An Anthology
by
Melanie Nordberg.
Copyright 2001 all rights reserved.
SOULBLADE.
SOULBLADE.
As I lay gasping in my pain, they drew him from within
And with the cold, steel scissors snip I was apart from him.
I didn't hold him in my arms until some time had passed
And I was weak and trembling when I held him close at last.
Maybe to you that time was short when you first held your son
To me it is a gaping gulf that cannot be undone
I never really had the chance to feel him skin to skin
Before they sliced the pulse of life that united me to him.
Perhaps the answer lies too deep for me to question why
But I want to know why I start to shake when I hear my baby cry
I love him, he is of my flesh, and something of my soul
But sometimes I feel I'm not quite there and about to lose control.
There was a birth and a death that day when they snipped our lives apart
A beautiful birth of a brand new life, and a slow, strange death in my heart
I never knew being a mother could be full of such joy and pain
The only problem with my life, is how to keep it sane.
I keep myself running on coffee and hope and the fact that I know you are there
There is so much to do and show you, there is so much to share
I want to show that I love you, when I wake in the lonely night
I hold you close to my body and pray I can set things right
Sometimes I want to hold you, but instead push you away
Sometimes I feel like leaving when I really want to stay
With tears that have no meaning but the expression of some pain
That seems too strange to comprehend, locked deep inside my brain.
I hope one day I can express the love inside my heart
And tell you how I ache for you when your work pulls us apart
How I shiver when I touch you, and it isn't from the cold
How I want to be beside you as you watch your dream unfold
How I long to look into your eyes and feel a sense of pride
That I have done something for you just by being at your side
Instead of this vauge emptiness as the days are rushing by
And I feel a sense of failure but I cannot reason why.
I need to find an answer that I have no strength to seek
I need your strength to guide me when I find it hard to speak
And I need to know you love me even though I'm so mixed up
Because I know that hope and coffee aren't enough to hold me up.
DRAGON FIRE
Above the brilliant smoulder of the furnace deep within
I found a soul that fluttered in an ectasy of death
A heart that I saw burning in a flame so hot and sweet
That it seemed to be ignited by anothers fiery breath.
Dragons soared and glittered in the kingdoms of my mind
Throwing their bright torches of flame against the sky
To illuminate a vision for a moment in its brightness
Then be forever lost in darkness as the dragon passes by.
I thought that they were dead within my tapestry of dreams
When the fire had burnt to embers and the ashes ceased to glow
Watered by my teardrops and cooled by passing time
Where were all the dragons that had flown within my soul?
I don't know when the fire began or where the first spark caught
But the blaze is building up again, too powerful to fight
And if I had a flaming arrow would I shoot it through my heart
To bring to earth my phoenix and arrest its fiery flight?
Throughout my life, the things I've known have ended in my pain
The dragons and their fiery breath didn't seem to hurt
The visions were of deep desire and unbridled ecstasy
But I drew back from their brilliance to find that I was burnt.
Did Icarus embrace the sun before he embraced the sea?
I feel this time is different, I will watch the phoenix grow
And may it live four hundred years before it is reborn
And may it be forever 'til its embers cease to glow.
For like young Icarus before, I'm flying near the sun
But now I fly on flaming wings which never break or fold
For I'ld rather be consumed by fire and hold on to my dreams
Than to fall and sink into a grave that's lonely, deep and cold.
MELTING THE GLACIER
Upon the bleakness of my frosty heart
Where flowers long ceased to show their shape
A vision stired of some forgotten pleasure
To forever change my glacial, wintry state.
Although I'd welcomed cold to numb despair
Invited Death to join me if she would
And set a place for the Devil at my table
I still found in my ruins something good.
I can'trecall at all what I had seen
Or maybe I had heard a lone birds song
Struck upon the twilight with such frenzy
As if to snatch more moments from the sun.
Whatever it was that stirred my heart to feeling
Also stirred my mind to think of fire
To melt my glacial state to find preserved
Beneath the snow, my object of desire.
Coiled like a snake to sleep out wintry nights
It had hibernated in the ice
While I had thought that it had dissappeared
Simply vanished in the air without a trace.
