Three Poems by S. Nacona Stroud
Springfield, Ohio/Author of Arrivals
PURGATORY Teardrops are my hourglass sands-- I try but can't cry the top empty. A desert in my chest I cannot cross, the tears carve canyons through me. For being so hollow below I feel heavy still, wandering lost Through the cliff maze within. I trace the path they etch follow a river of salt and sorrow-- there are no echoes from yesterday resounding into tomorrow. Each step sinks in shifting sands, my self wants to hold me here-- I cling to the edges of my shadow, a new neighbor to my fears. The sands here only rise up, keeping the sandglass full. Time loops within this hollow space-- the purgatory of a fool. MONARCH OF DARKNESS I wish I could grow out pain, trim off all the split ends dye it and style it real pretty-- make something dead beautiful again. I'd weave the lacerations into braids. Twist and sharpen my strands into sorrows. Rip out a few roots and bleed to ensure I still feel it tomorrow. Perhaps I shall grow it long tie back my regrets like a pony tail, let it sway in the wind behind me. Skipping along to the rhythm of experiences I've overcome. Now and then I buzz it all off just to love all the agony again. I watch it grow out like weeds then I Nair it off and mend. I think I'll fashion it into a black crown and become monarch of this darkness-- pain, my kingdom, vast and sprawling.
WRECKAGE (For Kevin) Every day I rise like a sun and lose your darkness again the way day forever chases night-- its reach never finds its rest. And every death I bear wears your face, your shadow stitched into my waking hours-- I hear your voice in each breath, dance with your ghost to the drum of my heartbeat. I wake, you die, I wake, you die, I wake-- this is the tide of my grief. I ebb in its waters like a shipwreck, wishing for its currents to pull me down. Yet I've drowned and washed up on the shore, pieces of the wreckage, still yearning for the deep as the moon smiles down on me like eternity-- the only company I keep.