Excerpt for In Melancholia by Vincent Moore, available in its entirety at Smashwords


In Melancholia

by

Vincent Moore





Copyright © 2011 Vincent Moore.
Smashwords Edition

Cover Design: SilverGenes Media.

Notice of Rights

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Notice of Liability

The author wishes to make it clear that any character named, described or otherwise referred to in any of the writings contained herein is purely fictional and does not represent any real person either living or dead.



Dedication

This collection of poetry is dedicated to all those who have survived and thrived despite a difficult and challenging past.





Contents:

My Lost Youth
Everybody Knows
The Drunkard at Her Table
This Boy
Alone In His Room
A Town Without Pity
Like a Bird On the Wire
An Angel Wept for the Children
Broken Dreams
This Man, Once a Boy, Comes Home
A Boy’s Love for his Father
He Fought the Law and the Law Won
The Death Mask of Love and Forgiveness
Beneath His Feet
Down at Old Sharpie’s
Sanctuary
A Christmas Hallelujah
Main Street Poets
Beneath My Skin in Color
Tsunami



Back to Contents

My Lost Youth

I often think of my boyhood days
in a friendly village near the shops
of railroad yards and factories.

In deep thought I walk the streets
up and down and recall
who lived between the walls
of those old flats of stone
and wooden doors.

My youth comes back
haunting my memory
reliving how we kicked the can
and hide and seek'd
and tried to lasso the moon
and waited on mother’s call.

On my street I can see
the shadowy lines of trees
and telephone poles and catch
the aromas of stews
and fresh baked bread.

I remember the open windows
with cigarette smoke swirling forth
and old ladies chatting back and forth
hanging out mattresses filled with straw
to air them out for a good nights sleep.

The thoughts of youth
are deep and long
thoughts that never want to leave
for fear of never coming back
to fill my boyhood dreams

I remember the fort upon the hill
and king of the castle
while tumbling down
with scrapes and burns
to give our mothers’ chills.

I remember chasing the girls
around the block and begging
for a kiss then running to hide
after a bell was rung
to watch from hidden secret places
in laneways by the sheds.

I remember my broken heart
when told she would not take
my first kiss on her lips
but on her cheek and then
watch her rub it away
while a tear fell from my eye.

Boys’ thoughts are lonely thoughts
but not forgotten
thoughts of long long ago.

Some things I cannot speak
of thoughts that make the strong heart weak
and pale and bring a lingering feeling
from the soul so deep
and misty eyes that sorrow for tomorrow.

For the ghosts that hide
behind those walls still are pure
and sweet and echo
lullabies of days gone by
yet never really leave my side.

So leave me in my boyhood
thoughts so keen and vivid
do they appear and leave me
dreamy for those days
that found me wandering there.



Back to Contents

Everybody Knows

We walked the streets of abuse
and lived the sins of our fathers
who took the liberties
while their children cried
for chocolate nothing more
and wept for being children
living in the poverty of hell.

Everybody knows

These children of the damned
who left for school with empty stomachs
souls and dark eyes from their cries
for help and whimpers from listening
to their mother’s tortured room.

Everybody knows

The basement of their schools
where they found their fashions
hanging like rags forgotten
by the rich kids up the hill
these poor kids put them on
so bright the colors
to cheer their souls.

Everybody knows

The wrath of peer pressure
came with blood and guts that spilled
so freely from our fists
taught by being watchers at home
and other kids left us alone
for these gawkers feared the recoils
from the bottom feeders
at the foot of the hill.

Everybody knows

We were waiting for a miracle
from whom or what we never knew
but we waited all our youth away
just waiting for a miracle to come
and take us all away from the pain
and guilt.
We felt our pride slipping away
standing by our windows
watching out and waiting
for the miracle that may never come.

Everybody knows

We hate it here
the judgments are severe
for being simple children
chewing bubble gum and waiting
for our miracle to come
for our angel to fold us in her wings
and hold us near
nothing left but to wait
for this miracle to come
in dreams
we are lost like nakedness in the night
our bodies feeling and waiting
for the miracle to come.

Everybody knows

We need our sisters of mercy to go on
or else our song is lost
and forever gone out of our control
we are pinned to the floor
in the Hell of revenge
so sisters free us and let us confess
to them as the dew melts
from the finger tips of their hands
binding us close to their hems.
We are just lost children
please wake us from hell
and show us heaven under your moon.

Everybody knows

Our Hallelujahs echo
through our bedroom doors
in pain so softly we cry please lift us
from this empty shell and shout out
Hallelujah
to the children within your throne
of Grateful Hallelujahs.
You've seen us long before we knew you
in this cold and broken wretched life
of empty pathetic Hallelujahs
of forgiveness and maybes
of cries your children cry
while everybody knows our pain
we bow before you begging you
to take us to your chamber of glorious
Hallelujahs.



Back to Contents

The Drunkard at Her Table

I am destroyed in youth and only time
has tried to heal and hide the scars of long ago
when alcohol was in our house
and lives were sent in turmoil.

School books are left at the door
and mocked as being putrid
and kicked into the corner by this Demon
unmerciful drunkard at her table.

Alcohol and cheap tobacco
fills the kitchen where he sits
stalking Captain Morgan and
plotting vile upon the mother
so protective of her child.
The beatings she took for
being a woman so defiled
by this demon
who plots the kill of self and others
for being weak to his will
alcohol his poison
this drunkard at her table.

Fighting in the past was fuel
for their fires of hate
love and lust for each other
yet all the while lingering explosive
by each passing minute
lurking to erupt upon this mother
the venom of hate
this snake and drunkard at
her table.


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