Poetry Home - The Wolf Within - The Time of the Hawkmoth - Soulblade - Swallows

Melanie Nordberg.

SOULBLADE

HOPE AND COFFEE

DRAGON FIRE

MELTING THE GLACIER

SOULBLADE

THE HARVEST

THE HUNTER

IRELAND

THE DARKEST NIGHT

HOPE AND COFFEE

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 dragons passed it by.

I thought that they had died within my tapestry of dreams

Where the fire had burnt to embers and the ashes ceased to glow

Watered by my apathy and cooled by passing time

What had happened to the dragons that had flown within my soul?

I don't know when the fires began or where the first spark caught

But the blaze is building up again, too powerful to fight

If I had an ice-tipped arrow would I shoot it through my heart?

Bring to earth my phoenix and arrest its fiery flight?

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.

As Icarus embraced the sun before he knew the sea.

The winds of change will fan this fire

I will watch the phoenix grow

May it live four hundred years

T'il its embers cease to glow.

For like young Icarus before, I'm flying near the sun

But may I fly on flaming wings which never break or fold

For I'ld rather meet a firey death 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't recall 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.

SOULBLADE

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 HARVEST

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.

THE HUNTER

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

I won 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.

"It is always darkest just before the day dawneth."
Thomas Fuller, Pisgah Sight (1650), Book II, ch. 2

THE DARKEST NIGHT

I too have seen the darkest night

Have felt the deepest cold

Have held the blade against my skin

And watched the night unfold.

The midnight of the soul can be

The minds most testing hour

Until you search inside yourself

And recognise its power.

Blood and rage and bitterness

The darkness of the soul

When you have faced the darkest night

Then you'll forever know

That if you survive the night time

Then the sun will rise again

Its healing light will fill your soul

And wash away your pain.

Poetry Home - The Wolf Within - The Time of the Hawkmoth - Soulblade - Swallows