The Poetry of Darkling Plain

Me

Me

I made an etching of my soul
At the bottom of a fine red goblet -
And only you could see straight through,
Down past the dregs
Where others glimpse the prima facia me.
As darkly through a mirror I pass
The depths of my soul in verse,
To wit -
Note that I am well dressed here.
Victorian sensibilities never stopped me
From laying my soul bare,
While on this plane I'm all high collar
And mutton sleeves...
A spit-stained handshake is what I offer
At the bottom of the parting glass.

~Darkling Plain, Jun. 26, 2008

Hurt Like Hell

I loved the way you signed your name

With a keyboard at the end.

The end.

Where we put down our pens.

Two lunchtime freaks

You passed me music sheets

I passed you poetry

We passed the year

In the mutual appreciation society.

I won't be coming back next year

Between tears you said everything would

Be alright.

I wouldn't be writing poems about

People in the middle of the night

About to kill themselves.

I said you were going to be a great musician

And I'd proudly claim I knew you when

Keep in touch

Lost touch

Last touch

Eighteen years old

Such a bold year

To be alive.

My soul broke

The day I heard,

And my pen ran dry

As my tears ran steady.

Now here I sit

At thirty-four

Your picture on my desk

Your words in my mind

You're still as young

As I remember.

My pen is full my muse,

Speak to me.

~Darkling Plain, Apr. 11, 2008

Lapdog

Lapdog

Lapdog sitting at the crotch of the king
He thinks he's the one in control.
Bays to the moon with a silver spoon
By lives expended untold.
Neutered in the back
By a dung sodden hack
Who claims he is leige to the throne,
Lapdog licks at the killing floor
Blood of countless souls unknown.
He thinks he's pedigreed
But anyone can see
That he's just another mutt -
A plaything for the nut
Who sits at the head of the table,
Thinks the crumbs are steak
But they'll break him just the same
When the master gets tired of the game

~Darkling Plain, Mar. 31, 2007

The Weary Traveler (man by the roadside)

Sitting alone on his netted chair throne
The king waits for word from the sages
He stares at the world of modern disdain
And the banal deceit of the ages.
Across the divide of time and of tide
The bridegroom waits long for the bride -
Torn at the seams both his coat and his dreams
Sit idle till the end of these times.
He knew of a place and her sweet, gentle face
He was once one of seven lords gone,
He now sits with the dust -
The mold and the rust
A vagabond fool he is bound.
In a world with no mercy,
For to love him is heracy
He langors in foul imitation,
They say he's insane but he knows the truth plain
This world is but transient station.
Devoid of the right and cloaked in the night
Of death and scarce imagination,
He smokes the blunt nub of a used cigarette
As his thoughts they float far
(Fireflies in a jar)
And he muses with anticipation -
We're a spec on a spec on a spec here below
There are millions of worlds left to see,
But he vows to stay here to learn what he may
The easy way never is free.
As he drifts off to sleep just another lost soul
He visits his home from afar
In etherial dream
Life is not what it seems
But visions, sometimes they are.

~Darkling Plain, Mar. 10, 2007

Dreams and Awakenings

She bent to discover

The blood of her lover
Smeared aimlessly across the stair,
The deep shade of claret
As two pairs of eyes met
She noted the grey of his hair -
And all of the lies she once told herself
Laid bare with the truth they were bidden
He was gone for so long
With his thought and his song,
She was laid low when she recognized him.
He studied her face and caught a swift trace
Of shared dreams he knew were for certain,
She brushed his hair back 'neath the gooey sweet tack
That covered his face while emerging.
And an ounce of congition
Like stocked ammunition
Exploded behind the reflection,
Of lifetimes ago when they really did know
And played in the backyard of Eden.
He sang her a song
And she sat there rapt, long
And discovered she already knew -
She sang sweet in time
With indelible rhyme
As the two became one in the moment,
The world fell away as they began to play
On the stings of the songs of the ages.

~Darkling Plain, Feb. 6, 2006

Tomorrow

I'm searching for you
In every crestfallen face,
Every downtrodden place
Every dive.
I'm hunting big game
But the stakes are the same
And I'm feeling just less than alive.
I've gone over and back
through every dark track
and every odd branch you left bended -
At the end of the road
The streets paved with gold
Of every heart broken made mended.
I've only begun to gaze at the sun
To go blind would be well worth the prize,
Pentance I've made on this purgatory plane
I lay prostrate at the doors of this Eden -
Reflect on a life
The pain and the strife
Given to all to learn lessons.
The secrets laid bare,
The joy that we share
Will shake in the boughs of the heavens -
In the end we shall be
Like the limbs of that tree
Bended not broken -
Resplendent.

~Darkling Plain, Jan. 15, 2007

Babel

Pain is pain is pain I said

The outside's dark, the inside's red

A tower of Babel – it matters not

Pain is pain is pain.

Blood is blood is blood I know

The darkest red we never show

Just suck it up and swallow whole

Blood is blood is blood.

Guilt is guilt today, tomorrow

Useless, selfish shallow sorrow

A painful pleasure in which we wallow
Guilt is guilt is guilt.

Apathy is apathy is apathy, you see

Never mind, you bother me

The world be damned I say to thee!

Apathy is apathy after all.

Thus life is life is life I wrote

A wheel of fortune on which we're broke

From feast or famine we all are bloat

And Atlas, all of us, I note

Life is life is life.

~Darkling Plain, Nov. 15, 2006