You Freeze Me Over

So altered from that sombre day when first I stood in stunted grief
Surrounded by the crying, ever needy throng
A huddle of blackened shuffling living corpses
Fighting to out-grieve the next, oblivious to me

My duty then to hand the soil box round with dignity detached
And find the missing words to comfort and sustain
My love for you forgotten and of no consequence to the rest
As they feasted on whatever was no longer left of you.

I watched in cold detachment as the dirt fell from their hands
Onto a box still settling, your new found nest of frozen earth
Then hopelessly reached into the empty pitch pine box for mine
And the dispersing sated audience shuffled on ahead as if bound together by chains

I could not face to be a part of this charade and so instead
I promised to the man with digger waiting in the shadows out of sight
That I would again return without the posse in my wake
To begin to face the end just as we started, together and alone

Then with heavy heart I raced to catch those failing on the long walk back
To prop them up and push them on towards reality and pain
I did not sense or want to feel a warming hand upon my back
I knew that what had happened there was cold beyond belief

And so I climbed into the limousine a long black gesture of respect
And raced back home to put the endless kettles on
To wash down triangular sandwiches and cake
And tales of just who knew and loved you best

I tried so hard that endless day to keep my angry heart in check
So hard that parting thanking handshakes drained my heat
And thus with your permission I thanked them from the bottom of your heart
Whilst those remaining there inside continued with their long accounts

Engrossed in competition now to be the last to leave, to me already gone
Not once from the edge of this dark circle did caring eyes try search mine out
But unbeknown and unannounced and so unlike them all
I would be returned to you before the close of day

By seven ten the milk ran out and bulging ashtrays touched the sky
The competition winners cue to leave, her devotedness now beyond all doubt
She now had absolution for the many awful things she knew she'd felt
But now my time would fast return to wash away and hurry back
And like some illicit love affair I would secretly return

So then without a leaping heart or time for trepidation
I telephoned a cab to bring me speeding on
An appointment with my grieving brother firmly on the cards
Then like facing great adventure, I collected things I thought you'd like
To bring to you to comfort and sustain

I walked into our bedroom and wished I could bring everything inside
Instead I picked your dressing gown and Xmas cards you'd yet to sign
I wondered how, if undelivered, they ever would forgive
The one on top portrayed my name and so your untold greeting hit my mind

Then like a steam train without warning, the loss of you hit home
But the impatience of the taxi driver would bury grief again
Excitement now would carry me across the snow filled streets
Totally detached from all that's really real I will fly to you

The driver checked as if his hearing had betrayed my destination
Then explanation gladly tendered, he apologised for my sad loss
And like a drunken, gibbering idiot, I re-assured him it was not his fault
But then could not hold the sadness back, and cried, and cried, and cried

My faith restored in humanity by the kindness of this apparent stranger
Who hugged me back to self-control in a car park out of sight
This loss of face unsettled me and now with a sense of self doubt

I carried on my journey the excitement left behind
Somewhere between departure and arrival I had lost my mind
Overwhelmed by wildest thoughts in quantity untamed
I sensed that I might be suffering without you by my side
I yearned so much to turn around and go back home to you

Before the rationale struck home, the driver brought me round
We'll call it just a fiver mate; I know that you've had a hard time
Like some third party watching on, I could not unravel sense at all
And realisation came to punch me hard with my pockets empty of the fare

But then remembered that I had the special envelope on board
Presented days ago by sympathetic policemen already dressed in black
"This is all he had upon his person I'm afraid!" a crumpled five pound note,
A two pence piece and silver blood stained necklace torn from his lifeless neck

Grievingly and guilty of a second loss I surrendered out the final note
And walked towards the gates, shamelessly sucking on the congealed chain

The snow now falling heavily as I crept inside that night
I thought I heard the driver shout my name behind
But all relevance and consequence had left me now, dumbfounded and alone
And without doubt I was the master of my own demise.

Just two short steps on the snow rich path led me deep into caverns of black
And I knew I would no longer need the money for my return
For a moment I felt something resembling better
As I arrived back there to you

For countless an hour I stared at the heap, now a mound of miraculous white
And when mentality somewhere failed me completely
I climbed atop the hill and began to desperately scrape
You will not leave me here now, why would you, how could you,

I have come to you bearing presents, you must now return back home to me
Each time I tried to dig you out, the snow re-filled each desperate hole
And sometime long after midnight I gave up the ice-cold will to live
Tomorrow other people could arrive to fold me in, I now come to you in sleep

I awoke to the sound of a considerate radio, cocooned in a blanket of warmth
Felt triumphant that my brother would be somehow not far off
I frantically looked around this strange new place to look upon your face

But then celebration ended swiftly when a strange but familiar voice called my name
"You stupid fool, you nearly died, it's a good job I drove on by!"
"I picked you up and carried you back here, and placed your lifeless, loveless body in my nice warm bath of creams!"

