Scars (and other Gifts of Healing)
by Theodore D. Walther, (c) 2005
SCARS

Scars crawl over my body
like slow worms feeding
on the skin of days
and years gone by,
memories of nights gone astray
or a dim daylight bleeding,
beneath the wheels of excess
where once I sought the mystical ecstasies
and the soulful exigencies
of the one true lover;
before and after,
through trial by the blade,
ordeal by fire and water...
I remain the same,
more or less.
And though some may say,
"He's lost," or worse yet,
"We wish he were lost!"
I remain; whether standing
or stumbling clear through,
my thoughts are so often with you--
you of the golden, dreamlike sunset
and the lingering fog...this seems
like such a part of my life now,
my heart wrapped in a cool, foggy mist,
it's how I've learned to exist.
In fog...in the cool, enveloping damp...
this hides my heart and soothes the scars;
to pass the time away, I drink deeply.
Another morning I toast another evening
passed through; I dream...vast heavens
beneath the ever-compelling stars...
and yet it's you that I think of most,
my love, my heavenly ghost, slipped far,
far away from me it would seem.
Yet these gifts I still carry,
awaiting just one more chance to give,
with thoughts and feelings that leave me
so weary...I hope and I pray
for that one magical day
when the whisper of a new way
to live will perhaps show that we,
who once thought we were lost,
can once again stay and play
and those memories that remain
cloud-hidden can simply waste away
and fade like scars, which only fade
but never fade away.
Yes, someday I will find peace
within my own memories;
this hope exists, these thoughts still exist.
The future...when the love
of another (is it you who will carry me through?) perhaps will silence the endless hurt,
the vain echoes of the pain and the shame,
the weeping of my tormented body,
my garden of scars.
Will we learn together
to worship this life
within and without us?
Will we reach for the heavens that lie
in our very grasp...will we stand,
hand in hand, arm in arm...
or will we fall, breathless
as we spin wide awake
beneath the timeless stars?

A PHANTOM HEART

He lives in a corner
where his mind often dwells
in shadow and mist...

   the first time they kissed,
   the tears, the fears,
   the endless laughing spells,

darkness more comfort now
than the harsh light of day;

the room stands pale as scars,
the tales and travails faraway;

   a phantom heart never tells...

as nevermore will the stars
and the moon light the skies
in his eyes or his untoward way.
PEACE ON EARTH

I.

It's that time of day again,
when the echoes from the voices
in the hall remind me
of the perpetual spiraling
down of not only time
but life itself, as
entropy cannot endlessly endure
but must reverse its course
eventually and unwind
that which we were led
to believe was nothing
more than the sound of
a word to begin with
and all this going nowhere
except perhaps to say a
moment of stasis in
the reflection of a smile,
a cup half-full, the
drop of a tear into
this pool of insinuation
as the day fades away
and you fade from view
and memory too...

(
to be continued)

Take me home...I'm scared!