Corridor of Hope

'Corridor of Hope'

A distant race down a long dark corridor,
like life, like love sometimes;
Flitting between the dark columns and silent doorways,
the brief illumination of an open window,
the dim flicker of a bare bulb,
an echo of a hope recalled,
forever running towards some distant light
at the far end of an endless dark passage,
hoping, hoping that the light
doesn't fade before you tire,
hoping again, that the light opens out,
into fields of wild flowers, summer glory,
the sunlit joy of your own giddy story,
bursting through the doors enraptured.
The imagined transcendence of hope,
a salve in this night of the mottled soul,
the dim and dark place of flight.
A 'corridor of hope',
the narrow passage of each fateful soul,
sharp, as trust is sharp, and narrow,
keen as a razors edge,
that slides beneath your heavy feet.
Only time, and these ceaseless footsteps,
the endless pace of this running game,
keeps that sliver of hope alive.
The narrow blade of uncertainty,
that stretches on forever from beyond,
seems to grow ever longer with each fateful step,
an eternity of unrealized promise.
Who can tell where we run to,
or what we run from,
who but the shadow, knows the light,
knows the fears of those darkened columns,
or the cold steel cut of each fading hope denied,
the passage of the dark passing,
the colonnades of this fates design.
We breathe hope,
raise our weary souls
and hurtle towards that light.
Who is to say whether we will reach that open door,
before the light goes out,
or it closes for the last time,
locked, forevermore.
Will it be a dream realized,
or in some nightmare of our own design,
will we run the endless corridor?
Hope, hope remains...
but sometimes, the faster we run,
the longer that hallway becomes.

© Richard Michael Parker 2011




Many Thanks to Michelle Merle Pace for the inspiration for this piece, and use of her imagery. All copyright for the image remains the exclusive property of the artist and may not be copied, changed or transmitted without the prior consent of the artist. Thank you Michelle.

The Last Letter

The Last Letter

The last letter in an open book,
a chapter of verse and heartache,
of soft fluttering airs,
that breathe upon these waters between us.
As you cover yourself for the last time,
your eyes shine,
and in those shimmering dreams,
tears that have filled these seas,
paint your lashes with filigree's of fine dew,
a moistened remembrance of you.
The glistening sheen of your crystal eyes,
disappears within this fading vision,
a distant movement of purple and blue.
This old tattered parchment,
dry as the years of windswept sands,
in this desert of our parting,
is all that i hold of your heart now.
The tattered remnants,
flake from the edges of this memory,
and in the distance,
your song echoes out its final sweet note,
painted in the honeyed rapture,
of our orange blossomed youth.
The last letter in an open book,
hidden secrets,
a chapter and verse of heartache,
and rapture,
and you.

© Richard Michael Parker 2011 


My very greatest thanks to Raine for her gracious collaboration, and wondrous inspiration.  All artistic copyright remains the property of Inner Voice Art, and cannot be copied or transfered without prior permission. Thank You Raine :)

Haiku in three parts

Haiku in three parts

1.

Remember the Sun
climbing through the clouds
as the rain falls

2.

Climbing through the clouds
as the rain falls
remember the Sun

3.

As the rain falls
remember the Sun
climbing through the clouds

© Richard Michael Parker 2011 

Mark of Cain

Mark of Cain

This field was plowed and sown with grief,

and marked with sentient hubris,

the cries of wanton years relief,

fell deaf upon this distress.

For in my pride and vaunted soul,

I slew each angels gift,

and offered up this cracked bells toll,

this hearts discordant rift.

Standing at the end of my dreams,

staring into a wasteland of emptiness,

every shattered hope is seems,

becomes a shroud of vacuousness.

No more road to walk upon,

just dust beneath these worn out shoes,

the tattered cloths of a worn out sun,

descend into this night of blues.

Dreams die... and so do I,

with every fading faltering step,

no more hope or moistened eye,

to keep these shattered bones I've kept.

They crumble, break, and fall to dust,

and find that they are not alone,

for in this parched and bloody trust,

a billion souls to hell have blown.

