Featured Poet - Chris Marshall

ELEGANCE IN RUIN

As the day ends, the Sun,

that mistress of the Horizon

kisses its edges in gentle embrace.

The City prepares,

Like a starring diva,

for her evening performance,

Her lights take on a glow, softly at first,

but growing in the sun’s lazy retreat

The towers swell, a revealing corset of light,

And neon signs, her rouge and blush

Streetlamps and traffic lights

Invite me to trace her lines and curves

With the fading of the dusk, her full beauty revealed.

She stands alone, like the rare red-phalarope, reversing roles,

elusively seeking her mate,

Untamed and exotic—

She pursues me

From my perch I watch her,

She beckons me—

I am drawn towards her, lured to her tender touch—

Her luminous beauty on full display, 

a siren’s song

But while I think she wants my intimate touch --

Her true desire: to hold my gaze—

Flashing a perfected flourish with a dealer’s wink

Her motions hypnotizing,

like a cardsharp playing three-card monte,

She wants distraction

to be my focus

Enchanted, she builds my anticipation

To keep me from wandering towards

the shadows—

she’s wrapped like lace, around her 

scars and bruises,

clinging to her, cautiously revealing what she knows I crave.

The lace’s tattered edge obscuring hidden truth —

elegant excess … exhausted exiguity--

dancing in the folds

She fears I will pull back the lace curtain,

feeling its rough, tattered edges

Not to reveal a wizard of illusions 

pullinglevers,

But something darker

Her forgotten people—

tucked away neatly

Filling the spaces in between,

behind the dumpsters and concrete half-walls

Seeking warmth from steam-vents and pipes

The night covers them like so many broken dreams

Souls crying out, wrapped in threadbare blankets of darkness.

Shame and despair rest upon her shoulders,

She knows her beauty stops —

where the shadows start.

Yet she dances and sings 

until the breaking of dawn

Desperate for my acceptance

Dreading the Sun--

that whore,

who embraces the Sky,

as it had only hours earlier,

the Horizon.

It’s all-seeing light seeking to lay her bare,

exposed.

And as she drifts towards slumber—

My heart grows heavy beneath the weight of her anguish

How could such a broken lady ever feel the embrace she longs for?

Can my nightingale find her true love song again?

Perhaps if her wounds are seen and mended--

Or,

Perhaps—

Her song will only be heard in the dreams of the forgotten.

RECKONING IN WHITE

1) The Quest

He awakes, lost and confused

It’s like this—

most days

The journey has been

long,

tiring,

consuming.

He can’t remember the last time

He felt full —

warm —

safe

He feels a chill that pushes to his bones

His breath comes out in clouds

Struggling to remember

the story he had heard

the night before, Where

perhaps he could find—

The Devil!

If he could best that monster

Perhaps—

He could find elusive peace

This journey had a promise

Of an ending,

a reckoning,

an absolution!

He gathers his things

and neatly puts them in his sack.

His energy renewed, something long lost—

Hope, perhaps.

A cycle’s end

2) The Beginning

He’s chased that Demon for longer than

He cares to remember, or

Can remember,

black voids in time.

It was before his first touch of a woman

And how long since that—

gentle, beautiful Susanna,

that evil Shade killed her,

(Or was it him? Memory blurs.)

Though dark veils and

Shaky dream fragments

He remembers having more.

A home.

A family.

His mother’s comforting hugs.

That Demon!

That dark Thief!

wiped them away.

Oh, to feel his mother’s warm hug again,

Could that be this journey’s reward?

3) The Dram

Before he can leave, he needs his Fix

His tether to life is frail, this he feels deep

And without that Dram,

the vial,

His light would be extinguished.

That black nectar.

It’s acidic aroma

It’s longing promise

Oh, to find it in abundance,

It’s source 

Thank the gods he found Her though,

his sweet Apothecary

She saw his pain,

could smell his decline

But she had

The Cure,

that she did!

And she would always share

her supply of potion, for a small cost.

(Not like Henry, he was hiding his!)

Who knows where she got it,

or by who’s hand It was created.

