Glass
#1 of Poetry
I write poetry sometimes.
While a hundred voices called out
To tell me what I was -
And I wanted to listen
- All it took was for a rat
To hold the mirror
And in the rat's eyes I saw
No creature, but a coward -
Who dared not join the sun
In rising beyond the thousands of sunsets
- Content in dusk and dust and damnation
There lies the rat now -
Unmoving, sinking
Drowning in the marshes of time slowed down
- And my questions remain
unanswered
What is a memory, if not there to hold the dawn at bay?
Or perhaps this is no reverie, but a waking dream
For the rat has taken to rest -
And with it, the mirror too
- Now broken
Leaving only voices, there out in the darkness
Sometimes I catch a shard
Of that broken reflection
And I bleed
As it is crushed beneath the tides
Of the sea of claws
The eyes that stare back are never
Mine
I cannot see beyond what the whispers say
No more than my whiskers
And even those, at times, are lies in the night
It is amongst the reeds,
Where the shipwrecks from my childhood -
Those battles were fought
Where fire flew from our fingertips
The moon was made of cheese
And dragons were real -
That I would like to sleep
Yet every time my slumber starts
A blinding light comes -
A faerie calling out
Lost and in need
- And I cannot abandon that little glimpse
Of daylight
Then, in the blood
A pool of water
Cool and quiet
Appears
And in it
I catch the faintest frown
Of a familiar stranger
And I wonder if this is hell
When, only in these cruel moments
A mockery of a mirror comes
To show me hope
When a thousand voices
Come to tell me who I am
Perhaps a little faith would serve me well
Yet the mirror showed me someone -
No, something -
Else
And I can't let go
For when those voices sometimes whisper
They are not always my own -
And in those pieces of the mirror
Those eyes belong to no-one
- And I can't help but question
Where the line between thought
And madness
Is drawn
Perhaps dusk remains eternal
And those flickers of daylight are but will-o'-wisps
There to lead me away from the mire of my own making
And take away my rest
Perhaps I am but a voice -
One of many -
out here
In the cool and empty
Nothing but a little white wind
Dancing in the wake of the ended world
Yet the rat also lingers
There with the mirror
Even when drowned
Withered
Gone
It is the scarlet warmth on my paws
That brings to light the question
Of what - and where - and who
- Is holding those fragments
Of broken
Bloodied
Glass