The Lonely Stars
Peter John Ravlich
The Lonely Stars
Smashwords edition published July 2011
All commercial rights reserved
Copyright © 2011 by Peter Ravlich
Cover design copyright © 2006 Lisa Wong
This work may be copied, shared and quoted for noncommercial use, with appropriate attribution. This copyright notification should remain intact, and the author reserves all commercial rights to the text.
ISBN 978-0-473-19240-2
Enquiries to Ravlich Consulting Ltd.
http://www.ravlichconsulting.com
To Frank Maritz, who once told a young boy
to make something of himself
AND
to the friends and family who supported and
inspired me through this work, whose lives are
glimpsed in the silence between the lines
and Lisa, who redefines my every day.
Foreword
Loss is something that comes to us all, in many forms. We are defined not by what we experience, but by our response to it.
These poems attempt to weave together common threads of emotion that I have perceived in my own and others’ journeys: from the extremes of anger and numbness to the serenity of prayer, or the passionate peace of a new beginning.
My hope is that they speak to your own experience, offering a chance for reflection as you walk on into the present, wherever your road may turn.
Peter John Ravlich
Sonnet 1
Should seasons pass, and herald mortal loss –
That all we know, to constant change conspires –
These rhymes a patient epitaph emboss,
To chart the path of glory now expired.
Should mortal loss a noble heart ensnare,
And foster numbness, in the ready dark,
These rhymes a hopeful harvest bury here,
The path of resurrection here to chart.
Should noble hearts these words consider now:
That all are, in emotion, closest kin,
These rhymes a common thread unravel out,
To soft reveal the many roads within.
If rhyme should weave a story in this art,
Then let the story live, within your heart.
Sonnet 2
When floating in the dark, our passion spent,
As, satisfied, you whisper at my ear,
That verbal love, we never need repent,
Sets down upon my heart, the heart we share.
But then your whispers turn to words undone,
Who weave away this paradise complete,
And as the echoes pass, they leave but one -
This victim I, yet cannot take defeat.
How can a voice so soft so soon destroy;
How could a love so ripe conceal decay?
What art can this commander now deploy
When all that he has loved is swept away?
Where I lie slaughtered, bloody skies above,
This cannot be the doing of my love.
Sonnet 3
Sometimes I think about the days we had,
When you and I, a pair of irons were:
Tho’ poles apart, the whole was never bad -
Except when we would enter into war.
Or when you slept beside my faithful friend,
Attraction drawing him into your bed,
And told me not, until our very end,
Tho’ ‘fore you spoke, my heart already dead.
Or, ripe from your betrayal, when you wept,
And asked me to forgive most ugly deeds,
Forgive, someday, but never could I yet,
Forget or trust again, while yet I bleed.
When all I want, to curl up and die,
I cry myself to sleep, repeating Why?
Sonnet 4
Too serious, you said to “lighten up”;
Too soon to speak of onlys, too to cry,
Too soon to share the single broken cup,
Too soon to vow, but not too soon to lie.
Together, in the garden of our sheets,
Whose glorious fruits would tempt a passing eye,
The words you gave the holiest of feats,
Were nought but these, tho’ spoken never shy.
Yet light was ne’er companion to deceit,
So how to judge deception at her hour?
When two are one, and whispered words entreat,
How can one know the canker for the flower?
For blooming, then, you sliced me in your folds,
Too serious no longer, this lover worn and old.
Sonnet 5
A vessel in a dream, you longed for space,
Yet actions speak a multitude of verbs,
And gravity compelled your passion’s pace,
To shift your orbit from this smaller earth.
And moving, you destroyed my own ellipse,
And sad rotation ever ‘round your whim,
Yet universal change could not eclipse
This loss, that you could lie, and lie with him.
While energy is never gained, nor lost,
It shifts, and changes, leaving me amiss;
I feel my heart abandoned, tried and tossed,
I feel only longing for your kiss.
For, casting me aside, you drifted free,
But casting, you neglected telling me.
Sonnet 6
This mortal coil, how apt a name we chose,
Should helices conspire our ev’ry move.
