BENEATH THE SILENT SURFACE Part 1 CONTOURS OF SOLACE

Here's a poem in two parts. Up until that point the longest one I had ever written. I felt I needed an environment where anything is possible and where no one could actually prove me wrong. No one living that is. So this takes place in the afterlife. I wanted it to be surreal yet with a strong human element. It's a story about undying love and one mans journey to find his dead wife. The same subject was also explored in WHAT DREAMS MAY COME, but I think this heads off in different directions from that film. I tried to let my imagination run completely free here, nothing was off limit, nothing impossible. It starts with a man coming home one day to find his wife has just been murdered and the killer is still there. He dispatches the killer and then turns the gun on himself. Thus begins an odyssey into realms unknown.

She lays on the floor
by the foot of the bed
Hands 'round her neck
strangled, she's dead
The killer is laughing
as I walk through the door
So I blow him away
just to even the score

I banish my sorrow
for I have the cure
Put the gun to my temple
and relief I'm ensured
I'm reborn from rebirth
in the sandunes of death
As I crawl from the vortex
of abandoned regrets

Armed with persistence
A hunters crusade
In a world of immortals
the forsaken, dismayed
I pause to observe
such a destitute place
Where spirits converge
in a dark rusty haze

I see rivers suspended
floating in the air
Glistening in a crimson hue
that will never disappear
Rain's cascading from the soil
and fall unto the sky
to saturate depleted clouds
as they drift on by

I trek on through a forest
of empty human shells
Where they wait to snag a soul
and bid this plane farwell
They're cloaked in desperation
and bound by circumstance
Peering into hollow hopes
that will never advance

Immersed in contemplation
weary in my quest
I've carved a path of foolish wrath
to become what I detest
( Yet ) There's contours of solace
beneath the silent surface
To conquer my redemption
I must forage for a purpose

I come upon a garden
where flowers are forged in ice
A frosty breath of winter chill
procured a swift demise
I brave such wicked hostile winds
across the desert snow
Bloody prints left in my wake
retains a ghostly glow

I rest in the canyon
of colorless leaves
Where souls are left lonely
forlorn and bereaved
I anchor myself
to the pale dusty ground
Where I'm mourning the lost
that have been left unfound

I glare at defeat
still I toss out your name
Echoes of longing
with no discernable aim
I'm bent and I'm broken
so suffused with despair
I failed to aknowledge
it was you standing there

The need to speak I did forego
to share a sweet embrace
I've come so far to be this close
not a moment I will waste
So when we chance upon a glen
enravished we entwine
Lawless in our lovelorn lust
re-joined as if by design

I'm lulled into slumber
my conflicts at ease
Nestled beside you
at last I am at peace
( But ) The allure of complacement
is a treacherous foe
Imbued with the delusions
that follows in tow

When I awake I sense decay
envelopes me in dread
For what I cradle in my arms
is her disembodied head
On a mound the killer taunts
hatchet in his hand
Grinning wide as if to say
catch me if you can

The pamorama in my view
implodes in gleaming white
The deconstruction starts anew
to feed the famished light
Petrified, such tattered gloom
depspondance one derives
For what I feared the most of all
they brought me back alive