So do not walk upon this road,

you'll find that it has but one end,

to carry such a heavy load,

down into heartless death my friend.

Turn back towards the dawns first light,

or reap the scorn of loves disdain,

to find yourself in endless flight,

for you'll have worn the mark of Cain.

© Richard Michael Parker 2011

Dancing with the Stars

Dancing with the Stars

On sultry summer nights, in the wilds of my mind, surrounded by the swift gusting brush of natures hallowed breath, I feel my soul rise into the dark open sky, surrounded by a million flaming wheels that spin and twirl in a giddy dancing swirl of light and fire! There in the flame of your touch, I shudder and sweep across your surface, aflame with a soulful desire, the dip of sanguine hips flicker in the night, enraged and aroused by this tango of wild delight, to whir in shameless dizziness to the incendiary blur of your shimmering sight, the flash in the fullness of my reflection, splashed across this vision of spinning might, caught in the roar of this suns trembling rhapsody, wrapped in vanquished embrace, bursting into an epiphanic nova, a crescendo of moon and sky, incandescently arcing between these tongues of fire, flicking and licking into the night, one to the other, an incendiary passion of mystery, rapt in this resplendent majesty, shooting across all eternity, tonight.

© Richard Michael Parker 2011

Forbidden Love

Forbidden Love

This silence we have woven,
that spins each silken sticky thread,
is a vanity of hidden conceit,
caught in a web, cocooned in a heartbeat,
muffled, as if all joy was dead,
laced with the bane of the unforgiven moment,
shrouded in the emptiness of every word unsaid.

I have stoned them up, inside my heart,
built a fortress around their emptiness,
and watched as the darkness,
encased all, in forgetfulness,
entombed within this vaulted woe,
one silent brick at a time.

The wanton eloquence of wasted years,
fitful pangs of sullied lives and fears,
enclosed within a stony silence,
stolen heartbeats of forbidden love,
forlorn yearnings, trapped within an endless gloom,
to sing forever behind this stonewalled tomb.

We are enshrined within this mausoleum,
bound, gagged, and desecrated,
confiscated, man handled, and manipulated;
Tongue tied and twisted, shamelessly misled,
torn apart, lost, within a phony fugue,
forlorn, these fated hearts are bled.

Each muffled beat, squeezed through time,
forgotten remnants of loves light, and laughter,
shining through the cracks and shards, slide,
between each earthen brick, and hallowed mortar,
a fiery mix of blood and pride,
a sepulchre to this tethered halter.

Come, my love, and smash this wall to dust,
tear down this stony silent place, you must!
and let these hearts resound in joy once more,
to fly into a golden light, and soar,
on soulful wings effulgently elated,
my twin souled love, forever, we have waited.

© Richard Michael Parker 2011

To Kate and William

Bonded

This Penetrating wind,
sensate gusts,
formless unions embraced,
redoubled in soulful resonance.
How does one separate a unity?
Bonded at the roots,
connected through all eternity.
Time and space,
distant illusions to an infinite soul,
a shared remembrance of two made whole,
one soul, housed in separate forms,
metering out the hours of our passing,
waiting.
Life to life,
moment to moment,
caught in an eternal present,
forgetful of this timeless unity.

No death, nor passage from this gray world,
no distance, or time, nor separation,
no harsh words, or bitter scorn,
no damned plague, nor heart forlorn,
no broken bridge, nor trust divided,
no sullied lives, nor minds left chided,
could ever break this ring, united.

Its truth, was in a kiss revealed,
its time, within two hearts concealed,
forgotten but for a little while,
rejoined by soul-filled fated guile.
These soulful winds, each penetrated,
restoring love, reverberated,
recounted, in each soul retold,
reborn anew, this love of old.
Each waking moments skintight bliss,
manufactured in this kiss,
was formed in loves bright bonded hearth,
and schooled in smelted parted bath.
In silence... both souls entwine,
and whisper of a love divine,
A majesty, both full and wrought,
in unity, both halves are caught,
and wrapped around, each one together,
the fulsome coil of timeless tether,
completed in this ring tied knot,
to birth new hope, in spring begot.