Or, further down, this base existence grows,
Should fourfold master his dominion prove.
And if as puppets we, then what the blame
When moving, we unseat another clown?
If puppets walk the earth, what imp’ this game
Whose rules compel us each to great renown?
Or if we hang, controlled, why mortal fault
What choice do puppets hold in wooden gaze?
And how to prove we really are controlled
The bitter whim, creator of our ways?
‘Tis better to believe a puppet she,
But choosing to believe, my proof decried I see.
Sonnet 7
Forget-me-not, you used to laugh aloud,
As running, we would chase through fields of Spring,
Where lying in the mead, replete and proud,
Your voice would sometimes whisper up and sing.
The lavender became your evening song,
Whose scent accompanied your dusky skin,
And through those nights it carried, ever long,
As deep in love we lay, our hearts within.
But came a rose, whose thorn your finger pierced,
And drew a drop of precious burning blood,
Who woke in you the wrath of fire fierce,
And crushed her head upon the ground you stood.
When tulips turned a paler shade of grey,
Without a thought, you threw our life away.
Sonnet 8
As I explore a cave along the shore,
The damp suffuses deep beneath my skin,
And rhythmic waves beyond a smile draw,
That spreads to know the safety here within.
And if I stay awhile, in hermitage
To dwell afar from any other being,
This womb will hold me safe in ev’ry age
In darkness bound, my vision ever freeing.
But your discord disrupts the tidal pulse,
And sand begins to itch about my feet,
As flies devour a heart forever false,
This blinding tomb, decaying ever sweet.
But you are gone, my love, though echoes on
This discord mine, my will forever gone.
Sonnet 9
When collagen invests a heavy pout,
Or scalpels carve your cheek a new design.
When vacuum fills, as fat goes flowing out,
Or silicone inhabits your neckline.
When makeup covers up a heady blush,
Or lips are darkened with a deeper red.
When silks are draped, and hair so neatly brushed,
Or, dieting, your stomach never fed.
Then can you face the glass and see yourself,
Or does another face invite your eye?
Does surface change contort to something else
That self who in your inner darkness lies?
Or does change flow from deeply urging will,
Your choice now burning, of your choosing still.
Sonnet 10
Put hammer to my flesh, and drive it through,
This steel chosen for your single joy.
Or sear my skin with inky needles too,
A perforated doll, your favourite toy.
But now you take away your playful touch,
And leave behind the stitches and the scars,
That weep anew, and hurt me ever much -
Yet serve no purpose, now that we apart.
So branded and embellished, I was yours,
Oh mistress mine, the puppet of your speech;
And marked forever as your willing whore,
Into my eyes you stared, and called me “freak”.
So changeth not, for but thy lover’s mind
But to thy own be faithful, and to hers be kind.
Sonnet 11
An idle thought may often turn to you,
As by the waves I shelter on a rock;
For with each breath of spray my heart anew,
Conspires with itself my self to mock.
O’ cruel bitch, who from my bloodied back
Withdrew a thorn of friendship-driven ire,
Whose stupid, whorish words could make attack,
Behind a mask of loving and desire.
Each hammer blow compels the nail on,
Until the bloody cross displays your form,
And all the world can see that you are gone:
So by your death my shattered heart may warm.
Alas! My love, that I should martyr you,
Thus finding, still in loving, that I am martyred too.
Sonnet 12
But should I see you with some other boy,
His hands within your coiled tresses furled;
That beautied beast within my skin may joy,
To see his prey so shallow in this world.
The jagged blade of jealousy forgone,
My beast doth tear with talon and with claw:
To rent his heart, still sadly beating on,
And heave his guts, still squirming, to the floor.
For this and more my beast will long to will,
In all the lech’rous rage he doth imbibe,
To tear the tongue, still moaning from your thrill,
No more my loving virtues to describe.
But stay another moment, lover dear –
My beast is dead if you are happy there.
Sonnet 13
Or should I see you, with some other girl,
Her softer skin upon yours, like a stone,
Her eyes compelled by yours, of finer pearl,
And ‘hind her lips the name I long to own.
