Testimony

Testimony

Here are some extracts from a project I called 'Testimony' in which I tried to deal with love in all its many aspects. The "collection" features sixty poems (the first draft and was completed in late 2010).

Sirens

Let’s lift charged glasses to the ambrosia clouds above

That drip sweet nectar rain upon us all

And fondly recall those days when we were filled

With the bounty of love’s mead, soft dreams recalled

When worship cast its crown down at her feet

Can I speak with you, dear friend, of things long past

Share with you the honey dew song I heard?

Tied to the mast, I strained to resist a Siren’s call

Before I slipped my bonds and fell to surly earth.

So shall we drink and reminisce this thing called love?

Longing

How I long for you

Like a traveler who never reaches his destination

You are the fragrance I yearn to inhale

The river I ache to cross

The day I await to dawn

I’m drawn to you like a moth to fire

When I try to fly above the thought of you

You rise up to meet me in my dreams

When I fall, the hope of you saves me

I long for you in the promise of spring

Long for you in summer’s hest

Long for you in autumn’s colours

Long for you through winter’s silence

Hibernating with frost on my eyelids

Aching to taste your life-giving kiss

When your honeyed lips press

Against my frozen mouth

I will awaken and sing

Like the birds of love and attraction

Breaking into cherry blossom,

I will fall at your feet like soft pink rain

Making a fragrant path of myself

To bear the beauty of your footsteps 

You are my one distraction

I long to see you

Long to hear your voice

Long to taste your smile 

And as you walk through me

Like bare footed sunshine

I’ll take you gently by the hand

And promise I will lead you home

Matryoshka

Do you remember when we began our journey, took off the first brittle outer shell and bared a second layer of ourselves?

My sweet Matryoshka, did you think I would reveal myself all at once?

You were guarded the same as me after all.

It was like diving in the beginning, swooping to a different level and getting a glimpse before

Soaring back up again.

Do you remember those first kisses, the delicate touches of reverent explorers?

When we opened another level like a brightly wrapped present and I felt your intimate touch.

It was then we lost control and first spoke of love.

The thrill of loosing ourselves to exhaustion like an ebbing tide will stay with me forever.

 

Do you remember my sweet doll, the next layer, when we became real and showed our faults?

To one another, like growth rings.

We sometimes cried together, always making up with tea and kind words.

The levels got smaller but more intense, deeper as each unfurled like the petals of a flower

Kissed by the sun.

Each time we split in the middle we opened ourselves anew in an intimate shrinking

Our worlds melting together like chocolate.

Still looking for the kernel of who we are, we fooled ourselves we could ever know what one another thought.

We carried on our quest into an inner universe where everything became increasingly compressed.

It got harder to breathe then sweet Matryoshka, the simple act of filling my lungs began to hurt.

I’m not sure who panicked first as we fell into smaller and smaller spaces, until we realised we’d gone too far, could never extricate ourselves from one another.

We hunted each other relentlessly to the last atom trying to satisfy our thirst to know.

You’d long since fused with my sperm, my life essence but my sweet doll, it was never enough, you had to possess all of me and I fell into you head first.

Others heard me crying and wistfully remembered who I’d been, as I span ever more quickly, caressing your inner space until I’d disappeared into you altogether and only a faint echo remained

Zvyozdochkin’s Children

The geese came early this year, covering our steppes like snow, heralds of the cold to come

First flakes falling yesterday, slowly at first, soon painting the endless fields in brilliant white

Stretching far away into a cloud kissed horizon.

It’s hard to imagine summer’s sea of flowers, nodding their heads in fragrant agreement

With gentle breezes

Now Mother Russia’s icy breath is upon us, it settles in hoar frost flakes on your eye lashes

Glistening like jewels on your furs.

We too had our day in the sun, lying by the lakeside, watching swifts wheeling above us

Their shrill cries of delight filled the air, mixing with our own.

What became of you my dearest girl?

We played Russian dolls you and I, each reduction revealing a different hidden personality.

How we loved losing those layers, running hand in hand through air filled with seed!

I knew your every need before you’d even asked.

Your voice echoes in my memory clear as ice, the white of your smile still lights my mind’s eye.

Promise you’ll return my sweet Matryoshka, light my world with the songs of spring

Paint my sunsets red again with the fire of your kisses.

Over

Walking the cold of a winter’s morning

Emulating the desolation of skeletal forms

I too have shed myself

Stride spindly and wind chilled

Time removes us with every pace

And sadness reins within

You have delivered

Your parting overture

What now as I walk the valley

And silence sings from the hillside?

Nothing but this:

Leafless trees and stones on the top of an icy lake

Where I tried to skip them

Or a word blowing through me

Like a falling leaf

Whispering it’s over

Over

Over

Mark Harris has asserted his right under

Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

To be identified as the author of this work.