Poetry "Goodbye"

(Originally posted (5/13/14) As some of you may know, while I am in graduate school I've been working on my memoirs.  It's been an interesting journey to write in first person narrator about my own life.  Along the way though I'm learning so much about the process of writing, about making that writing literary, and processing my own life.  There have been moments where I type the words amidst sobbing, or laughing... it seems like, at the 103 page mark there is a lot of loss.  AIDS in the late 1980's and into the mid-1990's was an enormous about of loss.  I'm trying to make sense of it all, to take away meaning from it all and  ––– I think most importantly ––– trying to figure out what that loss has made into.

While writing last month this poem grew out of that.  I had some previous notes I had for an idea similar to this that just wasn't working.  This however works .... it works beautifully I think.  Speaking about that time-frame and all of that loss.  I do hope you "enjoy" this piece and the meaning it has for me.

Goodbye

Somber, silvery morning sky

In the twinkling of an eye

Heartbeats of the night have ended

Heavens gates cannot be mended

As alabaster snow descended

Creating a mystical winter livery

Muddied frozen snow no longer glittery

Downtown curbsides swamped in immorality

Welcoming commuters unaware of the calamity

Inevitable snow fettered on boughs

To cubicle’s they do plough

Do brittle ebony branches

The old oak tree no longer glancing

At how ill you are

Sunlight of dawn as a golden star

Twenty-first of December

Visitation of the sacred, angelic members

Even divine love

Guarding your sleep, your own mourning dove

Parquet floor engulfing my chair

Delicate ninety-three pounds are you, but none can compare

Swaddling clothes becoming a chenille bed spread

Rising with every breath in our marriage bed

Sunken, sullen facial features

Your new beard soft as peaches

Twinkling eyes once dazzling sweetness      

Now deep, somber and showing your weakness

Gazing empty, void of any life

Your slipping away, how do I describe the strife

Now enchanting burnt steel eyes

Drowning me, and now here I lie

I knew what was imminent

Suffering for you was so difficult

Yet it had to end, even though I never wanted it to come

Inside your legs, Kaposi Sarcoma bleeding

The battle at its peak, it was succeeding

My darling, we were losing

Blood soaked dressings producing

Your own Shroud of Turin

Your endless skill, beauty alluring

Undeniable knowledge, uncanny wisdom

Immense strength winsome

Drew me to your side

Tranquility engulfed in a tsunami tide

Can you hear the wings of the Angel of Peace

I after ten days of no rest finally fell asleep

You slipping away into eternal sleep

Did you spare, watching you slip away

Like the moon rising while the sun is betrayed

Sending moonlight radiance that you had made

Silence of peace flooding our home

Trying to control the pain in the whispering dome

As your precious breath never again comes