My sky was cloudy
clouded beyond any recognition of a summers day
cold and dark. frightened and alone.
the darkness has become me
in it i lie restlessly
within me it lies; in turmoil, violence and despair
but it is here to stay.
burden or pleasure, it is all mine
and i must make it my own.
I had laid my anchor in a ray of sunshine
a ray that was ever so bright
it came through and parted all the cloud.
but since sun changed to moon
and my anchor fell away
i sit here in the darkness
drifting with my pain
away.
This is a VERY powerful poem, Alex. The use of metaphor and imagery deepen both the meaning and impact, such that the reader is left with the sharp and tangible certainty of what the poem is expressing. There’s no need to know what these various symbols and metaphors are representing for the poet in their individual and concrete form, for they are used so effectively that any reader can fill in the blanks from his/her own experience. The emotions of the poem are there, honestly and plainly, communicated by the words and felt by the reader. Every poem I’ve read by you manages to do this, capturing the raw emotion of a moment and trapping it within the words so that any reader can know it upon reading. Rilke said that writers write because they NEED to, because they must, and your poems unfailingly resonate with this reality, as though they were written out of pure necessity from a source deep and important. That honesty and vulnerability is a very difficult place to write from, but one that immediately empowers the poem (and hopefully, too, the poet, the source). Thanks for posting this, Alex. Keep writing.