull
Twilit
Cascading twilight sky
Torn asunder. Ripped open
Like old wrapping paper
The sky bleeds.
Lightning strike and rainfall, broken and busted.
Left scattered like aging dust on
Deadstones. Grey gone twilit and
Kept to itself. Lightless sight from visionaries with
Empty vision. Mindless melancholy
Breaking down to endless pieces,
Shattered glass blowing in
The warm wind to warm screams.
Mind-thought, no-thought,
No word. Tongue-tied
When with others, lost.
The deep blue twilight drips
From fracturing wounds.
Refracted through frustration.
Deep grey twilight swallows
the noise making way for us all
As we dance our empty motions;
In a tango with ethereal partners,
Leaving too much distance.
Losing ourselves in the near-void silence.
Stitched up sutras, mangled
Fools left to dance on sunlight
Strings.
I guess I did deserve that
Huh? Left in limbo between
Myself and me. Deep white
Twilight never-ending, lost
Beneath the cracks.
Finding my faceless fellows in brutal darkness.
All of us listen to the silence.
Let it lull us with its song
Steps
The snake writhes
between the masonry.
Burrows in between
Cracks in sand.
Fallen apart
Impact shattered
Places
Break
Down
Steps progress
down to pandemonium
Black spiral
staircase
Turn back dreamwalker
The world is not safe for you
Dante burns
Ascendent pain
Descendent ice flows
Bitter fruit of the summer
Falls into place.
Autumnal breezes the crisp
Cool knife-sharp air.
Alone standing
collapsing
Falling
Crumbling
Decaying
Bitter flecks, the phlegm
Of uncaring leaders
And things beyond control
The unknowable seen,
Believed, left to seed
Gods visage glimpsed
As the cracks
Show in the sunlight.
Chaos wizards working
Wild magicks.
grafitti signals to
Spur the violet dawn.
Crumbling gravestones shattered by serpent coils
Writhing between the bones and the stars