Il Bacio Della Morte (the kiss of death)

To whom do I write?
To you that would love.
 
What is this place that sadness echoes here
though sadness has no voice?
If tears were the ocean would you cry them for me,
that I might drown in them and find my depth?
 
What is passionless marriage,
but slow torture and quicker death.
I am as the Rock of Gibralter.
What else can one be,
caressed by the beckoning seas,
separate,
but ever anchored to the unyielding shore?
 
***
 
[No Man's Land]
 
That which had been kept for so long by silent agreement
Crumbles without a word
From having looked too long into its emptiness
And I seem so much less in my own eyes than I ever seemed to be
Shades of gray stand out too starkly
for my truths and lies
And I rationalize
And alibi
And people who speak incessantly of joy are as lost to me
As the cawing carried on the winds
Of ravens come to the feast of the dead
 
Who thinks love goes out in such a blaze
As love did first conceive
Comments become wars
And wars become irrelevant
And so I stand  between the trenches
In no man's land
 
The hard frost of morning
And the cold starlight before dawn
Matches the numb within
Every death a birth
Every birth a death
They say beyond the war torn land
There lie fields where flowers grow
To mark the death of love
Blooming row on row
 
There’s a pain in the sound of a door’s closing
Without a word being spoken
As if silence said so much more than words
And what are a thousand words flung back and forth
Spoken but never heard
Perhaps just the winds of souls in passing
So much like ships in the night
And how could that which once touched so deeply
Pass without a trace
What is the dying of countless days
 
I’d hold you in my arms bathed in the tears of a love I could not save
But we push away or we withdraw
Having forgotten how
But knowing it’s the touch which matters
The touch which has been missing
Here in no man’s land
Between the trenches I didn’t realize we were digging
Love was once a garden where whispered love
And now hisses blame
Talking but not talking
Knowing without saying
And all else seems to fail but pain
And the air hangs heavy
 
One day I had wandered far and realized the trenches were merely ruts
To each our own
And together a pair
Rote, repetition and patterns
Careful lines of demarcation within which all was well
But to step out into no man’s land…
Seems I’m a rather foolish thing
I longed to breath
I longed to live
But you can’t hear these words when I say them to you
They’re a gauntlet thrown down
A rebuke
A lie
Everything but the truth in your eyes

I hate the words
I hate the silences
I hate the distance being so close
Talk to me
Yell at me
Acknowledge me – what I’m saying
Ignored doesn’t change a thing
Silence doesn’t make words unspoken
Come up out of your trench there’s room enough in no man’s land
I’ve forgotten what I’m fighting for
I’ve heard the war is over
 
Which kiss was the kiss of death
Il  bacio della morte
That lulled to sleep all that followed
That in some faithless moment said
This is enough
And passion faltered
Why does talking devolve into who’s at fault
That you’re at fault
And that I don’t care
So it’s my fault
It’s just knife fighting in the trenches
Choosing between watching Jeopardy or staring at the walls
And what is the fight really about
Fighting too is passion
Passion fighting for life before it dies
 
Worlds end
Why not ours
With a whimper or a bang
Doesn’t matter
Endings don’t erase
That which holds a place in time
They’re simply new births
New beginnings
Fresh starts which promise no better end
Then what’s the point
Its chance
Just a chance
Who doesn’t want to live again
And what is life without love and love without passion
Simply a prison
And I want to be free