Libretto

I

photo credit: Historias Visuales Viajera silenciosa via photopin (license)

I may have the words
But the music has escaped from me.
I may know the steps
But the dance has left my feet.
I may have had you once
But that was another day,
Another picture of decay.

II

photo credit: zeitfaenger.at Teatro abbandonato via photopin (license)

Metamorphosis:
Say something else, before voices flee
Running timid from
Reality. Bleeding on these streets
For the word crimes. Passionate
Execution of the grey
And the virgin’s vision – decay.

© 2020 | Frank Regan, All rights reserved.

Originally Published 14 January 2017

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The War, The Peace

photo credit: Kyats via photopin (license)

Remnants of the war,
Leave the children crying in
An uneasy peace.

Bringers of freedom,
Peddle new tyrannies
Like cotton candy

And sugar coated
Lies are still lies
In the mornings light.

© 2020 | Frank Regan, All rights reserved.

Originally Published 9 September 2015

These Truths Are Mine

photo credit: jeri leandera gazing through time via photopin (license)

An invention,
A creation,
Nothing to see.
An enigma,
An illusion,
A fantasy.
Something
And nothing
A mystery.

The mask
Behind which I hide;
The smile
Behind which I hide;
The wall
I’ve built and
Behind which I hide.

The truth
That cannot be denied.
These lies are mine;
Yes, this is me.

© 2019 | Frank Regan, All rights reserved.

Wounds of Night

photo credit: Kevin M. Gill Horsehead Nebula via photopin (license)

To me,
To me all the time.
Nearer to me all the time.
Like rays of darkness,
The blinding shafts of night
Hold me close.
Hold me closer,
Closer than the dark
That waits to destroy
The fears.

The spiralling void
Inside of the darkness.
Like a spider’s web
I bind myself with its lies.
In a shimmering gossamer deceit
Wound about me.
Tighter, ever tighter,
Tightening all the time.

© 2019 | Frank Regan, All rights reserved.

Phase Shift

photo credit: Kevin Rheese Shadows in my nightmare via photopin (license)

Subtle change,
A shift in perception,

The ultra-violet waves
Wash over me.
The innocent skin
Of my naked soul

Coils snake-like
About this un-original sin.
And I’m lost,
Adrift –

Within an ocean
Of my own making
Within the tidal forces
Of my deceits.

Burning within the cauldron
Consumed by the fire of my ghosts.
 
© 2018 | Frank Regan, All rights reserved.

Paper Tigers

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Papering over the facts
Sliding over the emotion
In search of the cracks.
Searching for something
Like a butterfly wing,
A nod in the direction
Of the beauty
Of the well constructed lie.
 
© 2018 | Frank Regan, All rights reserved.

One Too Many Lies (Tumbleweed)

photo credit: Stuck in Customs Haunted Namibia via photopin (license)

You are shackled now
No time for regrets, only fools
Would have contemplated
That the dice would have rolled
Any different way for you.
The time for changing
Was more than a million lies ago
Back when your suit was new
And your smile hadn’t lost its shine.

And you wonder why everybody is disbelieving,
When all the prophets are leaving
On the night train and the red eye.
Heading out of town and back to their rooms
To close the curtains, shut out the light.
When your alabaster countenance
Is bending and sagging under the weight
Of the fight. When the lies you’ve told are stacking up
To a million and one too many lies.
 
© 2017 | Frank Regan, All rights reserved.

Liar Song

photo credit: davemmett Infidelity via photopin (license)

Liar song with discordant voices, a twisted echo of the lie.
On-and-on, ever on, until the end time when we start again
Putting the broken pieces back together.
Burying the truth in a shallow grave, sitting waiting for a little rain
And the new shoots and new delusions to deceive.
Intoxicating the two of us, like that undying phantom of our first time.
 
© 2017 | Frank Regan, All rights reserved.

What it Seems

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What happens if I distrust the rumours
But take your sweetest lies as facts?

Well the honey bee knows
That the strongest perfume can disguise the truth
And that the prettiest blooms can sometimes be empty inside.
It’s like the stag that has learned to fear the silence
Because of the danger that lies in autumn shadow.
Or the wind that cries softly in November,
For remembrance of what winter brings.
 
© 2016 | Frank Regan, All rights reserved.

This is the final prompt of five from ‘How to Write a Poem’ by Tania Runyan, and is all about unanswered questions.

Long Way Down

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We are five stories from the truth
And them people are looking
Pretty inconsequential way down there
Like ants, just insects really
When you don’t get to see their faces
When you don’t see
The whites of their eyes
They look small enough to crush
Between finger and thumb
To gods like us
Climbing higher and higher
Above the earth.

 

© 2016 | Frank Regan, All rights reserved.