Pain

Pain, they say,
is a great teacher.
Perhaps, with
decades of joy
and laughter
in between the
spaces - it
might
be.

But, tonight,
pain is a
skilled torturer
adept -
at shrinking this
human flesh into
a sobbing mound
drowning in the
swollen ecstasy
of tears.

Pain, they say,
helps you
know you are
alive - well
then why -
has
it

crushed

me into

nothingness

until
I
no
longer belong

to
life
and
limb.

Pain, my friend
your absence
will be

pleasure.

© Eleanor Clark
26 August, 2015

Job

Job did complain
a little -
Perhaps it was
in the dimming
shade of evenings
gone on too
long in pain,
anguish for losses
uncountable.
The ache of
despair and
darkest fears,
unleashed again
once more until
he wondered
if perhaps he
had gone mad
and lay
coughing, hacking
out his life's blood
and hoping that
morning would
bring him home
to God.
I wonder if
perhaps when
wrath had been
beaten out
and joy had
come, did Job,
walk crookedly,
slowly up the
mountainside and
weep for all that
was lost.

© Eleanor Clark
20 August, 2015