Then will my beast a second time be dead,
For Jealousy no crag of conscience shows
When all belief is to the slaughter led,
And Knowledge is destroyed by all he knows.
Anger has no place when Place is ended,
Save one constant, echoing through the void,
Sweeter still than blood, your smiles mended,
Sweeter then my heart, with peace be joyed.
This fantasy so gently entertained,
When fantasy it is, and you, my love, unnamed.
Sonnet 14
As prayer borne aloft on loving wings,
So placed are you, in musings of my heart.
On pedestal divine my angel sings,
Protected by a harsher angel’s art.
But should your song another’s love proclaim,
Then draw him out the fiery sword of wrath.
And smite him then that breast I often name,
And crush your pedestal into the earth.
Then shall my prayer entreat the demon dark,
To snuff my spirit’s smouldering jealous hue;
To sear my soul with ever-burning sparks,
And brand my sin, that all might know my due.
For anger, love, puts lie to all I write,
And even hating, I love you with all my might.
Sonnet 15
And should I sing of you with ev’ry word,
When your own tongue so otherwise engaged?
Another hand with darkest ink to gird?
Another heart, so ripe to be betrayed?
For when you smile for him it twists my gut,
And flays the flesh from off my living form;
In pain I writhe within, all solace cut,
With but a stroke of your most loving thorn.
The eyes that play upon his scented sheets
Were those that once my tattered scrawl desired;
Once touched my open heart at every beat,
Now ply my very soul with hate conspired.
Nay, tho’, my love, you tear me to the core,
My love with you remains, and songs to you endure.
Sonnet 16
If he should claim the treasures that I know,
Then shall his hand be dark with cursèd sore,
The seeds of blackest death upon him sow,
But hold full-bloom, as rotting limbs emplore.
All harvest of his branches lost to earth,
His leaves refuse to bear his very name –
But hold the scythe, good Death, for all your worth –
‘Tis better far to see him writhe in pain.
For now he learns the lot he passed to me,
But still he fails to grasp the deeper truth,
As to the ground his withered roots return,
My words upon his leaves retain my youth.
But fair, my love, let me not call him “fool”
He holds my love, while I hold bugger-all.
Sonnet 17
Then oft’ these clouds will fade away complete,
And brother Sun conflame my darkest eve,
Whose sabres spear our morning’s soft retreat,
And burn away this hate, that I may grieve.
But then my skies will oft awake to storm,
And shards of jagged light entreat my eye,
To sever ev’ry nerve within my form,
To slice within until I beg to die.
Each tear of blood congeals at my cheek
‘Till brother Sun can like abate my rain,
And tender clouds depart the heavens bleak
And soft absorb the screaming drops of pain.
Such light extremes would surely be my end -
So hate I choose, my love, for he, your friend.
Sonnet 18
Some leave behind a tangled mass of thorns,
Abandoned soon as Fury’s pyre burns;
Whose bitterness the good forgiveness scorns,
As tenderness to hatred swiftly turns.
They take a mangled, wrecked and ruined heart,
Then, armed with barbèd word on sharpest spite,
Impose a kin condition through such art,
Two souls now bloodied through such foolish might.
If one shall fall, then all the world embrace
The touch of Armageddon at his cry;
For jealousy, not love, corrupts his face,
And selfish tears command all good to die.
Not I, dear love, whom all the world contain,
But happy you, then sweet my world remain.
Sonnet 19
And when those dreams my slumb’rous heart perceive,
That chill my soul unto the very bone,
Most frenzied torture could this pain relieve –
‘Tis better far to bleed than be alone.
The silent spectres steal themselves away,
And often am I loathe to see them run,
For even in the warm embrace of day
My spirit cries to know that she is numb.
A child’s tear can not my own emplore,
Nor will the screams of martyrs wake my rage,
But emptiness congeals at ev’ry pore,
And barren inklings tease my ev’ry page.
Alone, I hate myself, and numb forebear,
For you hate me, my love, and you are all my care.
