Departure, A Poem R.M. Engelhardt

DEPARTURE

Upon broken lives &
Broken hearts we laughed
At the moments of our
Possibilities. The words
Of our own years made
Into immortality posted up
On virtual walls of a vanquished
Time where we each shared our
Common souls, common ground

We have seen & heard all
The new & the old. Generations
Pass and repeat our idols remain
Untouched

But in the burning time of the
Unpredictable winds the earth
Stops… Spins anew. The atmosphere
Has changed, the children laugh
As we falter with the power of kings

I have told Shelly. I have told Whitman.
Byron, Bukowski, Rumi & Yeats

That there are no rooms left here
To stay in. You are free.

Elliot in dismay speaks of hollow men
Harrison of old legends & the dead

And I myself once said;

That I cannot walk into these churches anymore
That I am an unwelcome stranger, a visitor from
Another realm, perhaps of place and circumstance
Wither and the fault of seasons, another prayer
Forever never seen nor heard the sound of money
Clinking in metallic plates of some unknown savior’s
Eternal flesh

For I am the true believer of the all and the nothing
The holy redeemer of an unseen faith where
The ghosts of my own making roam

A form of chaos/magick/and verse

The human form rising from the ashes
From the evolution of self love & doomed life all
Within the same sacred breath where

Perhaps you can no longer hear me

Yea, no longer see me

But these words still remain
The poem still remains
On a frozen day a fixed point

For what I know is everything
What I know is nothing

The death of such things decays

Like the words upon a page

For tomorrow I leave for an
Unknown place

An empty house
Waiting to be filled with
Another voice another book
Full of things unseen

Unheard

So goodnight to the verses
Of other days

Through the looking glass I go

Transformed by the desolation &
The astonishment of age

No longer to be easily placated
By mere muses & sirens or consumed by
The chains of what once was or could be

In one of the many rooms a child reads:

This is a book of poetry
This is what it’s supposed to be

So he threw it into the flames instead

Because there were no dancing horses
No songs or heroes and all the princesses
Never spoke to neither the sun
Or the moon or the stars

And the trees never spoke to them

At all

A disappointment
And a lack of faith that
Everything & anything

Is possible

~ R.M. Engelhardt
©2023