Posted on by catherinelucyrowland

The Hospital Room

Time ticks;

A fragile and volatile bomb

You count the seconds pass

And wonder where they’ve gone

Meanwhile the distant and burning

Stars of outer space

Explode

Into particles of golden dust

Giving human life their trace

Stretched over a vast landscape

Of cells and membranes

The pain of birth contained you

Curled up in utero

But you broke forth too soon

Pale and premature

Watched by the expectant eyes

Of the hospital room

A small and tangled up

Bloodied ball of flesh

Craved the comfort

of womb and breast

Covering with baby hands

Its own eyes from the light

Sleep-full and yearning

To fight for its life

Posted on by catherinelucyrowland

The Final Sleep

I will weep over your sheets

Once you are gone;

Let my conscience stumble

And refuse to carry on

 

Clothe your memory in wreaths…

Oh the bitter ache that it leaves!

As you dissolve into a foreign land

And I’m left struggling to understand

 

And wander aimlessly, following Grief

Down every street; confused

As to her direction

That guides the path of my feet

 

Until my tears

Like ocean waves swelling

Can contain themselves no longer

And pouring forth from my eyes

Like your soul’s last dying cry

 

That leaves me haunted every time…

Posted on by catherinelucyrowland

The Flowers I Once Gave You

The flowers I once gave you were

But weeds infesting the ground

I mistook their colourful appearance

To mean true beauty, offering it up

To you as a token of my love

 

You accepted them thankfully,

Yet what they really were you did not tell me

How can it be that a daughter’s love can fail so unknowingly?

Whatever has been seeded since reminds me

Of the sickly weed I thrust into your hand…

I plucked earnestly and innocently from

Nature’s bed, yet all she gave me was

A dandelion, showing off its yellow head

 

All I have now are of memories of that time,

The weeds I took to be real flowers remain forever on my mind.

Posted on by catherinelucyrowland

An Uncertain End

And now I am confronted by

That very raw feeling of helplessness,

It woke me to the brutal reality

I was always afraid of

 

Suddenly I was dragged into it

A moment’s lapse until all hell breaks loose

And you’re screaming for the vehicle

To stop propelling itself forward,

Whilst your father sits in the driver’s seat

Unconscious and stealthily moving into

An uncertain end

 

Black smoke comes pouring out of the rear,

Sinister and choking me

In the clouds that come unfurling

 

Something is very unnerving

When you are told that

The keys are no longer in the ignition…

 

Perhaps it was not my father driving,

 

But then who was it and what was their mission?