7. Suicide Sonnets
(Sonnets)

1

This night's as black as misery in bloom;
Just staying here and waiting out the hours
Have crushed the wits of better men; my doom
Lies on the edge of fate; what once was ours
To keep and cherish now lies in the tomb
Of love to hatred turned, freezing the flames
Of passion to the ice of scorn and gloom,
Adding my name unto the list of names
Bereft of friendship, loyalty and love.
And so this lonely pilgrimage commences
Within these dark and turning ways: above
The moon shall guide, below the foul offenses
      Of countless sinners goad me on I know
      Not where or wherefore in these hours of woe.

2 *

The souls of poets dead and gone do mock
This drifting shadow moving slow along
The lonely streets, and when I hear them talk,
I hear my name in whispers to their song:
"Dear Shakespeare's such a daft, an aging songster,
Who writes so sweet the craft of sweet surrender;
But little does he know his regal youngster
Is simply but a show, a great pretender.
Oh when will Shakespeare see that his dear love
Is but a falsity he cannot move?
Such love can steal his art from realms above
And break his weary heart that cannot prove
      Unto his waning hopes that love is true:
      Ah! See how much he mopes his pains anew?"

3 *

"Dream on, you sad and brooding dreamer, dream
And take with you the prooding tears you shed,"
They say in laughing spite, "and go redeem
Them for a single night in someone's bed.
Far better shall you be to steal away
And end your woes for free in harmless fun,
Than suffer needless pain to rue the day,
Forgoing every gain for things undone.
For then and only then can you begin
To take a happy pen to make you whole;
So heed our one advice to heal in sin,
That through an act of vice, you'll save your soul!"
      What blasphemy is this that makes no sense?
      Such temporary bliss makes no defense!

4

I wander to and fro this endless night,
Alone to find a place within a world
Of bitter pain that seems a tragic plight,
A pilgrimage with all my hopes unfurled.
I look upon the stars as pilgrims did
Of old, continuing my wayward path
On weary limbs, as helpless as a kid
Who's lost a dearest friend to Fate's cruel wrath.
I think of laying down my shattered self
In some dark alley, dying slowly, death
Releasing me from love's corrupting pelf **
With one last exhalation of my breath.
      But still I live, for graves have not a place
      For suicides that die in such disgrace.

5

Although I walk the grounds of Hell and sin,
With thee I walk the heights of heaven's bliss;
I languish by the places thou hast been,
Alone to weep afresh and reminisce.
In reminiscing thoughts of thee, I shed
An ocean full of sorrow's deep regret
And suffer countless boils of molten lead
To pine away so deep a loss in debt.
The world of life, a world so full of hoping,
Is dead without the strength of friendship's clasp
To hold this breaking heart, and leave me moping
So high a cost that death can little grasp:
      The fount of sweet forgetfulness won't cure
      This agony, in which I can't endure.

6

If I'm to die tonight by chance or by
Mine own design, so be it water lined
With poison running down my throat or die
A thousand deaths too vulgar for the mind,
I'd gladly die a thousand deaths in Hell
To free myself from this most hellish ache;
I'd pay the ransom of a king or sell
My very soul to get this grief to shake
It's ghastly clutches off my heart!
Oh no! If I just had a heart to get
Possession of that organ, I would part
Those very clutches off without a sweat!
      Ah! Such an ache compels me to dismember
      My ribs and rip it out to quell the ember!

7

Am I at fault to love? How can this love,
So dear to me, have eyes of piercing truth
That see with eyes of piercing hate, or move
This mortal heart to suicidal ruth?
What thought or word or deed could justify
So sick a love that only death could cure?
What cure so strong that Hell should rectify
This curséd swain in death? What nail so pure
In Christian blood could strike so strong a stab
Of palpitation, that to die is bliss
Upon a crucifixion's splintered slab,
That dying death becomes so sweet a kiss?
      I pray to God Almighty, kill me now,
      And on my wretchéd soul His balm endow.

8

What eyes hath scornéd love implanted in
My head, that every object offers sweet
Surcease from sorrow's awful bile of sin?
What feet are these that lead into the street?
When I do look upon a brick, I see
My brains and blood upon its cornered edge,
And looking on this quill, I must agree
'T would better suit to ink my bloody pledge
Upon the living parchment on my neck;
And looking on a horse's reigns, I reckon
Of strangulation's medicine to break
My curséd neck and drag my corpse, which beckon
      The beasts of earth to feed upon each shred,
      Because without thy friendship, I am dead!

(To be continued...)

A/N: Written on July 2011. I wrote these sonnets during a family feud resulting from a string of deaths in the family, but more specifically after losing the friendship of someone very dear to me. Basically, I just vented out my thoughts into words. After reading these, I feel that the emotions felt during that time are contained in these lines and are no longer held inside me. Considering the dark subject matter, I've decided to include them here in this collection.

* Sonnet 2-3: These have internal rhyme.
** Sonnet 4: Pelf = (n.) money.