inarticulable

Do you realize
my frustration when I fail every day
to pour my whole soul onto paper?
What once seemed so simple
now comes over me
like an overwhelming infinity
I cannot tie down with shallow words.

Language is not enough.

I wish I were an artist,
not a writer
suffocating in scribbled alphabets that,
like rusty beads threaded onto an endless thread
in the dusty corner
by the window of a forgotten attic,
stare sullenly at breathtaking marvels
of sunsets and starry nights
and you.

Language is not enough.

You deserve watercolour skies,
pale blue, tinged with the shifting greys of your stormy eyes
and violets of night, the faery gold-saffrons of sunsets:
only such pure magic is a worthy background;
not crooked phrases on notebook paper,
nor struck off lines,
nor the telltale haste of blotted ink.

Language is not enough.

Soft distant song that melts souls,
mends hearts, may bring you to life
in brief, timeless harmonies…
I wish I lived music
so I’d veil impassive keyboard clicks
with heartbreaking violins,
the wonder in wordless whispers of flutes.

Language is not enough.

Someday, you might fathom how
no faerytales, nor poetry
hold the miraculous ability
to live to tell of unearthly wonders
of heartbreaking joy,
of promises, forevers,
of you.

Someday, perhaps you’ll fathom why
language won’t ever be enough.

T. E. Pyrus

embers and silence..,

She skips stones o’er shallow darkness
that ripples ’round her bare ankles.
twilights trace her lorn shoulders and soul,
pale wristlets of sunset that grace her wrists
burn bright, searing like heartbreak,
yet smoulder forever like untiring love;
her eyes, grey like shadow, twinkle with wry mirth
o’er shallow darkness, like faery knights
of new moon, vows of pure sunlight
every dawn; her hair, dear as midnight,
curtains wistful smiles: gentle curve of her frayed lips,
gentle hope that never fully breaks with falling time;
her laughter wakes the melancholic night;
o’re shallow darkness, wishing stars shine bright..,

T. E. Pyrus

ectoplasmic love

Hear me, folks of love and loss,
of heartbreak and of pain,
as I watch you from my window,
when you’re dancing in the rain.

I have tiptoed in your footsteps
through midnight and through snow.
I whispered in your shadows, hoped
you’d hear but never know.

Yet, I never bridged the river
of my sorry flood of tears,
and wrote poetry in silence
of your silhouette for years.

Hear me, dancing angel,
in your yellow rain boots bright,
while I melt into the gray-scale
of this ectoplasmic night.

T. E. Pyrus

magic

i believe in magic.
i believe that dewdrop pearls
on spider web necklaces
make the world go ’round;
and every ray of waking light
in between the stars tonight
blessed with night owls’ song
brings dreams to sleepless souls
and hope to those whose
tears run like little streams
reflecting the morning,
born quiet from its cocoon
of purple darkness;
i believe in waking sleep
when light and shadow
play in between the curtains
at dawn, and coffee and
the painting on the wall
of beauty and childlike joy;
i believe in laughter
when you step out the door
and it spills onto the side walk,
down the street, replacing
mundane with imagination;
i believe in silence and afternoons,
the birds that lose their way
in the warm winds,
travelling across blue skies
like the quiet before a storm;
i believe in sunsets that sprinkle
hope in the eyes of
young forlorn lovers,
intertwined fingers,
memory in minds
of those who feel heartbeats
and heartbeats before
they fade to a dull,
aching memory of
heartbroken love,
home in the hearts
of travellers who fade
like ghosts into the dusk;
i believe in storms
that light the evening
in magenta and fairy lights
that burn into the skin
of the sky: the hour for tears
that melt from souls
of wrinkles and comforting smiles,
the cool drops that sting in the wind
and fuse into hope,
a wistful joy of crushing
bitterness in your fingers
right before it takes over your soul;
i believe in stars,
a billion burning lights
in the sky that twinkle
like slow, breathless passion
that paints instinct
over thought, ecstasy
in her fingers in my hair,
and no one to care for
seconds that countdown to silence;
i believe in midnight,
the quiet, ticking clock
and cinderella’s hurried
footsteps down the staircase,
fingertips that almost don’t touch,
eyes that whisper in silence;
i believe in words, silent love,
i believe in magic.

T. E. Pyrus

cupid’s crayons

i heard you singing in my sleep,
that distant ringing that brings
yellow to the crayon drawing
of the sun. the little red barn
and the river running by,
the sunset and the morning that
brighten up the sky.

with your burning beauty
like cupid and death
that leaves my stumbling,
bleeding like tears
and nobody hears your
restless fingertips on the glass.

look through the mirror,
and maybe you’ll see
what i see in in your
laughter.

when you look at me,
love, do you see me blinded by
my sorry tears, this apology of
a side character in my own life?

see me helpless as i gaze
at your receding shoulders
into the distance, down the road
less taken?

do you see my
breath running wild across
meadows that envelope forevers
when i wait at the crossroads
of heartbreak and desperation?

i’ll walk a million miles through
sand and snow, and all i want you
to know is i’ll remember
each phrase you flung
my way in your act of
wistful apathy.

when you
watch every sunset with
your golden eyes brighter
than the sun, full of thought
and sophisticated emotion,
not a drop for me,
and walk away with your
victory, and announce your
cursed sentence: heartbroken for evermore.

now while i walk from door to door
for make-up to cover my tears,
nail-paint to cover my bloodstained
fingers that claw at my heart in my throat.
unmoved, you shall walk away,
once you kill me with
your gentle smile.

spontaneous combustion is an art.

T. E. Pyrus

paper boats

like soul spilt on mounted canvas-
never once a touch of ink,
eyes like dewy flowers: open
’til they glitter to the brink,

tears like candlesticks that melt
and freeze: cold, yet standing tall,
red like bleeding heart that’s broke
and lonely autumn leaves that fall,

purple like late sunset clouds’
swirling, swaying evening trance,
like picture frames in railway tracks:
never once a second glance,

let your dreams, like paper boats,
sail and sink in rippling moon,
and never once reach out, and watch
them fading ’til they’re gone too soon…

T. E. Pyrus

ruby redress

if I had a
pretty penny for
every pretty heart
i broke, i’d be
a millionaire, a
billionaire in my
white marble prison,
green beryl to deck
the halls beside
the bloody ruby
footprints, bloody
hand prints on the
walls of them
who tried to mend
this icy heart, lay
shattered on the
floor, like glass
that cut through
pretty tales like
fingernails, and
then they were
no more; there’s
a person in my
closet, see a
broken soul behind
each door that
lines the throne room,
bloody trails that
line the floor so
i could watch you
shatter like i
broke and loved
the sinner for my
own, loved the
sin even more like a
drop in the sea,
no, don’t you look
at me, you’ll
have your train
of bloodied lovers
by your candlestick
at tea, with red wine
and old cheese as
they burn with
all your memory,
why don’t you see
that I am fatigued
by this game,
it’s the same
old confusion,
industrial revolution
like charlie chaplin
on replay forever more
in silence; but i’ll
repent, that i
will, and carve all
your names in
blue gold, white
sapphire, then
bring you by
hair and the fire
in your eyes,
reflecting my multitude
of pitch layered
lies, see rain
pouring in,
ragged glass,
bleeding skin, breathing
cherry blood
on the floor;
your ragged wrist
on my whip, ragged
name on my lips
pray, “forgive me,
forgive me no more!”

T. E. Pyrus