One is the agonizing ache of unrequited love, the other is the depth of experience when feeling cut off. It seems we are constantly wrestling with one form of isolation or another.
Is it your smile that dazzles me The softness of your voice that comforts me The light in your eyes scrying my future joys Am I selfish for thinking you are the answer Presumptuous for dreaming you can want me too
I’d like to tell you- I’m under your spell I’d like to speak my mind with the melody from my heart I’d like to say, I love you But I cannot Lest I spook and alarm For already, You are too precious to lose And a little bit of you Is better than none at all
Paramour of dreams Peculiar with perfection My heart surrenders betrothed and bound to love you Meant to be, Never to be
Cut off A blanket black Between us none can see A box the walls of a prison Close in Stifle Alone in the box fear rising No one to hear a cry Awareness stings Of life
Outside The box people Living lives chattering Unaware of the person in The box Beside Them dying gasping for breath one Breath but it is too late A corpse lies dead Staring
The act of wanting consumes my mind so much that I never realise what I really wanted after all Losing myself at the ends of her fading footsteps and the silence left by her echoes and the echoes left by her silence I only end up imitating my wants than really know what I wanted at all The melancholy monster consumes me for not knowing but that is when I know this monster is really not a monster as I ponder… …where do I go from here if not inwards To save me from the beginning of the building blocks of my utter doom Melancholy opens up wounds that can only be closed by facing the fears that created them as I realise All I receive is connected to all I give amidst the karmic cycle of my intents The ignorance of the immediate fate I put too much emphasis on The laughter of my perpetual bloom is connected to the whispers of my eventual tomb
How does one traverse the loss of love, aging, and loneliness? VJ may not present the answer but she certainly gives us a glimpse of how real it can get.
Another that hit so well, tagging memories of so long ago, a heartache which took years to dull. I applaud Luna for expressing these heartfelt emotions so well!
It gets so cold
when loneliness enters the scene
but the feeling is actually burning.
Burning with the desire to break free.
Burning with the desire to sleep in peace.
Burning when you remember things
the way they used to be.
Burning when you see the shadow of
the empty place that once had a heartbeat.
A suitcase lies among the many things
Abandoned when the owner left for good.
Exposed to elements, old mildew clings
To fabric torn and peeling from the wood.
The dusty handle still emits a shine
In places that endured the frequent grasp
Of hands too hurried by the railroad line
To put on gloves or lock the metal clasp.
What irony! A suitcase left behind
Speaks more about the trip it never made,
Found useless for the task it was designed
When owner passed from substance into shade.
The things that matter now won’t matter then.
The cycle ends only to start again.
About the Poet
Randal A. Burd, Jr. is an educator who works with the disadvantaged in rural Missouri. He holds a master’s degree in English Curriculum & Instruction from the University of Missouri. Randal is currently the Editor-in-Chief of Sparks of Calliope magazine. His latest collection of poems, Memoirs of a Witness Tree, is forthcoming from Kelsay Books in Summer 2020.
It was wonderful to read each line and feel the elements present themselves in my mind. Randal did a great job of making me feel the loneliness and emptiness of the scene. All I could think of was “poor suitcase” as if it were feeling pain. Bravo!
I Write Her 