Via Dolorosa

by S.S. Rose

  • Poetry
  • Lyrical

Published September 29, 2011

Spoiler! :
Greetings, clever friends -- do please tell me what you think of this. I'm not sure if I like it or not, I find it rather melodramatic in its fervent expression of grief, but I think its message is universal. I'm kind of thinking it might just be another one of those angsty useless poems that lose their meaning after time because of their abundancy. Bah, I don't know-- tell me what you think, and excuse a blubbering idiot.



"Via Dolorosa"

I want, my wanting empty and free:
Beggarly heedless steps in slipping sand.
The wind recalls an anger –
Something red and living like a second heart
Stirred by the stark rush of the hours.
Reality, vacuous and fetid,
Is a disappointment to these eyes.

For a hilly moment I am all
Running feet and spreading arms,
Outstretched like shabby flightless wings.
But then you are at my heels,
Your hand on my arm, stilling my
Childish pretense of liberty,
Holding me like a breath.

Your affection has ebbed and died,
But that is not the nature of my zeal.
I was a fool, and now a lunatic –
Was it not poetic to die for love?
Ah, idol or deity, I care not!
Mortal heart makes no difference, because in death
I too will forget, and that is travesty.

I have seen too much; the passers-by may close my eyes
Against the probing exposure of the rain,
For I shall not: in unconsciousness, I will not succumb.
They say I have lost my bloom –it is yours, all of it, yours.
I kneel in sentient poverty
And the moon, a helpless mother,
Studies whitely my simple pain.

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It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tube-shaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats—the hobbit was fond of visitors. The tunnel wound on and on, going fairly but not quite straight into the side of the hill —The Hill, as all the people for many miles round called it—and many little round doors opened out of it, first on one side and then on another.
— JRR Tolkien