Cold Stone Secrecy: Twelve Poems
By Benjamin Appleby-Dean
Copyright (c) 2018 Benjamin Appleby-Dean
Also by Benjamin Appleby-Dean, and available on Kindle:
Lamplight
Amy and her friends are bombarded with anonymous messages, but don't notice the members of their group being picked off one-by-one as an ancient evil surfaces in their hometown. A terrifying contemporary ghost story about smartphones and social isolation.
The Stickman's Legacy
Mary never knew her father, the fabled Stickman, but his death draws her into a world of warring magicians and subterranean kingdoms, and she now has to understand her legacy before it's too late. A dark fairy-tale about the stories we tell ourselves.
Contents:
Moving Forward
Ephemera
With Open Arms
Long-Term
Leviathan
What Keeps Us Apart
Talia
Idle Thoughts
What Comes After
Sippian Shee (A Rhyme for Children)
Anthem
Epitaph
Moving Forward
Let me never be content
To make my bed where comfort lies
By gentle winds and open skies
Or all the colours of the sun
Let me never be content
To leave my life undone
Time goes faster when it's spent
On slowing steps to look behind
To let the spool of years unwind
And dream of all my yesterdays
Who can say if I'm not meant
To settle in my ways?
But I cannot be content
To live a life so filled with ease
I cannot shrink from injuries
Or hide behind some masterplan
For each wound I can't prevent
I'll take on ten I can
I'm not planning to repent
I'd rather burn than compromise
A part of me will always rise
Up from the ashes that remain
Life lived to it's full extent
Comes with the price of pain
Ephemera
I heard you one day, singing
Singing deep and solemn things
Like weathered stones beside a tree
Or grey clouds falling on a hill
Your voice was soft; yet ringing
And ringing I hear it still
I followed you then, clutching
At a sound that always rings
But clung so tight I set it free
Your body's here, the soul's away
It's never you I'm touching
Just the shadow of that day
So as I wander, stumbling
Like a bird that's lost its wings
And find silence in front of me
I make my refuge in the past
But that moment is crumbling
The longer I make it last
As Time's whirlpool is turning
We may find something that sings
A light that shines transcendently
But when we try to keep that prize
The brightest light stops burning
And the clearest echo dies
With Open Arms
You came dressed up for a wedding
Pretending you'd nowhere to go
Hard-won humanity shedding
Like snakeskin like standards like snow
You came into my dominions
Guided by your own design
But this house has formed opinions
And the main one is 'you're mine'
We hide behind paper faces
But I see the truth in your eyes
Hinting at ancient disgraces
That need more than words to disguise
You may think yourself frustrated
By my cold stone secrecy
I'll reward each moment waited
Swallow you in depths of me
Too late you realise the danger
The hooks that I've placed in your heart
You may have come as a stranger
But nothing can tear us apart
You can't scare me with your rages
I know the feelings you hide
Soon you'll learn to love my cages
Happiness grows where hope died
Long-Term
Each morning is set in familiar ways
Threadbare in comfort and well-worn with grace
Moments recorded played back over days
First light's farewell to the evening's embrace
The dance we did before left scratches in the floor
Carved patterns of our lives
The bitterness you said was kept inside instead
And so we hug like knives
Broken by habits we never unwind
Tighter and tighter we're coiling like springs
Smiles can't be trusted and words are unkind
Hiding our faults with the smallest of things
This dance has cut so deep there's no room left to weep
Against the ragged stone
We scrape we touch we kiss the lips of the abyss
We drown in days unknown
Last night I found you as if you were new
Sleep hanging heavy and night falling fast
Both spitting fury but neither withdrew
Blood running over we gave in at last
The dance we're doing now must carry on somehow
We've hardly started yet
Each step we take in pain are moments we remain
Before we can forget
Each morning is set in familiar ways
Guarded by rituals we cannot ignore
Counting the seconds instead of the days
Living the lie that we once had before
Leviathan
The shabby folk no longer lie
Where once they slept in shame
But now from archless steeples cry
A cause without a name
The streets are blind, a wooden shroud
Is nailed across each face
But something lingers, swelling loud
With scorn and hoarse disgrace
The mournful, angry, and the grim
The waking and the cold
