Untitled (Poem)

It's been a while, it's been too long
since champagne flooded dance floors,
white lace on shoulders in the yellow light.

But it's too cold, you said you could not brace it
to celebrate, but you were vacant
like a chair of wisdom without a sitter,

It felt cold.
It tastes bitter.

Wild weather, winds and ice shelf melting
mean more to you that self-built gall.
You claim you've done it! Climbed it! Made it!
But age takes all, you lean, you fall.

You made decisions
A concrete heart
Wallet brimming
Perfect art.

No longer do we share these times
Antarctic ice between two minds

Its forced upon me
Mother knows best
Golden guilt trips
Pressure to connect.

No longer felt,
is it too late?

Two words bound into your wooden rooms
on handmade shelves of beech and tombs.
They hold so much, that mean so little
green lights in the doorway - clock and riddle.

Hubris churns the stormy sky
I fear I've seen Medusa's eye.
Heart unfeeling, permafrost.
Need warmth of love 'fore he is lost.

The TV fizzes with unsolved crimes,
I've stayed up late, I've seen the times.
On newfound carpet I drag my feet.
I get told off, your pocket's mean.

Yet looking back you were so good,
the colours fade but there you stood.

Grade 1 you came and spoke of travels
Crevasses, medals, queens and castles.
Pride welling up from deep green pools,
us sitting idle: glue, scissors, stools.

All this speak of evermore,
eternity and spite.
It feels 'ere done, completed. Check.
But death beds have not come.

- Nathan van der Monde