Monday, February 16, 2015

Darkened Cigarettes by Shane Downing


Darkened Cigarettes

by Shane Downing


Alone, in front of the expanse of black,
Light from the side but faith no more,
A moment to ponder before I crack,
And I reach for the pain without a sore.

It eludes me, that devious and sly thought,
Leaving the notion of immense disease,
A smile - receiving the item that I sought,
But it's a lie - I'm brought to my knees.

One, the sender, blinks and turns away,
Finding solace in personal deceptions,
Letting this helpless being cry and stray,
Upon the brink of futile conceptions.

Once - just maybe - there had been the rose,
Impish grins shining to respond in aluminum,
But the heart - it feels what the mind knows,
Sensing pain in edifices and a small crumb.

Falling, now, with no signs of stopping known,
Occasional hints with the facade of light to see,
Snapping and breaking every single bone,
Yet one would see an untouched body.

Light - the purifying source of all knowledge and lies,
Those Mundane objects re-attaching mortal debts,
Here - no, perhaps there, light returns and deeply sighs,
Streaming the curling smoke of darkened cigarettes.




Author’s notes:

I wrote this poem a few days ago in response to my feelings on sorrow. Having slacked into depression, I oddly felt motivation to write it down. It's about sadness, and how it seems to affect and alter reality. The poem goes through the motions of someone's first contact with a specific sorrow. Then, as it progresses through the setting, it brings the reader (and the narrator) back to harsh reality. The cigarettes (and the smoke) are symbolic of a memory.




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