The Foil-gilded Chain

Letting It All Fall Away

It’s a matter of living day by day:
embracing the now, dumping this baggage
salvaged from seasons past, exile’s luggage,
heavy loads—letting it all fall away
for the sake of living life day to day,
stowaway on Life’s ferry—no passage
but the willingness . . . no need for courage
or remorse. Letting it all fall away.

Encumbrance of the past weighs too heavy,
an anchor tied with a foil-gilded chain
to memory, fault, failures, guilts that go on,
and unrealized potential heavy
as lead and precious as gold—and as pain—
Let it all fall away now; life goes on.

David M Pitchford
24 November 2009

Open Invitation to a Pity Party

Broken Man

Fresh out of the bottle, pickled, dismal,
the broken man sits in his life’s ashes;
dressed in sackcloth, he mumbles his prayers
to the quilted sky. What is it he wants?
Rather a poet or a prophet, but
truth asserts itself that he is but a
madman in a world peopled by madmen—
and he is forced to accept his humble
place within this fallen world. Broken, he
meditates on acceptance, willing now
to take another path, though hesitant
to leave the precious past behind, open
for change, but longing to go back . . . homeless,
he must find a home, begin life anew.

David M Pitchford
24 November 2009

True, Love

True, Love

Question not love, my love, nor doubt our love;
love was always true between me and you,
was truth and Truth and remains ever—Love,
my love, was our mutual sky, star-filled
and glorious, lifting us beyond our
limits of self toward higher potentials.
Yes, love, our simplest truth was love itself,
organic though eternal immortal
despite our mortality—
                                       enter here
Eden’s serpent and our fall, ejection
from paradise: love failed not us, nor we
failed love . . . it was relationship and trust
betrayed that came to part us, grew into
that sword-bearing angel standing between.

David M Pitchford
23 November 2009

We Too

Facing Truth

He lies beneath stars, cold against frosted
grass, stares into November skies, searching
night and his spirit for Truth. What truth: past
or present or eternal? Perhaps her truth,
could he but find it, know it, touch it, hear
it from her heart, soul, and lips. . . . How did we
learn to stop talking—communicating?
We bared our souls in sonnets, spoke all love
and life to the world around us, and yet
face to face we seem to have lost something
vital, leaving far too much unspoken.
Each too much to own, our sharing became
hoarding—unfulfilled needs became bitter
resentments. “I” stood between “we”, us too.

David M Pitchford
21 November 2009

Too Late the Echo

When the Echoes Die

For months I clung to that hope: “No such thing
as too late . . .” Its echo the gravity
holding me close to that old orbit. Now
its echoes die away if not into
impossibility, then into slim
probability. Lost outside her light,
I listen for hints of hope, search shadows
within shadows without knowing not what
these distances hold outside love’s orbit.
“No such thing as too late . . .” echoes far
off, trailing into the past—such thing as
too late . . . these echoes die . . . and now spinning
into outer darkness, swallowed by these
shadows of my own making, I hear, “. . . too late . . .”

Daivd M Pitchford
18 November 2009

Broken of Promise

Carefree & Pathological

I’m bankrupt. Financial, spiritual,
and moral destitution imprison
me to a new freedom born of pathos
and desperation. Ease? I don’t feel it
facing the fire of burnt bridges, choking
on the smoke, buried in the wreckage I
have turned to face, to own, to make amends
where possible. Not a softer path, nor
an easier way . . . but a better way
of living day to day, the past behind,
future undetermined. And now, sober,
I stand before you—rail away if it
helps you. No defense. No denial. Truth,
honesty—these my only crutches now. 

David M Pitchford
12 October 2009

Abating

Madness Abating

These past few hours, peaceful
how long since I’ve been at peace
tumults of my own making
plagued me more days than I recall

Now, I’m learning again
to believe in miracles
watching one hour at a time
sober and accepting

as life unfolds with new meaning
and though old ghosts may haunt
I walk paths of serenity
heart open to the wide world
mind open to solutions
spirit open to hope and miracle.

28 October 2009
David M Pitchford

Swimming through Stone

Swimming Through Stone

“The drowned cannot swim” and yet drowning comes

harder than once thought. That whiskey river

flowed deep and fast—twenty years swimming drunk

through three marriages and more affairs than

any man should curse himself with, and you

were my rock, my respite buoy and lifeline—

I tried to drown to protect you from me,

but courage failed. Living that way—dead end—

thinking you’re drowned only to find yourself

swimming through stone, heart and mind in the grave

while your stubborn soul clings to earthly life . . .

longing for death, sinking in denial

and swimming against granite grain, we strain

toward life, striving to sober up and live. 

19 October 2009
David M Pitchford