Longing for the Unknown

from 20 Years Frozen for All Time by swampmessiah

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lyrics

Fallen. Wasted. Neck and thighs
feel the pulse behind imprisoning bone.
Helpless. Too tired or too lazy to rise.
Then standing, frightened to be alone.
Utter darkness. A night of solid skies
closing all lunar mysteries from this room.
A barrow, unreceptive to unspoken replies.
This cell of paper and dust, my verbal tomb.
A memory. What of her personality?
Only hips. That great pelvis of excitement.
Hips that feed wishes for tranquility.
Hips like a universe. In their movement
my blood climbs with mystic certainty,
believing the alpha and omega of passion
to be the core of their round luminosity,
their sway, their elliptical attraction.
My bulk of self-pity is overweening.
I don’t know her. Not her. Not anyone.
My desire is salted and packed, each keening
of hope hidden from the wind and sun.
Yet it weeps through, a trickle bleeding
and stringing time into a long necklace
of ritual wishes, mantras of wanting and needing
someone’s voice, touch, and embrace.
My thinking, my brooding is a sickness,
a static cycle of fear and hope churning together,
a bland tragic flaw that creates a thickness
of mind: to all longing I hear “never”, forever.

credits

from 20 Years Frozen for All Time, released March 5, 2016

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about

swampmessiah Saint Paul, Minnesota

I was born in Duluth, Minnesota in 1957. I've been drawing all my life and painting since about 1975; I started writing poetry and rants in, maybe, 1976; since 1996 I've been recording those poems and rants, usually with a "musical" backing.
I live in Saint Paul, Minnesota. My partner and I have two children. I have a day job that is in no way artistic. ... more