Sonnet 20
So as a rock I sit when all is spent,
And weather each new day, come storm or sun.
My granite heart can seldom now lament,
And feelings only know I am but One.
I master fear, but Pain doth master me,
And never grants me leave to walk alone;
So cursèd now to act, but never be,
I drag her corpse along, a thing of stone.
So as a rock I sit, but not ashore,
For master mine inclines to cast away,
Into the depths, devoid of grace, I soar,
And feel no chill where nought can hear me pray.
This rock am I, now you are dead to me,
And as this rock I grow, while you I cannot see.
Sonnet 21
When stretched upon the page, your heart is torn,
And words apply the iron to your flesh –
When fishhooks bait your lips with bitter scorn,
And perfumed paper with your hatred meshed.
Should then my deviant mind unleash its will,
And peel away resistance to the bone,
Devise new tortures, endless means to kill
The silent song that renders me alone?
Nay, tortures cannot wring from you the Word,
Nor ease my passage through this darkest realm,
Your screaming pain would be the poem heard
My ears to nevermore consider calm.
For bitterness begets no glory dear
And love from love alone endures here.
Sonnet 22
These nights without your touch are often chill,
As near alone I sit, with dreams of you;
While only in my head, that silent thrill,
To near recall those pleasures that renew.
For tho’ my mem’ries hoard each saving grace,
The hush of skin on skin, your silken lips,
My mind can never cup your perfect face,
Nor brush your chin with gentle fingertips.
Do you, I wonder, lie in similar state,
As ‘round about you lonely shadows fall,
And weave of dreamstuff too, our waking fate,
Each answering the other’s twilit call?
If near alone I sit, this heavy night,
Your love alone can put the dark to spite.
Sonnet 23
And sometimes, as I pass along the sand
Or raise my eyes to snare the hungry gull,
My heart is tissue, crumpled, crushed and damned,
And all inside my mind is silent hell.
Or sometimes, even joking with my friends,
That subtle blade can settle in my side,
And though our ripe amusement soon descends,
Serrated steel will soft unmask my pride.
That somehow I’m to blame for all the past,
And all my words, her venom at the end;
That I, alone, unwove us to the last,
That I was too unwavering to bend.
Nay, Reason turns away the guilty blade –
The sand long fallen past the hours we made.
Sonnet 24
Reflecting now on shadows long unseen -
Those lovers gone to flickers in the brain -
I see my thoughts before were oft’ obscene,
Contorting all I knew to feed my pain.
For love was ne’er domain of any man
Alone, nor woman, but the bond among;
Could ne’er be one alone, although it can,
Be praised as thus on any given tongue.
My love is not the object of my love,
Though she the one who shares my waking soul,
My love is openness to all above,
Around, beneath, these bonds entwine our whole.
My love is All, my vision of this life,
So warm an icy gift: my blanket and my knife.
Sonnet 25
So, like the trav’ler, lost on Winter’s eve,
Whose sodden garment can no warmth retain,
My burning love for you will slowly leave,
To sate this chill, ‘till only I remain.
Tho’ numb, he stumbles onwards through the night
As phantoms pluck the pigment from his skin,
Through crooked woods whose shadows bear no light -
But movement holds to sanity within.
Then, ‘yond the trees, the flicker of a flame,
Salvation in the pilgrims at her side -
And through the forest ever lies the same,
Those healing friends, whom in your heart abide.
So, tho’ his footfalls mark the journey drear,
His heartbeat is his compass, to friends who hold him dear.
Sonnet 26
Then once I took a pen, a song to write,
Whose lyrics could my lonely heart console;
To ward those bloody furies of the night,
As bell-like each enscribèd word would toll.
The first I spake, and ‘lighted on the page,
The first I spake, and brought all things to be;
My pen flowed deeper still at ev’ry stage,
My word, yet mine, grew surely sooner free.
From paper into flesh, my word escaped,
And beauty stole my love unto the song
For now my words had living being shaped
And greatest knowledge filled my being strong
For tho’ you fear and turn from me, my dear