The Burning Shore

-The Burning Shore-

I wait upon this burning shore,
wait, for half a moon,
half a sun, half a soul,
charred in the coals you left behind,
the traces between the spaces of this love,
that fuel the longing of its rebirth;
Silenced by the torture of this night,
pitching in a tormented sea,
blind, in this seering sight,
the emptiness of all eternity.

I wait upon the breakers of this isle,
waves that surge between the gaps,
white horses that bring no news of you,
still, I wait, in perpetuity i wait,
in purgatory, I wait, and waiting, break.

Forlorn, wrapped in this deathly shroud,
knowing only loves echo,
and the cries that sweep upon the depths,
the dark depths,
hollowed in the remnants of this heart,
filled with a briny death,
the drowning depths made the deeper,
as I crack, and come apart.

Loyally I stand, and watch this beauty wither,
the silence devouring my heart,
the sea stripping me bare in the absence of you,
no solace to be found,
not even in the cheerless trill,
of the lonesome nightingale,
a morbid sound,
that sings of hope where none remains,
and leaves but a trace of that bullish tale,
the brave and bold miracle, of dashing guile,
brilliant schemes, a slashing sword,
retold within these desperate dreams.

Oh heart!, break upon these waves,
and bleed into this briny sea,
that I may ride upon the tides of fate,
that took you so very far from me.
Strip the flesh from off these sour bones,
the bitterness of the outcast left alone,
and cast me upon her tireless stroke,
beyond this captive shore,
that I may slap upon her flesh once more,
to rest upon her still beating breast,
a salty residue of all that is left,
Oh heart, let not hopelessness
be the last kiss.

Once, I heard your name echo in my ear,
in some far off ancient palisade,
a passageway of time,
yet time now is but the lengthening of this course,
filled only with the emptiness, and remorse,
the lamentation of your passing.

For when you came,
it was a shadow that crept upon that beach,
filled with the scheming vapour of a mordants speech,
the denizen remnants of ages past,
brought before our alter at last,
and so I waited, again, waited for the daggers breach,
only to find it was not the blade, but poison,
the poison of a heartless kind,
the poison that had poisoned your mind.

Listen dull ear, how the sea does mock me still,
with every hollow whisper,
that seethes upon these bloody sands,
to leap in haughty revelry,
in the anguish of your memory,
drawn upon the tears that weep between my frozen hands.

Yet still I burn, no longer brightly,
no longer the bonfire of passions firth,
that wrecks the fair ship upon this reach,
smashed upon the rocks of this cursed beach,
no longer the crack of sullied bones,
the wailing of the mariners moans,
limp in the maelstroms grip of this sorrow,
a shallow flicker in the dying embers,
the remnant cinders, in the dark and the hollow.
The night closing in ever thicker,
dead coals within a sallow bed of ashes,
heaped upon my head,
the penitent remembrance of the departing,
and the dead.

I am but a shadow that leaps upon the beach,
that sleeps beneath a moonless sky,
wrapped in a shroud of distant speech,
as one by one the stars go out, and die.
Where is the dawn? Where is the light?
Where comes my love from out that endless night?

© Richard Michael Parker 2011