Scarlet's Poetry Den "Litany of Scars - Notes to a Missing Lover"

Sea Turned Blood (Listen to the poem in RealAudio G2)

I must write
or I will die

brutal unformed words
crash behind eyes
beat ear drums
this Great Brain of mine
has rarely been a friend

rot of unused imagination
the pen tries to spew it out
I suffer when my Muses go on vacation

no-one is an island
but I do a damn good imitation
of an isolated peninsula
at high tide

to make sense of this lacerated body
I recite the litany of my scars
to a sea that turned blood
when it parted as I walked through

who'd've thought I had so much blood

the Fates play dice with my life
I'm an angry woman
questioning the Universe's authority

I curse the litany of my scars
the sea turns bloodier

dreams and hopes tumble
kaleidoscope pictures
crash/break in veins
smell rotten eggs scramble
in daily routine horror

I come
not to take but give
of the self bursting
the walls of my skull
excess grows, ever grows
threatens exploding to nowhere

do I hope?
it is a wounded bird
my anger now more subdued
no longer an unjustly jailed prisoner
smashing forehead to pulp against mortar
instead a bird raking wings
across bars of a gilt cage

Freedom at what cost?

I come to you simply for sanity
the knowing embrace
that makes each breath more tolerable

I repeat the litany of my scars
the sea washes over me

it has grown dark
a thunderstorm tonight
where the hell are you?

now in solitude
I scream the litany of my scars
to a darkening sea

your breath is the wind
tossing my hair
whispers you won't be long

and the sea turns even bloodier
as I contemplate the litany of my scars

when you come
it is not because I have trapped you with flowers
but to hear the rage of my curses
beat yours into oblivion

who'd've thought I had so much blood
I defy the litany of my scars

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Last updated on September 6, 1999
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