Five Poems by Edward Lee

 

A LIFE LIVED

 

You died with a thousand promises

unfulfilled, another thousand

never made, more,

and yet I know

you were happy

with your lot,

with the breaths you were given,

the time you passed

doing what needed doing,

 

even, sometimes, doing

what didn't need to be done,

and everything in-between.

 

That is a life,

you would say,

if asked. That

is a life lived.

 

 

VOWS MADE OF AIR

 

How many wedding dresses

have lasted longer

than the marriage?

 

How many hang

in far corners

of vast wardrobes,

or delicately folded

in ancient trunks

in dusty attics,

 

almost forgotten,

but remembered occasionally,

fondly even, relighting a fire

on the face of the once and future bride,

who stumbles in her thoughts,

trying to recall

why she got married

at all, when all she has left

worth keeping is a dress

that has not known a human touch

in uncontainable years?

 

 

PALE RIVERS

 

My scars speak

for themselves,

speak for me,

as most scars do,

the different stories

they can tell

to different eyes.

 

That is why I keep them covered,

long sleeves and fat watches,

the truth they reveal – the many truths,

some of them even true –

a truth I will not give

to strangers, or friends

for that matter – I have even ceased

seeking lovers, those swift easers

of loneliness, the change in their eyes

as they see them more than I can endure – my eons

of weakness an embarrassment

I would rather not have examined,

the answers required for the questions

that would be forthcoming

not truly shapable by any words I know,

the only comprehensible explanation I could give

being the scars themselves, and perhaps

the shake of my hands as I display their paleness,

like rivers on a map of nowhere.

 

 

THE BLESSINGS OF INSOMNIA

 

Every night I drown

in the black water

of dreams, only rising

to the surface of sleep

when my lungs have burst

with their need for air,

my mind a tattered ruin

of nightmare

and depravation.

 

And, for all the racing of my heart,

I wake slowly, sluggishly,

spending the entire day recovering

just so I can be damaged

by the night again.

 

 

DEAR

 

It wasn't enough

for you to stab me

with your good-bye,

you had to write a letter

repeating and detailing

your reasons, least I be

in any doubt where the blame

for our ending lay,

the ink you used made

of broken glass

on which I sliced my fingers,

then my eyes, until finally

the remnants of my heart

fell from me, a dead

and useless thing,

like roadkill become

a part of the road

it died upon.

 

I wrapped it

in your letter,

my heart, a shroud

to bury it in,

the broken glass,

mixed with blood,

glittering like stars

in a daytime sky.

Edward Lee's poetry, short stories, non-fiction and photography have been published in magazines in Ireland, England and America, including The Stinging Fly, Skylight 47, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Acumen, The Blue Nib and Poetry Wales.  His play ‘Wall’ received a rehearsed reading as part of Druid Theatre’s Druid Debuts 2020.

He also makes musical noise under the names Ayahuasca Collective, Orson Carroll, Lego Figures Fighting, and Pale Blond Boy.

His blog/website can be found at https://edwardmlee.wordpress.com