Bitter sweet, bitter Suite,

you break my heart again.

I gently hold you in my arms

try not to cause you pain.

 

This sweetness to be with you,

to see your face once more;

to cherish just one last sweet kiss,

before death slams the door.

 

Oh to be with you right now

to talk and laugh again!

For focus, love and clarity –

the calm before the pain.

 

You hold me tight and whisper,

but death clasps tighter still;

a grip around our fragile hearts,

it’s a bitter poisoned pill.

 

You try to look, you try to see,

but your eyes are not the same.

Could you even see me

when I screamed out your name?

 

The feeling of bewilderment

as you take your last breath.

You leave in anger, not in peace,

I can’t walk with you in death

 

Death claimed your…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eight Lilies of remembrance,

stand to mark the way.

Eight lilies, one for each of you,

respect and honour the day;

to show that I still think of you,

though that day is done,

each lily marks a bygone past,

from a lifetime that is gone.

 

I smell their sweet thick lily scent,

It makes me think of you;

with fondest memories in my heart,

and tears that are now few.

No longer living in my world,

It is as though you’re dead.

The lilies are memorial,

to words still left unsaid.

 

© Eight Lilies 2012

By Alexandra Carr-Malcolm

Caitlin said……

the journey on which he went
was pre-paid in many installments
of lung and kidney, arterial stricture

That huge elephantine anger went too
leaving an empty room, a birdless covert

Do malcontents settle in transit
they wondered, the beaters, the shots
such a very angled life, amazed

With shattered glass and shop dummy corpses
tide-stranded each successive equinoctial ebb
until the final exit, no staging

Woodpigeon clattered at dusk’s disturbance
coal chute rattling cellarwards
raising a black sulphurous fug of diamonds

and leaving a single descending feather of white

© Stephen P B West 2012

Standing in the shadow of this mood

no longer ruler of my emotions;

visited by ghosts of a bygone age

I cannot shake the stardust from my eyes.

The silence is deafening.

The memories blinding.

With heavy heart and a trail of tears,

I dream the dreams from all those years.

The diamond flash of a smile or a look,

the scent of a memory.

What will be?

Will it be at all?

A roller coaster ride of life,

not knowing what to expect;

not knowing how I’ll react.

You see the sun, but inside I’m the moon;

do you not see the mask behind the veil of tears,

do you care or even contemplate the consequences –

of doing nothing?

© Standing in the shadow 2012

By Alexandra Carr-Malcolm