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
