The Tomb

My attempt at a T.S. Eliot style poem, my favorite poet.
Mind you, I'm no poet, so I'm just experimenting to find my own voice :-)


The Tomb
by Tim Woodacre

Not content with the wood of the forests,
       Trees overgrown with poisonous emotion,
       I count paces when tall weeds obfuscate.
The softness of soil an uncertain footing
       For a mind full of doubt, ever wanting
       Some complete thought, tangible and true.
I came upon a place of stones, weary tablets
       Whispering stories of lives forgotten
       To whatever will listen, a sad monologue.
"I hear you." I cried to no one, and heard nothing.
       But ventured on unimpeded, watching anxiously 
       As no one real appeared, a death of expectation
Then I fixed upon a quiet shadow, a form of nothing,
       Eyes with a fire of hate unquenched and lips
       Mouthing words of unrelenting envy.
I witnessed in an instant a life unlived and lost
       Never forming from a void of what could be
       Dreams released to the waves
And bottles with messages hastily written
       Of sorrow and loneliness on an island
       Of pain unknown to the oblivious vessels
That floated on the horizon, lazily content
       With a lot that satisfies and the warmth of closeness
       Never felt in my heart; never known.
This demon formed of bitter disappointment
         In a dark place untouched by the spark of life;
        An amorphous mass, composed
Of a hundred unfulfilled realities; a thousand stillborn men.
        Oozing malcontent, overflowing with jealousy
        and born of a sickness, it spoke these images
And warped the shape of my soul to a terror unspeakable.
        So I ran directionless in the night for a place of refuge
        To escape the evil enchantment of unchangeable past
And happened upon a tomb of ideas unhad.
        Behind me the something cold and pursuing,
        Breathing heavily with effort to envelop me.
A new darkness covered me instead between the walls
        And carefully I waited with vigilant feet
        For a new death, which never came.
So within the forsaken box I wept, confused and angry.
        While outside the thing persisted
        With a sneering indictment.
A voice from somewhere broke the dim fog of despair,
        It held me captive with strength.
        With a conviction of truth unquestioned it spoke.
"You have a light, Tim. Don't you feel it?"
       "No, where is it? How can it be?" I replied
        And with swiftness the torch appeared
A burning flame of rebirth to tear the darkness asunder
        A galaxy of sparks danced within the doubting fog
        illuminating shapes of futures never believed.
Upon the wall I saw a sentence etched in the stone
        Each crevice filled with my own blood,
        Shed while in the greatest pain of hopelessness
During countless nights of unforgiving solitude:
       "Life after death is life before death."
        So I wore it on my sleeve and protested
The gloom, sending it back whence it came and resolved
        To forever see the road ahead
        And wear the crown of kingship proudly.
And so I waited for the breaking of the dawn
        To arise from the dust
        And begin again.