7. Suicide Sonnets

  (Sonnets)

  1

  This night's as black as misery in bloom;

  Just staying here and waiting out the hours

  Have crushed the wits of better men; my doom

  Lies on the edge of fate; what once was ours

  To keep and cherish now lies in the tomb

  Of love to hatred turned, freezing the flames

  Of passion to the ice of scorn and gloom,

  Adding my name unto the list of names

  Bereft of friendship, loyalty and love.

  And so this lonely pilgrimage commences

  Within these dark and turning ways: above

  The moon shall guide, below the foul offenses

  Of countless sinners goad me on I know

  Not where or wherefore in these hours of woe.

  2 *

  The souls of poets dead and gone do mock

  This drifting shadow moving slow along

  The lonely streets, and when I hear them talk,

  I hear my name in whispers to their song:

  "Dear Shakespeare's such a daft, an aging songster,

  Who writes so sweet the craft of sweet surrender;

  But little does he know his regal youngster

  Is simply but a show, a great pretender.

  Oh when will Shakespeare see that his dear love

  Is but a falsity he cannot move?

  Such love can steal his art from realms above

  And break his weary heart that cannot prove

  Unto his waning hopes that love is true:

  Ah! See how much he mopes his pains anew?"

  3 *

  "Dream on, you sad and brooding dreamer, dream

  And take with you the prooding tears you shed,"

  They say in laughing spite, "and go redeem

  Them for a single night in someone's bed.

  Far better shall you be to steal away

  And end your woes for free in harmless fun,

  Than suffer needless pain to rue the day,

  Forgoing every gain for things undone.

  For then and only then can you begin

  To take a happy pen to make you whole;

  So heed our one advice to heal in sin,

  That through an act of vice, you'll save your soul!"

  What blasphemy is this that makes no sense?

  Such temporary bliss makes no defense!

  4

  I wander to and fro this endless night,

  Alone to find a place within a world

  Of bitter pain that seems a tragic plight,

  A pilgrimage with all my hopes unfurled.

  I look upon the stars as pilgrims did

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Of old, continuing my wayward path

  On weary limbs, as helpless as a kid

  Who's lost a dearest friend to Fate's cruel wrath.

  I think of laying down my shattered self

  In some dark alley, dying slowly, death

  Releasing me from love's corrupting pelf **

  With one last exhalation of my breath.

  But still I live, for graves have not a place

  For suicides that die in such disgrace.

  5

  Although I walk the grounds of Hell and sin,

  With thee I walk the heights of heaven's bliss;

  I languish by the places thou hast been,

  Alone to weep afresh and reminisce.

  In reminiscing thoughts of thee, I shed

  An ocean full of sorrow's deep regret

  And suffer countless boils of molten lead

  To pine away so deep a loss in debt.

  The world of life, a world so full of hoping,

  Is dead without the strength of friendship's clasp

  To hold this breaking heart, and leave me moping

  So high a cost that death can little grasp:

  The fount of sweet forgetfulness won't cure

  This agony, in which I can't endure.

  6

  If I'm to die tonight by chance or by

  Mine own design, so be it water lined

  With poison running down my throat or die

  A thousand deaths too vulgar for the mind,

  I'd gladly die a thousand deaths in Hell

  To free myself from this most hellish ache;

  I'd pay the ransom of a king or sell

  My very soul to get this grief to shake

  It's ghastly clutches off my heart!

  Oh no! If I just had a heart to get

  Possession of that organ, I would part

  Those very clutches off without a sweat!

  Ah! Such an ache compels me to dismember

  My ribs and rip it out to quell the ember!

  7

  Am I at fault to love? How can this love,

  So dear to me, have eyes of piercing truth

  That see with eyes of piercing hate, or move

  This mortal heart to suicidal ruth?

  What thought or word or deed could justify

  So sick a love that only death could cure?

  What cure so strong that Hell should rectify

  This curséd swain in death? What nail so pure

  In Christian blood could strike so strong a stab

  Of palpitation, that to die is bliss

  Upon a crucifixion's splintered slab,

  That dying death becomes so sweet a kiss?

  I pray to God Almighty, kill me now,

  And on my wretchéd soul His balm endow.

  8

  What eyes hath scornéd love implanted in

  My head, that every object offers sweet

  Surcease from sorrow's awful bile of sin?

  What feet are these that lead into the street?

  When I do look upon a brick, I see

  My brains and blood upon its cornered edge,

  And looking on this quill, I must agree

  'T would better suit to ink my bloody pledge

  Upon the living parchment on my neck;

  And looking on a horse's reigns, I reckon

  Of strangulation's medicine to break

  My curséd neck and drag my corpse, which beckon

  The beasts of earth to feed upon each shred,

  Because without thy friendship, I am dead!

  FINISH