All This Darkness That Lay Ahead
Literary critic Hugh Wright delivered in a thesis at Princeton during one of his most celebrated lectures that the truest art comes from the mystery of death, as only absolute life in its purest form can spawn from such darkness.
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In February of 1939, the blues singer Minister Silver Hughes was shot in the heart while playing at a dive bar in Jefferson, Mississippi and died eighteen hours later in his mother’s house while a veterinarian tended to his wounds.
While on his deathbed, a song collector from the Library of Congress came to record him play one last song. It is said that the Minister made up the final song on the spot.
Its last word cannot be clearly deciphered. He sings, “The voice rang and echoed of thunder—Come hither unto the meadows/shadows.”
He either sings ‘meadows’ or ‘shadows’. Each word clearly indicates an entirely different theme.
The song itself seems to be a passage unto another world. You can hear the strings tether and bend like candles being lit and his own voice haunts the song as it were the recording of a ghost. He hums the outro—either as a gospel singer or demented soul lost at sea.
It transports you unto the ship where he steers. The destination is either a garden or darkness and is impossible to know which.
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The painter Virgil Day’s masterpiece is considered “Chickamauga,” where he depicts in detrimental detail the dying faces of dozens of Union and Confederate soldiers on the battlefield.
Each soldier Day painted was real, and really died that. Each not yet twenty years old.
Overhead hang clouds shaped as Greek gods and constellations referencing imagery of the New Testsment. The soldiers look up into the night. What are they looking at, I always wondered. It haunts me. What do they whisper into the eternal night.
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One of my favorite poets died of liver failure while on a reading tour in a hotel bath tub. He had a tray of paper and a pencil where he wrote down his final words. They were, “All this darkness that lay ahead…”
It is apparent when looking at the original document that he intended to write something more, some revelation about this world and a world to come, but, obviously died mid-sentence, leaving the reader to agonize forever what comes next.
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I have a recurring dream where I’m being brought to hang in some town in the old west.
There’s the deputy sheriff there to throw a black mask over me before they lower the gallows and a gathering of a hundred some-odd folks who have paid money to bare witness to it. They are excited to see me die.
I see some beautiful eyes out there. I see clouds. Birds. A breeze whispers across my body, casting waves of chills through me. It almost fills like ecstasy.
I am always just fixing to speak my final words on earth before I wake up.
Where It Hurts
Your hands are often too rough. The skin at the edges of your nail beds is peeled back and hardened and has, on occasion, been known to bleed without warning. If I run my thumb along the inside of your palm, I know exactly where it will catch on raised callouses. And even when I’m alone, I can feel the spot where your fingers would rest in the webbing of my own. My skin is electric shocks at the thought of the places where your fingertips most often linger. Nerve endings, attention-wrought. Breath, hitched in tightrope suspension. And I can count your freckles without you in the room. I could draw a map of your skeleton from memory. Place each rib in its exact location. Carve the precise depth of your clavicle. I know the pattern your teeth leave on each of my hips and how your tongue feels restless against my own. My neck can recall each spot where your lips chap and how often your front teeth push past them. I am violently aware of the spots where your hair refuses to lie against your scalp and instead reaches skyward. The sighs and stutters that litter your speech patterns. I can feel the sharp intake of your breath when my teeth close just a bit too hard on your frame. And that slight leak of CO2 in nighttime stillness. I sleep, dizzy in your exhales as they fill up my inhales. I would swear I have been constructed from the realization of the space that you fill in relation to all of the emptiness I leave behind. And you forgot the color of my eyes.
*this piece is from my newest collection baby, sweetheart, honey coming in January and available wherever books are sold.
[1]
B(ecause)L(ove)U(susally)E(nds)
I'm that hue again
Imbued by tears lost on wind.
Tears that paint our sky.
[2]
BeforeLonelinessUsurpedEarth
Blue shades would twinkle
Turquoise shone a tone so bright,
Mistook for sunlight.
[3]
BeholdLifesUniqueEnchantments
Blue eyes can't surmise;
The Blue hue of our water
Makes seen Blue the skies.
listen to me
you're loved and there's nothing you can do
you can't convince them otherwise
you can't reveal a plan you don't have
surrender to this exhaustion you feel
the tire from controlling
controlling the direction
the distance
the amount
the size
you can't keep up with yourself forever
let others tell you the truth
because you seem to have lied to yourself
you're fallible and loved
fail and love them back
Here
Here I surrender all my pain. My thoughts. My hurt.
I block out all that I have encountered in my life, in an attempt to bring out the small amount of light I have left within me.
I surrender to the idea that my life will never be "normal".
I will always be the girl with the dead mom.
I surrender to my surroundings.
I let all the walls cave in my head then rebuild them around my heart.
Here I surrender all that I was, to become who I want to be.
I'm not sure who is looking back in the mirror at me
staring, so blankly, right in front of me
listen, you can hear her breath
so close, looking a mess
the freckles on her nose are faint
angle kisses, they call them, but she ain't no saint
powerful, this feeling of powerlessness
like the cards were dealt and you're left with hopelessness
the knot in my chest, pulling tighter
really, I thought I was a fighter
disappointing, that's what you are
thought you were gonna go so far
depression? no. depressing? yes.
all of the tears, I repress
a song, a movie, a spot of wine
completely appropriate to cry
anything else? it's not ok
for that's a sign you're not ok
want to scream want to shout
but inside, the throat's a drought
it's not a dream
it's the self-esteem
it's all ego
hard to let it go
look again, in the reflection
all I see is what lacks affection
all those dreams and none of them pipe
now, like the reflection is a daguerreotype
nothing but the image
nothing but the shape
all form no matter
and so, what is the matter?
what is hard in this present moment
and what is so difficult of this bestowment
this gift of divine charity
not so divine, even in memory
for this bestowment can only be granted
if these thoughts go unplanted
surrender the mind, surrender the thoughts
let go of all that is fraught
battle the fret with love and care
even if there's not much flare
listen inside, the solutions are there
every time you lack some air
The Audience
Under the spotlight she stands
The audience cheers, awaiting
Forgotten dreams and empty hands
No strength left for daring
Familiar shadows lurk
Echos of paralyzing ambition
Knees-down on a spiraling stage
Nothing but blurry vision
Arms weak, thoughts clouded
No words to speak except 'sorry'
Turned away and broken-hearted
Drowning in what once was glory
Under the spotlight, she fell
The audience cheers, awaiting
She sinks into their voices
Surrendering to hell