Broken

So many times I have called to you
How can I show you I care?
And how many times can my heart be broken
This love, I’m not sure I can bear
Reality tells me I’m wasting my time
Over and over again
Can’t you heal this ache that is mine
Killing me with this pain
Echoing voices that fill my head
Redemption comes at a cost
Hope is crushed as dreams are shed
Inside me all is lost

It seems to me that nothings real
This world just cannot be
A judgement made with no appeal
A cell door without a key
Locked inside my nightmare
A maze inside my head
Looking for somewhere, anywhere
Where I can feel instead
Numbed by life, by circumstance
Accusing thoughts I’ve never spoken
Paranoia does it’s happy dance
But I am left alone and broken

Sleeps

Haunted by that fateful plight
Greeted by the terrible sight
A home and house set alight
A wife an child taken overnight

Attacked by marauding bands
Taken through the barren lands
Where bodies lie under shifting sands
To where the old castle still stands

Once a place of an honourable lord
Now ruled by those who wield a sword
Prepared to kill for little reward
And the rule of law is oft ignored

In haste he mounted his noble beast
His family must be released
On the blood of their captors he would feast
Only then would the pain be ceased

He rode by night and rested by day
Across the sands he made his way
From their trail he did not sway
Closing fast upon his prey

Then before him the castle loomed
Dark and filled with the dead and doomed
In dark despair he was consumed
Yet the rage within him bloomed

He silently entered the castle gate
What guards there were met their fate
Their blood did not his temper sate
He was filled with merciless hate

He held one man with sword compelled
to reveal where his family held
At his reply his anger swelled
And at his sword another felled

For both in the sand did met their end
in their resistance and refusal to bend
For such resistance they were condemned
And their blood with the sand did blend

He closed the gate and chained it well
Lit a fire in the castle and watched it swell
The flames swept through where the marauders dwell
Through their screams and pleadings condemned to hell.

From his soul hope slowly seeps
In his heart the darkness creeps
By their grave he gently weeps
As he longs to sleep where his beloved sleeps.

The Smile

In silence you lay, your final statement
Made without movement, without expression
Now beyond words, no last testament
To leave a lasting impression

Sightless eyes now unfocused and stilled
No longer seekers of light
There sparkling pupils of a life unfulfilled
Now gaze upon endless night

That’s perfect skin, once blushed with desire
Now pale and cold to the touch
No lovers touch can reignite that fire
Finally free from Aphrodites clutch

And still we wonder, of course we will
What pain that you couldn’t share?
What caused your beating heart to still?
That made life so hard to bear.

Sometimes I dream of you
Lying there in style
But one thing is different too
Your enigmatic smile

The River

In the endless darkness of the night
I reach out to wherever you may be
Longing to touch you, to hold you tight
But there are only memories left to me

Through the window I watch the tree branches sway
Shadowy fingers against the moonlight cast
And wonder again if there was nothing I could say
That would reset the present and change the past

A river of my tears run through the valley of despair
Where my memories of love reside
A closed part of my mind has made its home in there
Giving homage to a love that never died

Life keeps moving on and nothing is the same
As if to make that point the first light of the dawn
Forms patterns in the condensation on the window pane
Unconsciously in this a heart and a name I’ve drawn

Angrily I rub it out feeling the damp upon my hands
Use them to cool my feverous brow
Self pity overwhelms me, no one understands
That I find no solace in the here and the now

I spend my days waiting for the night
In the hope of finding you in my dreams
But the sleep evades me, denies me the right
Spiralling my despair to extremes

One day I will find my way to escape this
In the valley of despair I’ll climb down
In my mind all my hopes and dreams I’ll dismiss
And in that river of tears I will drown.

One day

I saw your face when he told you
I saw a tear in your eye
You tried to hide your feelings, true
But who knows you better than an I?

Your good at pretending your somebody else
Your good at hiding the truth
But I know you so well and I known your true self
Since the days of our youth

I’ve loved you forever but you call us “just friends”
You come to me as your last resort
I watch you cry as another relationship ends
And you turn to me for support

Why can’t you see who you are?
And why can’t you see me that way
I will always be here, I’ve stuck it this far
Maybe it will be worth it one day

Depression

Reposted

She’s listening, I can see 
Lost inside her mind
Thoughts that should be free
Turn to fears that bind
Circling around like eagles
Looking for their prey
Thoughts that inveigle
Her memories this way

She listens to the voices
She knows them so well
They make her pick her choices
From a menu written in hell
The stories that they tell her
Have no base in truth
But seem real enough to infer
She’s guilty without proof

She carries that guilt within
Hides it from her friends
Admitting it would be something
She scared would never end
She apologises for all that’s wrong
Though she’s not at fault
Shes trying to just get along
While her emotions somersault

She questions her perceptions
On every conversation
Scared of deceptions
And seeking affirmation 
She is crying out for hope
But cannot understand
Shes balanced on a tightrope
With nowhere safe to land

And in the quiet of the night
The voices always call
She cannot fight or flight
Or hide from it at all
She losers her sense of reason
Cannot see through the mists
It’s always a winter season
When depression exists

Copyright Tallisman 2022 All rights reserved,

Forever and a day

There’s a time just set aside
A time that is ours
A time when together we can be
We won’t be denied
Only a few short hours
Because thats all the time there might be

I hear the sound of cannons firing
Coming closer every day
We need to find that time and place
The war is time devouring
Don’t let it take ours away
As we live these last few hours of grace

By tomorrow we will be taken
By the army of the east
That time or tide cannot stop or stem
Our hopes and dreams forsaken 
Swallowed by wars beast
We may never be together again

So hold me tightly in this night
As the world we know is dying
The final battle will soon be underway
For tomorrow I must fight
So my love, no more crying 
Tonight you must try to get away

I pray there’s hope to the west
And friends to help you through
For mountains are standing in your way
There’s no more time for rest
My heart goes with you
I will love you forever and a day

We fall

The evening sun colours the sky
Bleeding red as the daylight fades
Red eyes opening somewhere close by
The rasp of a stone sharpening blades
Muttering of a preacher for his Gods sake
As the denizens of darkness awake

Evening laughter from street side bars
Hiding the fear and the grief
Below the surface of mental scars
The raw reality buried beneath
By the moment, by the drink, by the night
Despair hidden yet still in plain sight

The red dusk fades to starlight
The light of lovers and lust
There will be no regrets tonight
Tomorrow if you must
There’s no thereafter, tonight is all
With the death of the sun, we fall, we fall

Bowed

He stands before her
Head bowed
Like she is his teacher from primary school
Listening to her
In abject misery
Because she doesnt understand 
That it’s his heart that’s breaking
Not hers

She told him
He has wronged her
In his mind, his heart
What does she know of his heart
Having broke it a long time ago
But he listens anyway

His mind is tormented
Rebellious
Scared
Hurt
She batters his defences
Reducing him
To little more than a child

Her words
Are piercing daggers
Into his heart
Into his soul 
He wants to hide into his mind
Into darkness
He would rather fight the monsters in his dark
Than the lover in his light

In to the fire

Where the hunger is
Where the desire
Born in desperation
Raised from the mire
Struggle through life to
Raise themselves higher
But we’re all running
Into the fire

Twisting and turning
No avoiding our fate
Feeling the burning
Is this love or hate?
The struggle consuming
You’re beginning to tire
But you can’t stop running
Into the fire

Feeling so alone?
It’s part of the game
Without a sweet lover
There’s no-one to blame
Baby, If you want me 
Look to the funeral pyre
I’ll be dancing like a flame
Into the fire