Poetry Feature of Sher Chandley

TEARS AND PRAYERS

A golden bell tinkles in the distance. I hear a call to prayer, incense wafts gently on the air. The flame of love, the sound of surf dies in my eyes. A surly wind blows through my soul in total dark, I trip into a well of absolute silence. With all my might deaf, dumb and blind to all good and right My vain desires frozen and wedged between the banks of my love and life Withered into madness moulded by fate struck to ice Splintered and shattered by a black vomit of dark, dense cloud shutting out the face of day. In this cheerless place, my dreams chained my hopes pinned down For here, everything struggles, sickens and sinks under hot, poisonous breath not a blade or bud of promise. In this mournful shadow a depressing influence steals upon the spirit. Such is the hopelessness of a conviction in dying without fear or anxiety of fleeing the dismal gloom. With staggering feet, bloodshot eyes plead for bread drowning in tears. In my periphery, stony figures petrified wan in their looks ragged in attire. My cart rumbles by bearing me in a rude coffin in an oppressive nightmare. A speedier power has outrun my haste my ugly form of existence spurned my tears and prayers. If only I could with Fate conspire change my sorry life nearer my hearts desire. Alas! In the purple midnight even Heaven with all its stars flee fast and recede Veils its shine . . .from poverty and need. A golden bell chimes in the distance. ©06/29/21

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DREAMLESS SLEEPERS # 2 The bell rings out with a mournful sound. None but the stars look into the upturned face of this frail, perishable Leaning out, staring pensively at dreamless sleepers close grown sad from communing with a shadow of the dead a leaf rustling on a grave. A heart grown heavy in a dull, solemn ruin lapping crumbs of gloom with the sickly eagerness of a meagre starveling. Unheedful of the living for the tumult of life falls with a gentler sound to tired eyes and ears the quiet remains the same. Always stillness prevails save the music in the air. The sound of Angel wings a sweet and happy dream that fades and grows dim. In this old, laden silence, I gaze the unseen with awe, tempered with a calm delight sighing with memory's breath of a life and an age gone. Chords of my heart mute and senseless to passion strange, varying strings struck by accident - stars respond to glimmering touch. The graveyard, my solemn garden often I rise in the cold dark when the wind stirs the grass put my ear to the ground. . .listen to her breathing in a dreamless sleep. © 07/05/21

DREAMLESS SLEEPERS # 3 In the twilight shade a shadow flits before me gambols about my path shuddering cold dwells here cladding me in the ice of loneliness and longing. Fate has cast my gem high into a lonely sky brighter as it mounts turning into a violet star a glittering teardrop lamenting in silence. She has taken a seat at the gates of the mighty only I hear her chanting we harmonize in my grief each the others delight she gladdens me still. Always did and always will her breath is in me love infused into my veins with a hunger like the sea drinking each and every river but is never filled. I surrender to our spirit for we two are one commune with my eternity catch a promethean brand in an exploding burst that fires my heart and soul. A fire that licks me like oil fixes my attention in earnest in a hale and healthy blush reddening my all in a glow. A welcome solemn presence stitching life and death with love. All through the night we talk and think together voices and pictures in the roar see her face in strange scenes in the red hot coals of my heart a heightened resolution of love. In the glare of the sinking flame reflecting in my dark gloom shadows come and wait with the flickering of the fire that purify and fill me up with deep and thoughtful feelings. Up and down, to and fro, all about and around me my dead love comes and goes, a change steals over me fate gifts sleep rather than death. I nourish myself by eating myself in wakeful doze I sorrow for the meeting of tomorrow where meadows are sweet and the wind sighs the promise . . .of a happy, dreamless sleep. © 07/07/21

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THE SECRET KNOCK Under the sheet of sea-dreams you think you're sleeping but fly away - into something real and bright as day. I into me. . .into you. . .into we I into me. . . a drifting loneliness unfettered yet unfree gazing upon solitude pensively paddling sea dreams cloud shrouds lift and rent revealing starlight and star from the void and beyond from far and from afar nearer draws your star. I into you. . . Energy has its own patterns Love gives the secret knock so the flowers are strewn petals that daze the eye breaths of love in a sigh loneliness cracks into green a new paradise is seen. I into we. . . So we come face to face in a state of grace a united sphere lifting into supernal to soar and sing in love eternal our souls entwine in a heart-lore divine a love-knot fairer than the fairest star. And the mermaids sing to moon, "Eye sees eye Mind meets mind Body clothes body Heart touches heart Soul clasps soul." Sane love is no love. We drive us crazy. Our perfume is unslung Fragrance of absinthe bung I only admit to being young yet I'm very old so you have told. You have aged me a thousand years through joys and tears our heart and soul deliciously dance and roll through time and life's floors, windows and doors here, there and everywhere. It's what was It's what is It's what will be. I was born the day I met you. I died the day I met you. . . .I died into We. © 03/16/21

Poet's Bio: I cannot catalogue myself in normal terms because of all the things I've done and places I've seen in addition to the abnormal society that spawned me. I was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, in township of Newclare to a rebel father and powerful mother. I grew up in a place where gangsters, drug addicts, intellectuals, artists and priests all rubbed shoulders. This place, though much changed, has colored my outlook ever since. I schooled for a long time in the mountains and vineyards of the Cape, from where I explored natural beauty and wonders of my country. To this day, I have an innate love of nature embedded in my soul. My tertiary studies have explored a vast array of subjects and I have in a hit and miss way, ended up as architectural technologist more by default than anything else. My love for physics, philosophy and history remains paramount. I have been told I' m not a bad painter, either. Apartheid has foisted on me, a deep vehemence of injustice and violence. I will fight oppression and exploitation wherever I encounter it. I never discard any experience or learning I have had. If I must describe myself, I am a holistic eclectic. I am an earthling. Give me a certificate for that.