Crosshatched

A Poem Written 07/01/2006

Crosshatched
07/01/2006
David C. Roberson

Rise up
with caution in your longing.
The static through radio whispers,
its voices breathing some strange,
sad message in your ear,
calling you ever closer,
ever closer.

Listen hard
to their yearnings;
ensconce yourself in The Darkness,
foreboding, inviting, enticing.
Allow your inner self the privilege
passed down through generations,
the birthright of all ages:
the ability to decipher
the language of The Dead Things
lurking in the dark,
those black beings heaving sour
nothings through bathroom tile teeth,
white and peeking out
from a stretched and greasy smile.

Rise up
to find the breaking
dawn diminishing the
demeanor of the dark night.
Survey your cell, so sealed
it makes cemented cubicles
look like open fields,
green and alive
under blissful, blue skies.
You'll find quickly that the sun
has sent The Darkness into hiding,
back to the cavernous confines
of its dank, dirty dwelling,
absorbing the deeds that define us,
the timestamps so trying
they keep us from smiling.

Rise up!
Find The Darkness approaching
from the blood in your veins:
ink pouring from pen,
obsidian glistening
upon white paper,
spreading stains like
your soul sullied
by years of the ink,
the bile
and the bruisings,
the deaths,
and the stink,
The Itch of the old inspirations,
so dark in their infinity,
so cold in their indifference,
so quick with temerity,
to seep out of every pore,
forming the lines that weren't there
years before.
The lines on your body and face,
the lines mostly blamed upon
gravity and age.
But each mark is a scar from the merging
of our souls with the rampant
and sin-induced splurging
of time and life's evident splashings.
The liars and leapers and lepers and thrashings,
the hatred and rapings and roundabout stashings,
all culminate as your shell begins cracking,
finally to form a glorious crosshatching.

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