NIGHTMARE

nightmare

rats crawled underneath my eyes last night

I held my breath and listened to their rapid little rodent

feet scurrying around inside my head

they whispered

but I could not tell what it was they said to one another.

a song began to play on a scratched up old record

somewhere in my ear, not the right, just the left

and it played until I loathed the song and screamed

for the non existent deejay to turn it off but he would not

then the strangest thing: I saw the Night.

it became an entity to me, not a dark passage of time

and moon but a being, tall and opaque and endless

I asked it what it wanted and it just observed me quietly

it's ancient eyes, not shining, not glowing, not alive

but staring, cold, in it's horrible fearsome form

and feeling me with snake like fingers and hungry hands.

I tried to run but I couldn't move. I lay there like the residents

of graveyards, molding in perpetual decay and dying ever

deeper, yet so aware. yet so aware of human feet walking

over them, rushing to their picnics and Sunday School lessons

and circuses.

in desperation, I brought my hand up to my mouth and touched

my face to see if I was there but it went right through me

and disappeared into a maze of beasts and chains and undead things

taunting me like evil school children on a playground down in Hell

I could not get out or away. I could only watch as they shredded

me to ribbons and ate my soul with ghoulish lust and joy.

I died and died a thousand times. I fell to ashes and rose up like

the Phoenix flying over bombed out landscapes and burning cities

full of screams and unheard cries and motherless babies everywhere

the desolation was complete and unimaginable but real, so real

the realest thing I'd ever seen and ever felt and ever, ever, never

wanted to see.

I found a haven on a corner and crawled

beneath a crumbled shanty's remnants, huddling in the mud and

growing darkness, clutching my ragged clothes to me with

broken hands and despair laying on my heart like bricks of

cathedrals blown to bits and mingled with the wings of saints.

and there I lay and there I stayed without light. without hope

without friend in God or man or beast or thing. friendless

and just when I thought I could endure 

and find peace there in the silence

the rats came back and crawled underneath my eyes.

©by Voo

July 29, 2005

midnight

BEGGARS

Beggars

You married me for a little while

And then you had to go

I thought our love to death would last

But I didn't know.

That death was there within the bud

Of the new love that would bloom

And cold winds waited at the gate

Of the garden warmth of June.

But oh, the passion of your kiss!

The heat of your embrace!

The sweetness of your sultry smile,

The love there on your face!

I saw the things I longed to see

That weren't really there

And all I gave so freely of

You had no will to share.

And I, so wedded, always remained

While your heart rambled free

And gave your love to other fools

And never thought of me.

Until the day, of all that love

You found yourself deprived

And you came back to your first love

Where my joy had arrived.

And oh, the horror on your face!

To find that love had gone

And no one waited in that garden

And you felt so alone.

For I had waited a thousand years

That only came to three

And I had strained to hear your footsteps

Running back to me.

And in the madness that true love brings

When true love is denied

Sweet death embraced me in it's arms

When all my hope had died.

There in the garden of first love found

You heard the singing crows

No trace of me for your eyes to see

Just a single, solemn rose.

How sad that marriage seldom proves

The bonding of two souls

When one heart is full and one is empty

Like the beggars and their bowls.

©by Voo

Aug 19, 2016

11:31 p.m.

FOUND ON A BLUE GREEN SEA with spoken word version at bottom of page

Found On A Blue-Green Sea

We sailed upon a blue-green sea

My love and I, that night

Beneath a moon of solid gold

And stars, silent and bright.

We clung to love with wanting arms

And spoke of things to come

Of fire and cold and growing old

And paths that lead to home.

We drank the night like it was wine

And whispered in the wind

Laughed at all the lonely years

And what almost could have been.

We'd found the faces we could love

In crowds of loveless hearts

And made our pact, no going back

To romantic stops and starts.

(Maybe love is magic

And maybe love is glue

And only love can mend the seams

Of a life that's torn in two).

But in that lovely little ship

Beneath those stars so bright

We solved the mysteries of our lives

As we sailed into the light.

Sometimes we don't know who we are

Till in a lover's eyes we see

All we ever hoped and dreamed

And all that we could be.

We nestled down in harboring hearts

Like treasures found and kept

While wind and sea carried us to shore

And in arms of love, we slept.

The song that inspired the write

The Promise by Secret Garden

the most beautiful melody I ever heard.......

©by Voo

Dec 1, 07

11:11 p.m.

                                         and click here to hear me reading the poem.............