A GOTHIC OBSESSION

A GOTHIC OBSESSION

When I was yours and you were mine,

The places we'd visit I turned into shrines, so

When it was over, the pilgrim in me,

So melancholy, would furrow the pavements in

Sweet adoration, frustration, my

Footsteps, in circles I travelled,

My mind without guidance on losing its star.

I drifted the streets, the cafés, retreats, the bars and

The benches, the forsaken places, and grieve at the

Graveside, you'd never give me.

For I was your spectre, your ghoul, life's spectator,

I was your shadow that you left behind.

A shade in the sunlight, a light lit at midnight,

Of pacing the house, asking why this should be,

(Oh derelict house haunted solely by me!),

Blind to all beauty, deaf to the birdsong, numb

To all feelings except self-pity.

For I was your footprint, the trace of your outline,

A guest of the twilight, living dead time.

The garden at midnight, the fluttering

Moonlight, wisteria climbing the ancient

High walls, oh heady sweet incense,

Evoking, invoking, the warmth of

Your presence, so soft the footfall,

Down paths veined in silver,

To where I would meet her,

The vines ever round us,

The silence surrounds us,

A twisting and twining, a threading, enshrining,

Forever defining, when I was once we.  

The woodbine’s decaying, oh cloying sweet perfume!

The honeycomb weeps for to sleep for to sleep,

This constant sad yearning, to stop the wheel turning,

Staying our parting although you are gone,

Staying our parting although you are gone.

These punishing thoughts are the sweetest of pleasures,

The torturing treasures that bind you to me,

To eke out existence, the years in the distance, 

Beckon so barren and grey as the sea, 

My constant persistence, your promise; subsistence that feeds

My resistance to letting you go.

In circles thoughts travel, then logic unravels

Delaying the season for letting you go.

Delaying the season for letting you go.

Please free me, please free me, please never to see me,

But freedom would pain me, re-chain me, heartbreak me,

Freedom would slave me I need to be

Yours.

Stop the leaves from their turning to russet red yearning,

Burning all hope, that one day we’ll be one.

Slow the beat, slow the beat, stay the beat of the drum

From this presage of prison and the scaffold to come.

Dam these lines ever flowing,

Your presence from towing

Ever my heart, my heart, behind yours

Stop the sunset from sliding from off the horizon,

Stay the warmth of your presence,
Distill me your essence,

Until I am ready,

Store the stars and the seasons

Until I see reasons,

Until there are reasons,

For letting you go,

Hang the moon and the heavens,

Burst the clouds, burn the oceans,

Stem  the tides from their shores,

Mute every bird-song then,

Right all the world’s wrongs,

Until you achieve these,

I will stay yours

Make me your altar,

Your Bible, your psalter,

Read me for leisure, instruction or pleasure,

Hold me close and read in to me, every day,

Make me your precedent,

Your last will and testament,

Your pillow, your headstone,

Your reliquary!

Stephen Evans 2014