photo credit: Robert Couse-Baker without a trace via photopin (license)
After the storm, when the rage has subsided
A dead calm takes over. A false dawn is my fear,
As frightening as the storm in its way.
For you expect me to speak first,
To return things to normal. As if there is no wreckage,
No cargo to salvage and no survivors to be found.
© 2019 | Frank Regan, All rights reserved.
The sheer quantity of lies and false alibis
Are going to drag you down in the end.
Tying you up in chains of your own delusions,
Machinations, pretence. The price you’ll owe
Will be claimed in the end. It cannot be avoided.
It cannot be denied. The wheels are turning
Time ticks on until the final tock.
Then you’ll look back across an ocean of deceits
To find only your lies have kept pace,
Honest companions to you.
© 2019 | Frank Regan, All rights reserved.
photo credit: amsterdamfan My Own Insanity via photopin (license)
If we should drown
Then we should drown together.
If these emotions should overwhelm.
If these waves should overturn,
Should capsize this flimsy craft.
Send me down to Davy Jones.
If the Arctic current of an icy sea
Should wrap its frigid limbs about the fragility of me.
I ask no more than to stretch out my hand
To feel my fingers entwined with yours.
To know, that we will go down together.
© 2019 | Frank Regan, All rights reserved.
photo credit: dollen Soul Meets Body via photopin (license)
Will you smile for me?
One more time,
Will you smile?
Will you make the earth shake?
With a laugh that quakes
The ground beneath my feet.
Will you offer up a moment,
For the moments that we’ve shared?
Do you care? Do you give a damn?
Or are you just leaving
Letting all the doors slam,
Without a backward glance.
© 2018 | Frank Regan, All rights reserved.
photo credit: Gordon Oliver Wire Wool Spinning 4 via photopin (license)
You don’t have to be mad to exist here
But it helps to see the world through crying eyes.
You don’t have to be crazy to believe
But it makes it easier, for swallowing the lies.
Bitter truths, lip-service troops surging forth
Overwhelming our defences. Vandals,
Visigoths massing out there in the tomorrows
And hiding out in the shadows of yesterdays.
And will she stay?
This time, will she remain.
© 2017 | Frank Regan, All rights reserved.
We wouldn’t make the effort to keep it alive.
Stood hands in our pockets and watched it die.
Watched the embers until they were ashes, cold in the fire.
Where once we were junkies for the drug of desire
Now we take doses of pain and fear and lie after lie.
When we needed kisses of life as medicine
We turned our backs, hands in our pockets and let it die.
We bedded down with liars, we let our hearts stop.
For all this bleeding – our hearts never started beating again.
© 2016 | Frank Regan, All rights reserved.
photo credit: azproduction Fire Keeper via photopin (license)
Snatches of song.
When are you coming home?
Sojourns in love
Hand-in-hand, in glove.
Ecstasy and echoes,
Last chance, last throw.
That kiss; a summer game.
That always ends the same.
I walk away
You let me go.
I want to stay
But I don’t know
The words I want to hear
And what it is I fear.
Is it love’s demands;
Deep waters; shifting sand.
…
Snatches of song
I hear again.
Or passion and thunder.
I fear the flood begins
With this single drop;
Becomes never ending reign.
And I’ll lose sight of land.
Take me under
Hold my hand.
© 2016 | Frank Regan, All rights reserved.
photo credit: Daniela Hartmann (alles-schlumpf) My Heart Goes Boom via photopin (license)
I’ve known my enemies longer
Than I’ve known my friends
And without this enmity
I’d be left hollowed out, empty hearted.
© 2016 | Frank Regan, All rights reserved.
What am I to do with you my little china girl.
Don’t want to watch you breaking apart
When I see another heartbreak on your horizon
That I know will make you cry.
When I see you hanging out
With that Mr So-Wrong-For-You guy.
When I know he’s going to let you fall
And shatter you into a million pieces
My little china girl.
© 2015 | Frank Regan, All rights reserved.