At that moment when I found my treasure
the sun drew me into its realm of light
And I'll sleep sound in alabastor walls
Although their white be ebonised by night.
The knife I keep, sometimes I take
As if some violent thirst to slake
And led by some compelling art
I place its point beneath my heart.
I feel the cool steel on my skin
And feel desire to plunge it in
Not by any wish of death
Or being tired of drawing breath
But something stronger lies beneath
The fact that blade thinks heart is sheath.
Could it be I'll never know
If heart is sheath to blade or soul?
No! I will never test my love
For lifeless blade by drawing blood
It is instead a joy of life
This ageless ritual of the knife
For steel is cast as blade or key
But I am what I choose to be.
The wind was dark, the hills were cold
Upon the night my soul was sold
The sweet and savage song I cried
Was my gift to those who died.
So swift and sure, the knife's cool steel
The shadows dense, the clouds unreal
I turned and turned, as in a trance
And slashed and stabbed in graceful dance.
Don't say the names of those who died
Just be content to take their side
Don't try to comprehend the why
Just be content to let them die.
For once was said that nothing good
Can come of being understood
You may not like the thing you see
Beneath the veil of mystery.
I had my reasons, they were mine
The knife that drew a crimson line
Across the throats of those who lie
And stare, unseeing, at the sky.
They say I'm cruel, souless, unjust
Yet I did only as I must
I took my harvest from the field
The night the victims fate was sealed.
I've killed before, I will again
I know no fear, I feel no pain
My weapons change, the end does not
The soul is freed, the corpses rot
I am not evil, I just am
I make no preference, beast or man
I still the body, steal the breath
That is why they call me Death.
And for my list you may not care
But you can be sure your name is there
You may think that you can cheat time
Yet in the end, you will be mine.
So live your life, don't be in fear
Or wonder if I'm far or near
Don't waste your time by keeping guard
On those you love, your final card
Will be played, the game will end
So be sure to play it well my friend.
His eyes were cold
His voice was dark
Upon my life
He left his mark
Upon my back
He placed a weight
My individual cross of fate.
The fickle whims
Of his desire
Were once the winds
Which fanned my fire
But then I knew
What kind of man
He really was
And so I ran.
I ran from him
He hunted me
I never thought
I could be free
He chased me 'til
I left the edge
And plunged myself
Over the ledge,
The brink of sanity...
And still - without a rest
He hunted me.
I had to end it
For I knew
If he caught me
What he'd do
I sought him out
So all could see
The tables turned
The hunter - hunted be.
I ended it
He lies at rest
No more the threats
Iwon the test
Nobody knows
What I have done
Yet I no longer
Have to run.
His eyes were cold
His voice was dark
Upon my life
He left his mark
He tourtured me
I had to send
Him to his grave
So it would end.
But they say the murdered
Never sleep
He haunted me
I could not keep
Every shadow
His figure traced
Every window
Bore his face.
Now I know
It's best this way
I have to travel
Far away
Try to forget
What I have done
Yet in my dreams
I'll know he's won.
IRELAND
Strange how this old land can grip my bones
And find in me a cord so deeply bound
To every rock and tree and ancient thing
So that each day, I hear it calling loud,
Across an undefined expanse of ocean.
I do not go for fear that if I did
Tempted by the touch of ancient rock
And a thousand other, hidden, potent things
It would strike a note in me so high
As to shatter everything that I thought real.
And drawn by thinnest trace of ancient blood
That runs my veins and twists its way about
My very soul - So small and taunt a string
That touches every nerve and every cell
And draws me on towards my destiny.
If plucked, the very earth would hear it sing!
Somehow I know that I must travel there
Behold a fabled stone, to place a hand
Upon its time-worn back and even lean
Against the ancient, lichened rock, press close
And listen to it whisper in my blood.
To watch the shadows on the emerald hills
Commune with ghosts, and finally, to search
The labyrinth of myself, down paths of night
Blood tinged with blood of peasant or of king
Comprehend the things I can't conceive
Renounce at once the country of my birth.
Poetry Home - The Wolf Within - The Time of the Hawkmoth - Soulblade - Swallows