Alice

Alice



In troubled times I've called your name,

My love, and clung to it as does a child,

To the belief in Santa,

Or the sightless, to the hope of light;

It is for me,

The visionary dream,

That drives perseverance,

And decries despair;

It is the hope of wretched souls,

In purgatory awaiting,

The seemingly forgotten promise,

Of their eventual release.

When my stale words confuse, confine,

Confound my mind, and images converge

Into the swirling blur of madness,

I call your name.

Then hopelessness recedes,

As does an incorporeal nightmare,

Slowly fading, leaving behind only sweat-soaked sheets,

Yielding to the purifying rays of the dawn's rising sun.

A simple word, your name, but to me, a powerful amulet,

Which pierces the darkness and melts away,

The deformed forms that haunt and taunt my darkest days,

And fills them with all on earth that heals and renews.

A simple word which simply is my all, a synonym for sincere,

Unpretentious love that seldom asks yet freely gives,

That does not question, but simply knows,

That does not quickly burn, but always, and forever, warms.

Excerpted from Of Pain and Ecstasy: Collected Poems available in paperback and Kindle versions from Amazon.com and CreateSpace.