Endings

In the horror of the hour

the clock tower chimes a note of dread

as stars and moon and sweet desire

are swept away into the fire

of the living and the dead

for those of us who watch and see

ghost flowers piled high, in palest snow

with frozen breath, we tend the pyre

for endings come and go

 

The fragile pane of memory

the dangling button at your sleeve

soon to be lost forever

the careless echoes

the sad goodbye

the moment missed

the day you cried

 

Shadows flee and clouds conspire

to break us from the life we knew

your hand was curled around a leaf

with sorrow waiting underneath

the blackest of taboos

drift silently in opium haze

Is that really all that’s left of you?

 

There was a moment when I knew

The sirens cleaved the world in two

time dissolved —a public wake

questions that will have to wait

answers you can never make

no second chance, or tethered hour

nowhere to run

or place to cower

 

This is the end

the goodbye we fear

the black tide rising

the broken year

the winter seed on hardened ground

the moment when we’re lost, not found

the waving hand above the waves

the helpless feeling when we cave

our longing for the one betrayed

and buried in a shallow grave

 

Everything you were to me

the day, the night, the morning sighs

the whys, the ifs, the sorry lies

the puzzle of your broken mouth

the crypt you tried to call a house

the white wrapped burial at sea

the corpse bride you brought back to me

 

It all unravels like the hours

falling, sinking, ticking, tossed

a raft, on which you’re finally lost

ahead, a light breaks through the loam

voices urge us to come home

but no matter how hard I try to bend

there’s no way back

from the end

© amy eyrie 2012