The Heart’s Redemption

When sleep will not capture with gentleness this wounded heart

and swirling night seems it shall never slow rampaging blood

that grips sanity with icy gloves; I will create peace in sleep;

which drains the paralysis of being – forbidding freedom.

This sleep soothes; cradling as a mother’s song softly holds the newly born.

When slow numbing sadness feathers this stillborn heart

and cloudy tunnels where light rejects vision

seem lidded for eternity; I will create hope.

Hope of love neither foolish nor unreal

catching, returning this soul’s seeping strength.

When faithful solitude no longer eases this soul-eating heart

and dreams flit about in some erotic danse-macabre

where I would rather feel her cold hand crushing this heart;

there I will build the towers of time contented

and happily await the one that may never arrive.

When love stores no destiny in this well-used heart

and tomorrow lives as a simple reflection of yesterday

yesterdays reeking of entropy…unbearable structure’

I will break the circles of self-imposed martyrdom

to loose this heart’s phoenix on the world.

When this heart is forgotten dreams and sleeping love

within the myopic miasma of my maddened mind;

I will survive, struggle in the blistering bind

Of yes and no, forever and never, why and because

while my heart pleasantly plays my emotions of what will be, what was.

MaxS 1991