KEEPSAKE

“Because I remember, I despair. Because I remember, I have the duty to reject despair.” - Elie Wiesel

A poem written quite a few years ago, remembered tonight only because I just drove past the very place that inspired it.
Life is a prankster, a jokester, a jester. It loves to toy with us and play its games and we move according to its rules like pawns on a chessboard. No matter how dark and dismal life seems one minute, the next it catapults us into the seventh heaven where all is light and laughter.

Keepsake

A flashing neon sign illuminates
The few dead leaves spinning aimlessly
In endless circles,
And dead paper carried in the whirls of the wind eddies.
The night air – cold, sharp, clear,
While in the empty street
Only my hollow steps resound.

A snatch of melody
Brought to me by a gust of wind.
A few familiar notes,
Just enough to remind me of you.
It hurts me to remember how
That song always used to make me cry,
But now only a couple of half-heard notes
Of just another love song,
Carried pointlessly by the wind...

Acrid smoke stifles my bitter breath
Bringing with it solace;
An opiate to soothe away the pain
Of your remembrance.
I used to love you with such fire,
Now only ashes and wisps of smoke
From a dying cigarette.
The song that’s drifting in the wind
Meant all that you had silently confessed
But now only a faded keepsake
Pressed tightly between the pages of my closed heart.

A song of love.
An empty street.
A frozen heart.
A never-ending night.
And as always, my footsteps only
Resounding hollow on the dreary cobbles...


After the night, daylight, after the darkness light!

With many thanks to Sans Souci who is the gracious hostess of our Poetry Wednesday!