She was everything that my heart had been bottling inside, every secret message awash on all the shores—
She could scream in agony while I could merely sob in silence.
74
It is true
You rest there among the clouds of the sunrise, you are the hues of pink and gold…
The Bends
…and in the giving up, did I gain freedom?
Always this bursting pain lives just below the surface, ready to emerge with heavy intensity, defying whatever laws withhold gravity.
Your glimpse unfurls the pressure building below the soft waves of my heart, and there, despite everything I push down
You are the exquisite opposite driving upward, I am barely holding on to all this, with desperate affectionate agony
Fractioned
I have been aching—breaking really, but aching feels like a friendlier word, one where perhaps I can pretend I will be whole again.
Variation on the Word Sleep
IV
Arrel King 2020
the silence
what was and is—
the autumn reed
III
2020
her veins grey
I held her hand—
autumn’s last bloom
In memory of H. E. Church with the deepest love.
II
the shrike’s cry—
a little blood
upon her beak
I
Arrel King
2020
pink lilies—
the fragrance
caught in my throat
Death & It’s Enamoured Queen
Arrel King
2020
Twice, I closed the dream of death and it’s enamored queen.
She guided me into the night, the darkness and the cold rescind of light. I questioned her and all she say. I asked her thoughts beckoning her to say: “oh lovely one with breath and dream, you’re not much more than hope and steam. You fought and fled and cried with dread, you lay wounded upon your dying bed. So here I am to grip your hand, to lead you now, off your enchanted land.”
So with a whisper & a kiss, she plucked me soft by my gravely wrist, her hair so lightly against my face, I could smell her charm, her ghastly grace. Like a little lovelorn lad, I followed, only vaguely sad. But when I woke I felt the gasp of fear, the chill she left on my skin, she had been achingly near.
