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I'm going to admit something -
A thing I don't normally do -
But with so much time on my hands,
So much hurt, impermeable pain,
I feel as though I've been presented
As my own sacreligious symbol.
My mind won't function as it would;
I hate poems, but I'm writing one.
I'm deteriorating faster than a cheetah on speed.
Euphamism that once was there is gone.
I admire the pathetic fallacy of the darkness.
Even worse, the irony:
You can find me hiding in the shadows from the night.
So many ways in which to drop the hint,
Perhaps original, though probably not.
But as paradox floats free,
I'm wondering if the darkness from which I hide
Is indeed the light I seek. That one has gone up there because of Felix. The only man I've ever had the courage to show it to, my greatest critic, and possibly my greatest admirer, too.
Honey, you know I'm always going to be yours, too. Strange Meeting
It seemed that out of battle I escaped
Down some profound tunnel, long since scooped
Through granites which titanic wars had groined.
Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,
Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.
Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared
With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,
Lifting distressed hands as if to bless.
And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall,
By his dead smile I knew we stood in hell.
With a thousand pains that vision's face was grained;
Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground,
And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan.
'Strange friend', I said, 'here is no cause to mourn.'
'None,' said the other, 'save the undone years,
The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours,
Was my life also; I went hunting wild
After the wildest beauty in the world,
Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair,
But mocks the steady running of the hour,
And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here.
For of my glee might many men have laughed,
And of my weeping something had been left,
Which must die now. I mean the truth untold,
The pity of war, the pity war distilled.
Now men will go content with what we spoiled.
Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.
They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress,
None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.
Courage was mine, and I had mystery,
Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery;
To miss the march of this retreating world
Into vain citadels that are not walled.
Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels,
I would go up and wash them from sweet wells,
Even with the truths that lie too deep for taint.
I would have poured my spirit without stint
But not through wounds; not on the cess of war.
Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.
I am the enemy you killed, my friend.
I knew you in this dark: for so you frowned
Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.
I parried; but my hands grew loath and cold.
Let us sleep now...'
Wilfred Owen, 1918 Take care, my angels. -X-X-X- |  |