This Penetrating wind,
that soulfully resonates between the spaces,
speeds time, to broach those distant places,
leaving all those hard woes behind.
Impassioned memories,
the birthing pains exposed,
a sufferance of repose.
Yet, tight is the bond born of suffering,
the fiery trials, the endless yearning,
redoubling fortitude in the burning.
No bond born in so frightful a forge,
could ever be broke,
or rent by wanton tongues that first bespoke.
The tarnished remnants of remembrance,
chipped away, polished in the light.
Loves revelation of golden unity,
a ring of glistening luster,
dazzling and bright,
unbroken,
whole,
a bond of remembrance,
a unity of soul.

© Richard Michael Parker 2010

The Face Remained The Same

The Face Remained the Same

Thrust upon his throne,

he read his letter,

blind;

and turned the words, one with another,

in her mind:

He wept, forlorn.

The tap water hissed,

a snake in his miasmatic mist:

solemnity turned it out,

and it left the bitter sacrarium of his mind,

His very own pernicious inner blind.

With each brief tear,

a year.

He was alone.

A charted wilderness of boundless boundaries:

Driven, he would wander,

until at razors edge,

life would reveal a death.

We toss our own coin, an epoch or an epitaph,

heartily he would laugh;

The bastion, his spirited whole,

the only true soul.

For laughter offers all a gate,

to meliorate, this ambivalent

and capricious fallacy, we honor as reality.

Heartily he laughed,

a Brahmans smile.

Yet his face remained the same.

© Richard Michael Parker 1987

My Friend

My Friend

She said, 'My Friend'...
It ebbs and flows.
Be as constant as the tide...
for it is a pleasant place to hide,
on occasion, when you find your spirits sagging,
and yearn for the quiet enclosure of a closeted space,
where music and grace are the constancies found within!
stop a while,
and do not regret the ebbing of that tide,
for even stars fade, when the Sun broaches the dawn;
Yet, their light is echoed in that brilliant day,
do not mourn,
for they resound again in the dusk,
to herald the coming of the night.
Do not fret at the passing of time...
but wait a while,
and see that time rejoined,
for all things that pass,
pass this way again.
It is an eternal recurrence... 'My Friend',
but NOT, of the same.
For nothing that has been so touched,
by the starlight of that place,
ever remains the same,
forever it is changed,
and changed again.
To pass the hours in listless musings,
amongst those subtle ears,
whose hearts do ring through all those constant years;
A tolling bell of communion,
friends one with another...
lending their hearts to all,
as a sun does lend its warmth to a summers day...
stay a while,
and we shall see the night come again,
and we shall play music,
and laugh once more,
'My Friend'.

© Richard Michael Parker 2011

Artwork: Unknown 

False Hope

-False Hope-

Left in a passage of dark deep despair,
no light to illumine the agony there,
crouched in a corner of some foul design,
you ache with some remnant of longing resigned.

These wounds that have bled out your heart, that once loved,
are wickedly opened and deepened, when shoved,
into a box, where your dreams used to be,
residing in emptiness, loves absentee.

Lost in that dark and damp manacled place,
where you sat in your blood that wept down your face,
there was but a fragment, a shred of dim light,
that flickered inside, in the dark of that night.

So you rise, as the light inside See's up ahead,
a crack in the gloom, with a thin wisping thread,
to sow up these wounds, and to make of them scars,
to unlock these self designed prisoners bars.

And all of the time, with a wicked sly grin,
the beast that has hold of your hope from within,
tempts you by stoking that last fading coal,
in the hope it will finally devour your soul.

For it knows, what you don't, in the depths of that place,
that you'll give all you've got to escape from that space,
even in the light of that last dim lit flicker,
it knows it just makes that slope all the bit slicker.

For a glimmer of hope is enough now to kill you,
as the teeth tautly widen around the dark lures woo,
and begin to drip venom in anticipation,
as blindly you wander into that damnation.

The snap of the trap, that now rips through your soul,
as the tocsin erupts from the demonic toll,
is the only dark remnant left in that night,
of a heart finally swallowed by that false hopes fake light.

© Richard Michael Parker 2011