A poem about heartache and memories by David Tombale: My pillow

Memories and longing can make us into insomniacs some nights and that frustration is what has inspired My pillow.

My pillow

Most nights thoughts of you still keep

me guessing, what patch of light falls

across your face, what doorway is made

dark by the breath of your passing?

Midnight passes like this, with worrying

and tracking the ticking sound of the

hallway clock that is not you, that does

not sound like your heel clicks across

our marble floors or the heavy sigh that

strains your chest with fury or some mad

frustration you shall never voice.

Every evening I wait for sight of you like a

lonely comet streaking across the distant sky,

I’m needing you constantly and you need me

temporarily like a postman or a milkman,

some stranger to void the silence until you

leave him, with only tears to mark your

presence and the hollowed shape of your

body still pressed against my pillow.

A poem about memories and heartache by David Tombale: Everglades

The environments we encounter in our lives can make up the background of our memories and our experiences and a poem like Everglades embodies that idea.

Everglades

The trees cast their shadows over me

and beneath their massive bulk scurry

mice and vole and in their passage I’m

reminded I’m alone, on a lonely pilgrimage

to the single elm hidden in the centre

scarred with a heart and our names and

a history not of its own, a past as full as the

waters of the Everglades, the current stirring

with the passage of a gator, in my mind that

scaly prince stalks the quiet world of my solitude,

creeps across the disarray of feelings that reflect my memories

and when he clamps down on my throat it will

be more than heartache that eats me whole.

A poem about love and heartache by David Tombale: Carry out

Carry out is really about the end of a relationship and how that can affect your thoughts.

Carry out

The streets wind and weave begging me to roam,

daylight calls to me but it’s evening that takes me home,

back to the fiery crackle of the logs upon our hearth,

back to the U-haul van sitting upon our curb

There are enough memories left to bury so I might

not make it out, tonight the rain clouds gather

and tonight these wounds begin to hurt

When you are thought to me, when you are some

distant figment that rests like violets around our deck,

it’s I these songs speak of, it’s I they’ll carry out,

past the foyer, past the window that opens on your

pile of clothes that sit beneath our transistor radio.

A poem about family and loss by David Tombale: Invisible Love

The loss of a loved one is a hard thing for anyone to bear, whether it’s a child or an adult and that terrible struggle is what Invisible Love is about.

Invisible love

She lies there whispering like a madwoman

his name repeatedly like a chant or the beat

from a war drum but his love is invisible,

it carries across on the wind like autumn leaves,

shatters against the glass like ice,

it resides no place that the eye can see,

that her hands can touch,

that’s why her thoughts bleed enough to build

a river of blood that her children inherit

along with her hate, a frozen picture of parent,

an absent father as dear to their mother as the

portrait of Jesus that hangs on the mantel but

his love is invisible, it will never hold them,

never hold back her hair like the leather thong

that holds tight her black and white hair,

never raise their son into a man or walk their daughter

down the aisle, there is nothing left but his old boots,

their leather hard enough to creak when

their little boy wears them trying to summon his

ghost from out of his tombstone but nothing lives

but his tears.

A poem about love and hope by David Tombale: Resurrecting

Resurrecting is about finding someone to save you.

Resurrecting

I have lost all reason and traded the inky

black of my rain swept skies for the sunny

gold of autumn, hibernating quietly while

she sits silently resting her hands on either

side of him.

The coldness of winter has often lived here,

winked its eye here and felt that the

sinking weight of my falling heart would

look far better frozen but sometimes I

disagree, many times a woman will sidle

up and rub her hands across that ice and

resurrect my beating heart,

fill these eyes with gifts of long black locks

and soft brown arms and someday she’ll kiss

these lips and impart the wisdom of being lost

only to be found.

A poem about lost love by David Tombale: Smoke

Written for the prompt Smoke.

Smoke

And then we were like smoke,
like forest fires, like tears within
the rain, we were beautiful like
reflections of the moon within
a pool, we were like perfection,
like the sounds of jazz on a lazy
Sunday afternoon.

We were smoke and flame
and some days I wish you’d come again,
I wish you’d happen by to see me,
knock on Number 24 and smile like
it was accidental, like the winds
had deigned to carry you to where
I am, but the sight of smoke is
lifting, dissipating into air and
my heart can’t take much more
so I won’t open up this door. 

A poem about heartache and loss by David Tombale: Mourning

We all grieve in our own ways when we lose someone and there is no right or wrong to it just sorrow and perhaps a celebration of a life well lived.

 

 

 

Mourning

 

The skyline’s ringed with lights of

 white and purple exploding like fireworks

 beneath a scarlet moon.

 

 The city cries tonight,

 there is an echo of sorrow in the way

 the cars crawl, the horns blare.

 

 The skyline is a pent up breath that

 will swallow you, letting loose these gusts

 of wind, a last release of a winter breeze.

 

 Our tears fill the first signs of rain clouds,

 fill the bottomless wealth of empty dams.

 We mourn like unruly children trying to

 harass the heavens to give Him back.