sleep is but sunset for the silent soul,
whom with half a heart loves the mourning pace.
with sunrise the sighing morning comes,
to wake the ghosts of sleep’s embrace.

the table setting sits neglected
like forgotten bricks laid out
on an unfinished road
click your heels together
because there’s no place like home

drip drop drip drop
goes the faucet
unable to contain it’s shame
cries and splatters into carelessly
abandoned dishes in a stainless steel casket

the ghost of a memory lingers
somewhere between the cobwebs
strung across candlelight and aspiration
but it only haunts with half a heart
in a house housing but half a home

The woods are deep,

silent as the night, and flight
of a hundred and eight mosquitoes at sunset.

Weary light filters through cedar arms,
a slow, soulful embrace that sends
the sighing sun to sleep.

Though the subdued crunch of undergrowth
is the only sound that breaks the ancient quiet,

I still hear your whisper in the shade
which has never ever left my side.

Cgryffene, 2012

I suffered the ghost of you
for a hundred lifetimes before I tried
to shake off the vermilion fever
of your shark-toothed brown eye depression.

Ten thousand feet love, you’d dig me deep
under tangerine, aubergine lights
that deck the earth, and for what they’re worth
give me a velvet blanket to warm my sleep.

Fly away on a chimaera jetplane,
dear, you’re a sight for sore mahogany eyes.
runway lights won’t take you home
till you’ve made a ghost of a lovelorn life.

the fog rolls thick over the winter moor,
like a dampened, soggy cloak.
it seeps and slips into the mossy boards,
down deep, and drips into my aching bones.

this haze blurs and clouds the lights,
leaving ghosts in the arctic air.
halos, like specters of the fading night,
guide me into arms that were never there.

I live between these ancient walls,
somewhere between the aging oak
and faded brass doorknobs.
I am the off-key resonance of the dusty piano,
sitting ignored on the lobby floor.
can you hear me among the vintage plates?
or in the creak of hinges thirsting for oil?
I live in the back of your head
asking why you left it all behind.

I left my heart on the table
                  wondering when you’ll be home
Dinner’s in the kitchen
                  hurry before it gets cold
I kept the light on in the bedroom
                  just waiting for you to get here
And there’s monsters in the closet
                  waiting for me to close my eyes
I’m afraid to wake in the morning
                  to only find you’re not there
And I’ll be dead as a door nail
                  it’s this loneliness I fear
There are voices in the darkness
                  telling me to come home
I might go out to find them
                  only to disappear

I scattered ashes out of the open window,
Hoping that the wind will carry them home.
While eggshell curtains balloon in ballroom fluctuations,
Rustling long-dried roses hung over our bedroom door. 

I found you yesterday
On the back of a dusty shelf
It’s where all my ghosts seem to settle
When I’ve banished them from my mind 

I can never shake the weight
of your arms on my shoulders
draped around my neck
like burial robes of coarse cloth

even when you’ve left
and I’ve buried your name
six feet under the topsoil
of the backyard of my brain

I still feel you on this bed
sitting with a silent presence
you whisper ever-quietly
never let me go; I’ll never let you go

some days I gaze in the mirror
and don’t recognize who it contains
some days I gaze in the mirror
and I feel the man inside gazing back

lurk in some back room of my brain
their claws tear through the walls
like they are paper
thin lantern paper 
the kind we used to burn
to ward off hungry ghosts

I tell them please, 
please leave me alone
but wicked arms hold me in
like barbed wire fences
but I have never felt so much comfort
as I do in my monsters’ embrace

sunlight filters through the window shades
“I want you to hold me close”
skeletal arms wrapped around my chest
“tell me you need my love”
my dead heart decides to miss a beat
“you’re the flesh for my bones”
I let you fade to ashes
“carry my curse forever”
you’re a ghost in my veins
“darling never let me go”

raging ghosts appear in my dreams
but you’re standing here it seems
that you’re an apparition from ages past
looking for a lost knight in battlecast
armour wandering the wastes looking for redemption
but I fear the temptation of lifting your veil
only to fail to see the ghostly face
of a love I’ve given up for a thousand years
I was a pioneer of heartbreak
planting our flag on enemy land
and falling with my horse into the bowels of the earth
I left you waiting in coarse canvas at the temple door
as I fell and fell and fell forever more

today I found a box
i feel you in my bones
a box full of your things

things from better times
i feel you in my bones
things from long ago

but times have changed 
i feel you in my bones
summer falls into winter’s grip

and I stand frozen with this little box 
i feel you in my bones
and you won’t let me go