Long Forgotten

photo credit: AegirPhotography The Excelsior I via photopin (license)

I cannot express if this is sorrow.
This emptiness can feel like all I am.
I no longer dream, not for a long time
Hope has long deserted that treacherous harbour.
My soul has become like a ghost town,
Light has departed, set sail from the shore.

I am hollow, I am a wasteland,
The twisted wreckage of an invisible child.
An orphan of time and tide, marooned
In the shadow of the meeting
Of that which might-have-been.

© 2020 | Frank Regan, All rights reserved.

Whispered

photo credit: Bruna Pregnolatto Sobre o projeto: A thousand whispers. via photopin (license)

I can’t offer you the world
If that is what you are after.
I can’t go chasing dragons
Or find the meaning of the shadows.
For all I have is my failings,
My pedestrian disasters.
The beatings of my heart
And these whispered flights of fancy.

© 2020 | Frank Regan, All rights reserved.

That Has Made All the Difference

photo credit: phil hirst Enter the Forest via photopin (license)

We got lost upon the way,
Separated, you and I
At some bend in the road.
For when I looked ahead
You were no longer there.
There was just the solitude
Cast by the shadow of the trees
That led along the untrodden path;
Deeper into the dark
Way through the woods.
 
© 2020 | Frank Regan, All rights reserved.

Originally Published 11 September 2018

Knowhere

photo credit: Marco Ascrizzi P1070949 via photopin (license)

A man took a bus
Went searching for his heart.
He’d left his home of forty years,
Packed a bag – filled it with memories
And assorted other dusts.
He watched as the driver pulled out into traffic
And joined the motorway.
He watched as everything he’d ever believed
Dwindled through the window
Of a bus bound to nowhere. Until all that was left
Was a collection of smudges on the glass.
Like a dim, shadowed, constellation of stars.

© 2020 | Frank Regan, All rights reserved.

Originally Published 31 May 2019

Reprise

photo credit: Tom Wachtel I stopped via photopin (license)
I stopped on the step and stooped to look at my feet. There was something afoot, but it wasn’t me.

A chill breeze caress,
A shiver for midsummer.
A kiss of winter
Walks in out of the moonlight
From no man’s land, takes my hand.

© 2020 | Frank Regan, All rights reserved.

Yes, You

photo credit: Quentin Verwaerde Maarten van Heemskerck, 1498-1574, Adam et Eve, c.1550, dét., musée des Beaux-Arts de Strasbourg via photopin (license)

Yes, you came and saved me again.
From the shadows and the dark,
From the monsters in my heart.

You are electric, lighting up my night.
I resonate to the frequency of your touch.
I ache when you are absent, without you

Living is as bitter as a winter storm.
As callous as tears,
Cried naked and alone.

Yes, you saved me once again
From the torment and the fears.
You are temptation I can’t resist.

© 2019 | Frank Regan, All rights reserved.

A Dark Wood

photo credit: J a s o n B o l d e r o sprung via photopin (license)

The dark wood mirrors my soul.
Shadows’ lengthening as day recedes,
Summer’s warmth weakening like a memory
In the dusk tide between the trees.
Leaving nothing but creeping decay
Beneath a blanket of fallen leaves.

© 2019 | Frank Regan, All rights reserved.

I See Dead People

photo credit: Stefans02 The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt / Underground via photopin (license)

I see ghosts out of the corner of my eye.
Shadows of the past, phantoms long gone,
Haunting me. Sleeping and waking, the dreamers
Creep through the tall grass. Circling my sanity.
Searching for the weaknesses in my reality.

© 2019 | Frank Regan, All rights reserved.

Chiaroscuro

photo credit: The Manic Macrographer Low Key Portrait via photopin (license)

Your light and dark plays with me.
Essence of night is the fragrance you wear.
Silence is the word on your lips
As with a gaze unwavering you stare
Succeeding again at unmanning me.

Twilight and rain clouds wrapped about you
Like a mantle of darkness
You are shadows, a certain chill in the air.
An absence, a sickness,
An addiction I keep on returning to.

You are the bones, the secret within.
The whisper deep underground
Forever echoing in the dark.
You are the fatal cry. The final sound.
I am your victim. You are my sin.

© 2019 | Frank Regan, All rights reserved.

Midnight Wandering

photo credit: khalid almasoud Thinking after midnight via photopin (license)

Not a breeze stirs the waters.
Time seems frozen by this summer heat
As sweat wraps me in its sickly embrace.
I’ve gone walking at this midnight hour
In the shadows beneath the trees.
I’ve gone searching, searching for something
I can’t remember. Yet I know I’m lost.

© 2019 | Frank Regan, All rights reserved.