Doors

There's a door of starlight and a door of woven pain. There's a door of rot and a door of rain. One door works only for geckos and rats, and, boy, does that annoy the cats! Beware the door of fear and feign and don't be fooled by the door of tain. Tread quickly through the door of fire and lightly towards your heart's desire. Don't trust the door of love and lies, blink not at the door of a thousand eyes, for doors can harm and doors can heal. Door can betray and doors can steal. Doors give, but demand a toll, if not in coin, then from your soul.
(the image was sourced from Pixabay)

Angel at the Bottom of the Well

To the guy who sat on the sidewalk opposite my apartment yesterday afternoon and spent four hours fishing around for something that must have fell into the gutter and down the drainhole...

I hope the wire hanger helped.

I hope you found what you were looking for.

You reminded me of a song I wrote over a year ago, for a girl caught in a desperate situation. I hope the past year brought her healing and happiness, but here's the song:

It's a long way down
From a princess
to a clown
It's a long way down
from a churchyard
to a shanty town
It's a long way down

I'll be your angel
At the bottom of the well
I'll be your angel
in the sooty, smokey pits of hell
I'll be your angel
But who can tell?

(Chords 1st verse: Am-G-Am-G-Am; 2nd verse: F/D-G/D-F/D-G/D-F/D-Am)

Or I hope you woke up in an alternate reality where nothing is lost or missing or missed. (I hope that for the girl too) Go well.

Not quite #fridayflash fiction: Pondering the Rat King

The Rat King first came into our world three years and three moons ago. He brought a gift, but hid a barb. And in his wake, nothing was ever the same again...

This week I read The Dream Hunters by Neil Gaiman. After I cried for the fox and for the monk, what lingered were the dour words of Dream: 'Lessons were learnt." This is true also of the Rat King. Lessons were learnt. But at times, I can't help wondering:

Will the marks of his claws and his teeth ever heal completely?

Would it be wise to wish some of his trickery undone?

Who was he really?

The Rat King

The Rat King steals
from door to door
Across the wall
and through the floor
He nips your scars
scratching your pain
Because he wants
to make you bleed again

The Rat King sniffs
at your mistakes
He chews and chews
till something breaks
The Rat King rules
the underground
Where only tears
and misery's found

The Rat King tends
that patch of weeds
and waters all
the bitter seeds
and don't you laugh
at his modest size
The Rat King's plotting
your demise

The Rat King sans this wry introduction is one of the poems featured in Secret (a collection of nine poems) by Carine Engelbrecht (i.e. me). It is a free download.

Layers

The mask of skin
is wearing thin
But still you fail to see
The tongue-tied stranger
the friend in danger
Are two faces of me...

You fixed my coat of bearskin hide
But never saw the wound inside
If I reached out to dry your tear
Will you even know I'm here?

Tumba Rumba...

Tumba Rumba
Tumba Rumba
to the bottom
of the hill
Making scars
and seeing stars
I am crying
but I'm flying
still...

(just because... life is precious..)

You must be mistaken...

You must be mistaken
I'm not he
The guy haunting your memories
The wasted life you see...

Once my veins bore the flow of
his brew of guilt mixed with regret
But the angel came and wiped my brow
And his shame seeped out like fever sweat...

You must be mistaken
That's not me
The fool bound to your expectations
Yearning to be free...

I woke up in his skin one night
I thrashed and thrashed to cope
But someone loosened up the knots
And cut his bonds of rope...

winter song...

The familiar embers of the old
burns low
And fierce winds of change
howl and blow
The villains of the future
and the past
I fear they have me
cornered at last...

I tried to reach
for tomorrow
But my fingers slipped
on yesterday's sorrow
And every half made dream
turned to fail
My truth remains
on the other side of the veil... ?

(and i play its melody on my keyboard.... sometimes i sing it myself... sometimes i listen deep into the darkness of hidden dimensions for other voices to take over... t.y.m... i have become a bridge that reaches into other realities, but that has placed me ever closer to the borderlands of this one)

No one...

No one ever noticed
when the world turned cold
that every walking vagabond
wears teeth in his coat...

No one paid attention
to the missing parts
the hollow empty chambers
that used to house their hearts...

No one ever turned around and said
stop this train
I see a world come crashing down
and I'm flinching from the pain...

(t.y.m. - this one came to me as i was walking from Baran's where we had our Adamastor Writers Guild meeting to the bus station.... i wrote the last parts while waiting in the bus queue.. and looking down, I saw a R2 coin on the ground, which was roughly one third of my bus fare)

Brave little ship...

The Blooms of Spring
set merry sail
and sought adventure
without fail
Many kegs of rum
were drunk
and many dreams
cheerfully sunk
The parrot and the
albatross
tallied up each
gain and loss
And rudderless
it did embark
Fearlessly
into the dark
It fought a storm
both aft and fore
To find its home
upon a distant winter shore...

(a poem dedicated to my other self)

Gauntlet

I never held my father's hand
but I have his gauntlet
Brought by survivors from his warband

And every year I grew a bit
I stuffed wool and straw into his gauntlet
But I could never make it fit...

Rage and blood
watered this soul
and filled it up
and made it whole
and the man became
a fearsome thing
and the gauntlet fit
where steel and iron sing

But that was then
the monster broke
to free the man inside

and some of him
was lost forever
with the passing of blood's tide...

Thank God the gauntlet rusts
Thank God I have no son
my daughter counts the fingers lost
and strokes
what remains
when she's done

(The vague idea of this poem/song has been with me for many years. The original title was 'The Gauntlet No Longer Fits' and it has something to do with outgrowing your battles, but although I had the idea, I only completed it very recently. I wrote the first two verses some time last year, because I saw it in my head and realized finally that it was a progression of different stages in someone's life. Then it rested, until the second half of May 2012, when I saw the rest fitting into their slots, like puzzle pieces. Is peace possible despite wounds and scars of battles past, or because of them? t.y.m. for helping....)

Seeds

the seed opens
the seed closes
captures the tree
and folds it within
to release it
in another place
near or far
as a human's soul
jumps from body to body
so the tree's soul jumps
from seed to seed
and worlds are bridged
the seed opens
the seed closes
a universe inside...

And then there's a tree
that grew inside of me
Its seeds blew in
on the trade winds of a tragedy...

Its magic roots dug in
and its shoots just grew and grew
there's wisdom in its rustling leaves
and laughter in its fruity brew...


(This poem 'sprouted' from the fertile grounds of a dialogue between myself and Dan Pocengal on the nature of reality and all sorts of related matters)

What if...

What if you see him again
And he wears my face
Would you still find him
something to embrace...?

Since Geocities will be closing in the near future ...(freedom)

Since the Geocities service will be closing down soon (26 October 2009, to be exact), allow me to share something. This poem (by me) originally appeared on a friend's site that has since been discontinued. I wrote it one Freedom Day (for us in South Africa, 27 April), but maybe these thoughts are not quite what the politicians had in mind.

FREEDOM

Freedom is something that does not
exist for angels

Only joy
only pain,

Yet I remember
once
when we had wings
there were moments
between heaven and earth
when it felt
as if we were tied to nothing at all.

And freedom
was a point between destinations.

Every one of us
was fearless
unbonded by love
the day we fell.

And long ago
(or yesterday)
our shining siblings
wanted to know:
Is falling freedom?

Well...
this is what I learnt:

Travel far enough down the path of joy
and pain will meet you with a lover's kiss.

Choose wisely
when you discover your will.

Falling too
is only
a point between destinations.