Sunday, May 13, 2018

Poem of Resoluteness by Mark O'Brien


"His quiet nature was blown about enough for silence."

~

Meanwhile, in the Outback of Beyond:
Slowly salvaging the daylight hours
as the night acquires October
you battle this unexpected censure
struggle to come once more out of the anyhow
throwing punches at the wind.

With no recent measure of a quiet cautionary tale
you begin to worry the bones and throw the teeth.
Perhaps you didn't notice this when you first stepped in.
Maybe you thought, it will surely come back
for all the silent reasons after only a quiet and hallowed time.

Maybe, you didn't want to know
didn't care to see across the deep of idleness
where sorrows resolve in the wide eternity
of the present on your hands.

But bleak hearts and devious fools of idleness
can become soldiers of the dark
bolder and bleaker
tendering no information
taking no messages.

It is not for want of banging your head
against the windy and the ragged after all.
Not for want of leering and looming
buffeted by the beyond.

But slowly, slowly, without your knowing
idleness savages the daylight hours
as the Prince of Night gathers October.
In the end finally, you must always remember
there is the Bean-Sìdhe after all.

Graced and serene, pale and contrasting in the night
her eyes red from centuries of crying
and wringing her hands, mourning at your idleness.
She was ever washing your poetry bones, stroking them lovingly
cleansing their limbs 'till they were shriven.


Then, nightly she paced the hills of your dreams and sorrows with unearthly care
Weeping, wailing, clasping her hands, and beating her breasts.
Piercing the night, her notes rise and fall with the years
begging you to resolve your writers block!

begging you to come back to the anyhow once more
to the wide eternity of the present on your hands
before your bleak heart becomes a soldier
a soldier to the Dark of October.


                             ---Mark O'Brien

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