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Saturday 30 April 2011

On the Same Day

 



                                              On the same day as a car,
                                              Carrying man, wife and three children
                                              Crossed the central reservation,
                                              Your fingers, fragile as a butterfly
                                              Compelled my flesh to life.
                                              Moving us beyond specific endings;
                                              While somewhere else, an unsuspecting wife,
                                              Returned to find her husband, hanged
                                              Within the confines of a room
                                              Where long ago, they had conceived a dream.

                                              On the day, that you and I,
                                              Forgetful from our loving kiss
                                              Let passion fuse our separate flesh,
                                              Dispelling past and futures with each breath,
                                              Five men inside an armoured car,
                                              Who may have loved before,
                                              Or, lived to taste oblivion again,
                                              Were cynically partitioned by a bomb.

                                              When we, as lovers, lay together,
                                              Learning from each tender touch
                                              The contours of desire,
                                              A young boy, barbed by broken vows
                                              Blew out his mind.
                                              Bequeathing unto death
                                              The final affirmation of despair.

                                              As our linked bodies lived
                                              The mutual length of ecstasy,
                                              Excluding expectation and recall,
                                              A sterile room, its starkness
                                              Softened by cut flowers,
                                              Was witness
                                              To a mother’s final kiss.

                                              On the same day as my living seed
                                              Erupted in your womb, to shrink
                                              Perception of our universe to one
                                              Sensation greater than this tiny room,
                                              Many minds discovered space too large;
                                              And found such moments as we shared,
                                              Too rare a compensation for their loss.


                                              ©James Rainsford 2011




Posted as my contribution to One Shot Wednesday@ www.onestoppoetry.com 

Note to readers:
This poem was written in response to my reading newspaper reports printed on the same day as I had enjoyed a deeply beautiful and tender experience; making love to a truly remarkable and intensely passionate woman.

Your feedback is most welcome. To leave your views please click on the comments tab below. Thank you for visiting, James.

23 comments:

  1. An amazing study in contrast, James. It's true, when we stop to think. Our moment of ecstasy is paralleled by darkness, tragedy. All of this mingles in earth's energy.

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  2. The moments we live the most, others die the hardest. Beautiful poem.

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  3. This sounds like a passionate poetry.I love it.Very touching.Nice work done.Well done.
    Meanwhile plz do pass by my page,read,follow and comment my blogsto aid me improve my works too.
    Have a lovely day.
    EBENEZER.

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  4. This is amazing! Great job....

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  5. wow. so sensational, just how many worlds encompass a day is too fathomable to even comprehend, yet you do an astounding job of focusing in on those worlds.
    thank you!

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  6. That's a powerful poem! I like the contrast of your own wonderful moment and those tragedies.
    Great photos on your blog too!
    Thanks for visiting me yesterday.

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  7. So often, the beautiful and the horrifying exist side by side. A thought-provoking and well-crafted piece indeed, and I like the little note you sometimes add, telling a bit about how the poem came to be.

    I agree with Jessica, you always have marvelous photos to accompany your words.

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  8. sobering the things that happen while we take time out for pleasure..perhaps all the more reason to take them...

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  9. Such intensity of image, emotion, and language. Stunning. Thank you, James

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  10. What a contrast! so true to form where love lies next to destruction

    the words and the love ring passionately

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  11. So many realities coexist, and yet we see and experience only our own, and as in this poem, so tender and so stark, sometimes that has to be enough.

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  12. Wow! Not what I expected at all when first seeing this great photo. So many tragic slices of life occurring beyond blissful confinement. Such moments when people can block out the world are meaningful, yet they never erase the reality of the harsh world that is momentarily forgotten.

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  13. Wow. Tragedies happen every day. And so do miracles. We were on vacation, our whole family of six kids packed in a van and we drove by the worst accident I had ever seen outside of OshKosh WI. A van, barely recognizable, and toys and children's papers, books, etc scattered ALL over the place... We still prayer occasionally for that family - we have no idea what happened to them... I love the thought process of your poem.

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  14. Wow, what a deep and beautifully written poem. It is so true that at the same moment's of our deepest please others are suffering terribly, which should cause us have greater appreciation for the good things in our lives.
    I thought I'd mention that though I live in Canada now I grew up in a little village in the North of England called 'Rainford.' Something tells me we may be related about 100 generations back! Keep writing and best wishes, Elizabeth.

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  15. While I was reading it was like watching life in motion, flashing from heated passion to tragedy. Very well done.

    Anita.

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  16. I love the way you work with paradox here, James. This poem moves me-- you make the passion gently immediate. We try to make sense of our world but it doesn't make sense-- somewhat the point of today's poem on my blog and that i've been working to abandon form as much as possible. xxxj

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  17. So passionate written and the emotions of the poem speak to me.

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  18. James, once again, your words whisk away from the trials and tribulations of living, much like the experience we share when we let ourselves go and fall, if only for a moment, for another. And the worlds does indeed keep spinning it's tales of woe, even as our toes curl and we fall under the spell of the fireworks only we can see. It's taken me a few visits to work up the nerve to comment, and I so applaud your ability to share with us these moments. (And perhaps envy you a tad as well!) ;)

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  19. James,

    I love this poem, it is sensual and brutal at the same time. Tragically beautiful.

    True poetry torn from life.. the best sort sometimes.

    Thanks for sharing, and great picture :)

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  20. Yet further evidence that omniscience would make us nuts. An excellent poem.

    :D

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  21. Beautiful and inspiring!
    Thanks for sharing, I enjoyed the visit. :)

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  22. Far and away one of the best things I have ever had the privilege of reading - for the tender violence of each stanza and the unwavering honesty of your words.

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If you wish your views and opinions to be published here, please be polite and respectful. I welcome feedback on my work and will try to respond if you take the trouble to post a comment. Thanks for visiting 'The Sanctum of Sanity.' Hope you enjoyed the experience, James.