Are sounding out a desperate hymn
A wail of dust and mould
A bloated top, the middle squeezed
Both topple as they feared
The stable has become diseased
The horse? Long disappeared
What Keeps Us Apart
(from Swift and Spiderlike)
Two dreamers share a single pair of eyes
Each taking turns to wear the other's skin
If one falls sick the other surely dies
Our lovers cannot see through our disguise
They never know which soul may lie within
Two dreamers share a single pair of eyes
We're stitched by common thread and mutual ties
If one should starve the other will grow thin
If one falls sick the other surely dies
You drag me down when I so long to rise
I can't escape this bond you hold me in
Two dreamers share a single pair of eyes
There's no way out nor any compromise
Across two worlds we're each the other's twin
If one falls sick the other surely dies
Some day to come we'll hatch like butterflies
But years remain before we can begin
Two dreamers share a single pair of eyes
If one falls sick the other surely dies
Talia
They lied - she wasn't sleeping when I found her
But tearing up her sheets to bind her hands
Still bleeding as she fought the thorns around her
Determined to resist the spell's demands
They lied - it was no prince who came to wake me
But some madwoman in a tattered gown
Who tore away the briars that tried to break me
And rode into my room wearing a crown
They lied about the way the curse was broken
No unconsenting kiss as beauty slept
Our love arose long after she'd awoken
Leaving the witch's prophecy unkept
Idle Thoughts
I sometimes yearn to lose myself in green
Run headlong from the path into the wild
To cast away my dignity and pride
And hide beneath the arches of the trees
But every day becomes what might have been
And I must learn to swallow my unease
I sometimes dream I'm in a different skin
My body and my heart now reconciled
But all these dreams are easily denied
By how I've tried to keep myself awake
I'd rather keep my true face locked within
And live behind a mask for safety's sake
I sometimes wish that I could start again
Reshape myself into a fearless child
Who never saw their passions cast aside
Or cried when they were powerless to act
But wishing conjures worlds I can't sustain
When I should learn to keep this world intact
What Comes After
(from Swift and Spiderlike)
If we dream we dream of dying
When we die we sleep forever
Bodies keep the soul from flying
Spirits hold the flesh together
So we live in worlds suspended
Passing through the veil like weather
Till at last we can't be mended
Phantoms with no path to follow
Drifting till their days are ended -
So I saw you and knew sorrow
Knew there was no point in lying
When you'd never see tomorrow
Sippian Shee (A Rhyme for Children)
(From The Stickman's Legacy)
Lickety, Splickety, Sippian Shee
He's under the bed or he's up in the tree
And if you try running he'll look out and see
He'll catch you and keep you, that Sippian Shee
Huffity, Puffity, Sippian Shee
His toes number five but his fingers just three
His nails are so sharp they'll strip skin from a flea
So don't think he'll spare you, that Sippian Shee
Hoppity, Floppity, Sippian Shee
With every step forward he cackles with glee
And when he's found you he'll come looking for me
There's no place to hide from the Sippian Shee
Anthem
We always knew this world of ours was far too good to last
But never dreamed such cruelty would be brought in by the tide
We'd rather turn like lighthouses to shine upon the past
And wrap up in nostalgia while we lock the world outside
But it's no use to fill your head
With what has gone before
Come raise your voice with me instead
And sing the song of war
We tried sweet words but sweet words died when hatred took the field
We softened all our slogans to stop people getting scared
We wasted countless arguments on minds that never yield
And now the world has broken and we're none of us prepared
But sparks we strike inside machines
Can grow to something more
So use your keyboards and your screens
To sing the song of war
We've sailed the shores of yesterday and nothing can compare
But those same dreams confine us from the struggle now at hand
We're floundering in shallows, building castles in the air
While storms on the horizon swell to scatter us like sand
But are we willing to be strong
Or are we made of straw?
We've sung the song of peace too long
Now sing the song of war
Epitaph
(from Swift and Spiderlike)
And as your dream is dying you must surely comprehend
You wished without first thinking what remains when wishes end