Perhaps to know,

Would make it have less power

All he needed was its warmth

and comfort

All she asks for in trade

In embrace.

A moment

Two broken people

Lustful urgency—

Borrowed mercy against the cold

4) The Journey

Better now, he rises—

His mind and heart focused

Seeking the Demon, he goes

Seeking retribution—

for all those who fell before,

Is that the Devil?

No!

(just his own reflection)

Rippled—

distorted—

shimmering on a puddle—

Focus!

A seeming infinite line of friends departed

(But were they ever here?)

That wretched Demon,

did he plant them in his head,

a distraction?

But no more,

No more would that Devil eat!

And with his sack in hand,

he walks—

He barely recognizes the cold wasteland before him,

covered in soft snow

Great towers stretch up,

Black—

Reminding him of Henry’s shared poems—

Perhaps a knight sought this tower

And blew upon his horn.

5) The Ghosts

He searches his thoughts,

for names—

Faces,

friends, 

Lost

Taken by

That nameless Demon.

No peace to be found

Only carnage and ruin

came from its folds

Time has eroded

most of who once was

Susanna, so young and sweet.

Fresh with life

Once, she had told him she loved him

She dreamed of dancing, a princess, lost

In the end, scabs covering

her earlier beauty

She died,

As he tried to cut the Devil’s seed--

From her womb

They covered her in a white blanket

And Henry the warrior,

the poet

Always one to share,

both stories and food

until that Demon and his friends came

And stabbed him for his elixir

Betrayed, Henry had such confusion on his face

Like one betrayed by a friend

Tears fill his eyes as their ghosts walk with him

He tries to converse, but as always just

silence—

To hear Susanna’s golden songs again—

Or Henry’s bard-like verses

His heart grows heavy as nostalgia overtakes him

Just a Hit,

a sweet Fix to help it—

beat a little stronger.

No more would that Devil eat!

6) The Encounter

He feels that dark force near,

his stench, his—

Gravity,

pulling in anything beautiful,

smothering

Ahead he spots it.

A face he could not forget

His heart races.

He’s found the Demon! Looking smug, amused.

His black form silhouettes 

The pale wall of the structure behind him

So filled with rage and anger, he yells,

“YOU!” He tries to say more—

The words die in his throat

He just stands there frozen—

pointing in accusation,

the Demon mockingly points back—

his image distorted,

Such hatred, such fire. All reasoning goes 

Black—

He pushes forward, but the weight of conflict

Forces him to stop—

staggers him.

He tries again

Screaming in an incoherent explosion,

Every vein exposed, pulsing, fueling his fire

“YOU!” again, no other words find escape.

The Devil says something,

unheard,

unblinking

Why doesn’t he move, why doesn’t he speak?

7) The White

He takes one more Dram, to gird himself

but this time—

pain hits—

Deep in his belly, like a bolt of lava

He folds in half, like his spine, severed

Feet spread,

he holds his balance,

locked in place

Darkness comes flowing in, lungs struggle to move

He’s wearied, and this feels like the last

And as the darkness fills the voids,

And his heart beats its last, a flash

Bright light erases everything,

Now only nothingness

stark whiteness

And then,

a visitor from long ago:

His mother—

“Mom?, sorry!”

Her warm embrace,

Her sweet smile,

Love?

Then nothing

no more would I eat

8) The Reckoning 

An ambulance comes for him, 

someone made a call,

“The fifth one this week”,

one paramedic says 

to the other

“What a waste” the other replies, 

shakes his head

“His Name?”

(It was John, his mother whispers) ”No idea”

zips the bag—

Detached,

“I always wonder what they see when they’re high”

~

ABOUT THE POEMS: "I wrote Elegance in Ruin first, from observations of our city, Edmonton. My wife and I were staying at a hotel in the downtown area for our anniversary. We spend time walking around at night. I was struck by the juxtaposition of luxury hotels and restaurants, with un-homed folks sleeping in the alleys behind them. Reckoning in White becomes a step into the forgotten people mentioned in Elegance in Ruin.