The taxi driver had done his good deed for the day, "You know I saved your life!"
And his hand quietly searched me out beneath the foam
I wanted so to shout out loud to sound the anguished cry
But your well-placed hand would adequately silence me for now

"You must lay still, your feet are blue, but I am here for you."
And searching out for anything brought me nothing in return
Throughout the fleeting consciousness you struck, your hands a probing mass
And helplessly and hopelessly I fought to stay alive

"You just rest there quietly, you are very ill tonight!" You had seized and captured your delight without so much as please
Two days or so of terror later I would wake to face reality in all its shame
My blistered hands and feet would stir within his stenching sheets
My nose a blackened mass of burns from distant sleeps upon the snow

I felt like death would have surely hurt me less
I looked around to see if you were real
But there on the bed-side table sat your arsenal of ugly creams
"So you are back with us? I didn't want to wake you from your sleep."
"I didn't call a doctor, it's a crime to try to top yourself you know!"

I couldn't grasp the half of it, a senseless mesh of dreams
Could not separate the fiction from the fact
"You can stay here with me for as long as you might need!"
I felt it best I didn't tell him what I really thought of that

I think I need to let folks know that I'm o.k,
fell feebly from my cracking lips
"Worry about that later son, for now I have this bowl of broth for you!"
So I had dinner with the devil and quickly fell asleep again

Until some time in the early morning I awoke to find you gone
The place where I had caught your smell now empty to my right
And blackness filling every room I hobbled forth to find the light

My clothes were lying newly washed and dutifully pressed beside
A letter from the master's hand
"Have gone to work will be back soon, I bathed you overnight!"
"I've locked you in to keep you safe, love you!"
Mr Moon x

Sitting there it dawned too late the tragedy behind
And the world caved in like larva round my head
I raced around confused and panicked circles, back to front and front to back
Where in this world was I, boggadoo, brogadee, brogadaah

Would he return to tend my burns or scald me further still
I quickly donned my laundered clothes and brothers dressing gown
To shield me should I by remote chance escape wherever town
I dared to steal a moment to compose

Something beyond comprehension must now lead me by the hand
I suppose you stole my shoes away so I took yours instead
And out from your cum-stained trousers on the floor
My brothers crumpled fiver, chain and two pence piece fell lovingly to my hand

The Christmas card you never sent there neatly on the desk
I left with the same I entered with but ran away taking so much more
As handful after handful launched the bed-side bottles at the lounge side glass

And the night outside this mystery was a cold and biting sleet
So not for the first time I would fight the winter night
Over time I have forgotten you, but never quite escape
The times you flash before me with strange images in the night
For years you took my special place away

Then later than I would have liked I dared to enter back
The place that lives out both my nightmares and my dreams
You came you took and then mistook fragility for love
Your lust overcame your decency as you picked off the bones of the dead

But in the end my loving brother watched me home
The turning clock has faltered not since first I entered here,
This place that holds no answers to the many questions that I have
Yet once again the time dictates the calendar should draw me back
By chance I might rewind the fate worn hands

From the moment that I push aside the tall black gates
Whose squealing hinge defies attempts to quietly filter in
I wear the cloak of solitude as the thundering iron bangs behind
And I am thankfully enclosed within

The traffic on the road outside have turned their engines onto mute
And the people at the bus stop pause their gossip for a while
Their steaming mouths like cooling towers fall silent out of blind respect
And the roaring planes above me switch to glide

This place the quietest place of all where resting angels
Sleep to a symphony of blackbird, wren and lark
They have no desire or need to listen now
To our death defying, life-denying ceaseless noise

A hundred times I've walked this endless route
Accompanied only by my memories of you
Alone but for the sweetly singing guardians
That carefully root out the worm between the lines of graves

I believe that here is our place despite the names on stone
A world where no one else's feet could ever tread
And clearly see one set of time worn footprints
Sunk inches down into the hard returning path

I try to feel each time I call that maybe I will catch you by surprise
Yet also want to think that you already sense that I am back
And so I turn that final corner where marble heart shaped stone
Will bear-hug crush yet comfort me somehow
A recipe for contentment and betrayal

Then like some old restrained, constrained re-union
Close in with my ever out-stretched hands
And where hello, goodbye, where are you, fight to be the first words said
Now so many conversations have since passed between
This ghost in me and you encased beneath the soil

No longer empty promises or hopes or dreams speak out
For we have reached a state of abstract understanding
Without the need to tell each other one more time
My time passed here now clearly spent in disbelief and shame

Thirty dreadful winters warm and melt their snows upon your soul beneath
Yet freeze me over ever colder here

Neil Graham Marsden.