Castle of Connacht, Seefin, Galway, Ireland by Mike Searle
Broken You Fall (After “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou)
I cannot tell you the future
without my candied, fraudulent truths.
I cannot halt your isolation,
so broken, deserted, you’ll fall.
When has your silence ever comforted me?
When am I happy without camaraderie?
You’re alive but you’ve avoided living,
withdrawing to your ultimate decimation.
Excluded like suns and like moons
in the currents of uncertainty,
ostracized like despairs and dwindling low,
broken you’ll fall.
Should I avoid you, overlook you?
Turn my head and avert my eyes?
Shoulders block you from my sight,
Fortified against your soulless laugh.
When has your frailty ever comforted me?
Should I give you my devotion unquestioningly
since you cry like you’ve no strongholds,
no roof and no walls?
I cannot unearth you with my clamor.
I cannot recover you with my struggle.
I cannot save you with my fondness,
so broken, like rubble, you’ll fall.
When have your delusions ever comforted me?
Must I explain to you
how you sing of glistening glass jewels
when you feint caring but call me by her name?
Into the castle of isolation
you fall.
Down to a future that’s fixed in solitude
you fall.
You’re an obscure sea, constricted, sinking,
looming and depressing. You’ve snagged me in your undercurrent.
Erasing all chance for cheer and ease
you fall.
From a murky twilight
you fall.
You’re a fear to master, a nightmare.
You’re a penalty to bear.
You fall
You fall
You fall.